RedHanded - Episode 168 - The Kansas City Butcher: Robert Berdella

Episode Date: October 8, 2020

One April afternoon in 1988 a man named Chris Bryson jumped from the top floor window of 4315 Charlotte St in Kansas City, Missouri. He was battered, bruised and completely naked - except for a dog collar and lead hanging from his neck. He had been held captive for days, tied to a bed and brutally tortured by Bob Berdella (aka The Kansas City Butcher) - and Chris was not his first victim. Merch store: www.redhandedshop.com  Sources   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 Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed and also Spooky Season. It is October now, the most wonderful time of the year. We love October. It's both of our birthdays.

Mine is tomorrow. Netflix drops their scariest offerings. Shudder is probably doing something. And best of all, Spooky Bitch Merch is back. It's back. I tried to do an Instagram story and I just was like, bitch merch back. That's just all I could manage to get out of my mouth fantastic that's the effect that October has on us here at Red Handed but Hannah is correct the spooky bitch merch is back out we are also bringing out other merch so if you have already

officially indoctrinated yourself into the spooky bitch clan by going and buying some spooky bitch merch in previous runs don't worry we heard you. And we heard that you wanted some Not In This Economy merch. So some of that's coming out in like two weeks, three weeks. I don't know. It's on the 23rd of October. Some amount of time from now. In some amount of time within this month. And we've also got some really, I think, beautiful fan art merch

that's going up as well on the 23rd of October. Yeah. It is beautiful. It's really, really stunning. We'll tag the artists and everybody in their Instagram when we put it out so you guys can go follow her because she's super cool. And you can also get those on sweatshirts because, again, people are like, where are the sweatshirts, bitches?

I don't need a hood. I'm not going outside. So that's also coming. So, yeah, stay tuned for all of that good stuff. And also shout out to Beth, who we were both on dates at the same pub on the same table a couple of weeks ago. And I said I'd shout her out on the show,

so I'm doing it now. I hope your date went better than mine, Beth. That's so funny. Oh dear. Well, anyway, we'll save our episodes of Empty Handed for under the duvet, which if you are a $5 and up patron,

you can listen to immediately after this show over on patreon.com slash red handed. Yeah, there's all sorts of crazy shit going on on there. Some of it is much more scary than what we're about to talk about today. And that's saying something. Yeah, terrifying fear of being alone. Terrifying. Dating in London. Terrifying. Oh my God. Right. Those of you who have been with us for a while will know that we go out of our way in October to find the most fucked up shit we possibly can.

And we round it all off with two Halloween specials and then we fuck off with our entire lives into November and pretend that none of it ever happened. Especially this year. Yes. And this case that we're doing this week has actually been on our episode list, like our two cover list, for about two years. But because we didn't really know that much about it, we just kept bumping it and we're like, oh, we'll come back to it when we need like a basic serial killer to like fill in the hole. And actually, we had it scheduled for a couple of weeks ago. But once we had a little look at it, we realized that this is far from your run of the mill serial killer. Please take this as your no eating warning things are going to get pretty rough this

week we're in kansas city today which we all know from previous faux pas is actually both in kansas and missouri which makes little to no sense like whenever that happened like when we were asking why kansas city wasn't in kansas so many people got in touch with us and they were like it's in both actually and i was like that's even more stupid. That's more stupid than it not being in cancer. I know. I was going to say, normally when we get something wrong and you guys correct us, obviously it immediately makes sense.

This is the one correction that we have had more messages about possibly than anything else. And I do not understand it. I understand it less than before you started to correct us. I don't get it. I know this is going to spur more messages on. Please, I can't handle it. I don't know what's happening. Right. So for the purposes of today's episode,

we are only dealing with the Missouri side of Kansas City. I wonder what happens with the police. What if it happens on the Kansas side? Are the Missouri police just like, ah, leave it, never mind? A hundred percent. They're just like, nah. Wouldn't it be really funny if one side had a much higher crime rate than the other? Someone's going to tell us it does. Should we place our bets? Which side do you think?

I think Missouri. I'm going to say Missouri too. Actually, I'll say Kansas just for the fun of it. We'll see what happens. Okay, good. It makes it more fun. What is it in Peep Show? I'm Israel, Mark's Palestine. It makes it more fun. If you give the name of the person we're covering today the most cursory of Googles, there are a lot of listicles that will come up. They're very easy to come by, but perhaps not the most detailed thing in the world. So if you want to deep dive into it, and I know you perverts do,

I'd recommend the book Rites of Burial by Tom Jackman. It's a very graphic account. And to be honest, there are things that we've had to leave out of this episode because otherwise we would be here for the rest of our natural lives or at least until the end of 2020 that's basically the only thing out there really like there's a lot of material but like none of it's particularly detailed apart from this book in my experience i could be wrong rights of burial is a fucking fantastic name do you know what i would love to do if i weren't an astronaut and i weren't a true crime podcaster the third most favorite job i would love to do is just sit around and name true crime books they're so vague just whatever the fuck you want to call it whatever the hell knives of satan that's

what this book is off you go you can get away with so much I love it oh my god you know what I tried to watch yesterday when I was super hungover the nun it's fucking terrible oh it's trash and this is speaking as somebody who fucking watches all trash horror films i watched it on an airplane and i was like what the fuck am i doing with my life this is awful and i screamed at one point just because it's full of jump scares it's not scary it's just full of jump scares oh can i give you a recommendation for a scary series that is on netflix yeah but only netflix us you know get out that vpn it's called evil okay it's actually pretty good it's actually pretty good so don't worry guys we're not sponsored by netflix or by the series evil but if anybody does want something to kill time until the haunting of blithe manor comes. Evil is about this like really hot priest,

this really like fucking sexy priest. I don't know who the actor is who's playing him, but he's hot. And then this forensic psychologist. And then they go around working for the Catholic Church, figuring out if something is a real miracle or a real possession or if it's just like a psychological thing. It's pretty good. So The Haunting of Blythe Manor is based on The Turn of the Screw,

like the novella. And I watched The Turning as like a warm up for Blythe Manor, which is same thing, basically, it's like based on The Turn of the Screw. Oh, okay. That's on, maybe it was Amazon Prime, but it was worth my hour and a half. I didn't resent watching it. Okay, well, we're gonna watch Blythe Manor when we go away. So maybe I'll watch The Turning ahead of time. It's a warm up. Anyway, we're off track, guys. So today, we are going to go all the way back to the 80s. A much simpler time. A time when the area between McGee and 10th Street was a well-known cruising area for gay men. Some of them were sex workers, some of them were not. Some of them were just looking for a good time. 21-year-old married

father of one, Chris Bryson, had a bit of a drug problem and was in the area looking to make some quick money for his next fix. He was wandering around when a middle-aged man with a lisp and a moustache pulled up and he asked him if he wanted to party. So obviously this meant one of two things. Either this man wanted to pay Chris Bryson for sex or he wanted some company to get fucked

up with. Chris, really hoping that it was the latter, got into the car. The car pulled up to 4315 Charlotte Street, and the pair entered the house. And this house was quite unusual. It was full of antiques, novelty items, and loads and loads of chow dogs. Not gonna lie, kinda sounds like my dream house. I wouldn't not look at it no like it's just like cool shit like just like stuff from all around the world and like books on satanism like probably a book bound in human skin like they've got on the welcome or like whatever just a nightmare to dust but other than that delightful love it and i love a chow dog so cute have you seen the ones that painted to look like pandas? Oh my God.

Don't know how ethical it is, but they're fucking adorable. That is really funny. Fun fact about chow dogs, actually. In Chinese, they're Chinese, we already knew that, and they are over 2,000 years old. As a breed, I'm sure there's not like one 2,000-year-old dog. Thanks for clarifying. The like mother superior of chow dogs is just like in China, just being ancient.

They've got blackish-bluishuish tongues and Sigmund Freud had one. And apparently in Chinese, they're called shan chi kuan. So us ignorant Westerners, rather than call them by their actual name, chow chow is apparently anything at the time that came from the East was just called chow chow. I didn't know that. That's why we call them that. Pretty racist. You know, there's a vegetable called the chao chao. Really?

I think it's quite prominent in like Asian cooking. But yeah, like mum uses chao chao all the time. I think it has got like a more proper name, but we just call it a chao chao. And it's kind of like got the texture of a really firm marrow. That's how I would describe it. Weird. Maybe that's also part of the racist naming thing. I don't know.

Though Shanxi Guan is quite hard to say. Chow Chow is much more fun. Yeah, but slightly tinged with awkward racism. Well, as long as it's fun, who cares if it's racist? Right. The man who lived in this chow dog antique emporium house was called Bob Berdella. And I don't think we can give you a better summary of who he was as a person than telling you what was on his business card. It said,

The dragon Nagari I rise from death. I kill death and death kills me. I resuscitate the bodies I have created and alive in death I destroy myself. Although i carry poison in my head the antidote can be found in my tail which i bite with rage whoever bites me must first bite himself otherwise if i bite him death will bite him first in the head biting is a remedy against bites i believe that the point of a business card is like a short sharp this is this is who I am, this is what I do. Why is it a paragraph, first of all? About dragons and biting. I don't know. That is fucking wild. I love it.

So he like literally had this on a business card. It's not just like he had one that was in the house or like a placard up in the... No, he was like handing this out to people. Yeah, this is like how I define myself. How do you fit that many words on a business card? I don't know. Maybe it was so tiny, he had to also hand you a magnifying glass

with his business card. Oh my God. He is really abusing those like, you know, 500 free business cards, we'll print for you, deliver tomorrow. Unlimited word count, I presume. He's literally Ralph Fiennes in Red Dragon. Like that's exactly who he is.

He thinks he's this like incredibly fearsome like force to be reckoned with i think he thinks he's like three steps ahead of everyone else oh for sure but then i'm like you're not that cash you're not that like under the radar if you're handing out business cards with all that crazy shit written on it you're gonna get caught exactly and i think that he probably put this on his business card for the same reason that i did a social anthropology degree he thought it made him sound interesting. I see. It's a sliding scale, though. I'll give you that. Bardella was also, just like me, a fallen Catholic, and he fell out of love with the church

because his father hated the politics and the bureaucracy that comes with catechism. Bardella's father died suddenly of a heart attack the day after Boxing Day 1965, at the age of just 39 years old. His mum remarried, but predictably, young Bardella was pretty difficult about it. He was bullied at school for his speech impediment, because remember, he's got a lisp. He couldn't play sports due to having an alarmingly high blood pressure. So he was, of course, an easy target. And when he was 15, he was sexually assaulted by an older man. And of course, control issues ensued. As Bardella got older, he never managed to find a theology that gave him everything he needed. So he did what anyone would do. He grew

a ponytail and went to art school. And shock factor was his absolute vibe. One of the projects he put together was a maze. And when participants started this maze, they would be given a baby chick to hold. And once they finished the maze, they would be shown a short film of a baby chicken pecking at some food. This was then followed by the sound of a sudden explosion and the chicken in the video being shot. Sometimes a person in the maze would be so shocked by the sudden noise that they would squeeze the head of the live chick in their hands. Bardella thought that this was just the fucking coolest thing in the world. And we also read that he decapitated a live duck once during an exhibition.

But it's possible, of course, that this information is just a retelling of the live chick story. Either way, I think we can agree that he's a real shit. It's just shock factor. It's just like, how fucking edgy can I be? How fucking, like, can I take it to the next step? It's just, it's so bait. It's just like typical art school wanker, isn't it? Like, it's just like, how can I do something that's never been done before?

And, like, the reason no one's done it is because it's shit. Like, fucking bullshit. Like, I can't stand it. And in true Crossbow Cannibal Stephen Griffith style, Berdella dressed outlandishly, but not well. That's an important distinction to make, I think. Outlandishly, but not well. That's an important distinction to make, I think. Outlandishly does not mean well. It wouldn't look weird for him to have like a pet lizard like Stephen Griffiths.

Like it would be very much in keeping with his entire vibe. We all have met people like this. Bordella liked to cause trouble for the sake of it. He and his friends held a black mass outside a Christian children's home, but like not in a cool making a, Church of Satan kind of way, just to be dicks. Like it's not talking about the separation of church and state. They're just like...

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's just shock. It's just like, let's scare these fucking Christian kids. It's not like, hey, Christian kids, you're being indoctrinated into believing something you shouldn't. Maybe think for yourselves. Here are some ideas. Perhaps unsurprisingly, art school didn't hold Berdella's attention for long. And in the late 60s, he dropped out and opened an antique shop out of his home. And he called it Bob's Bizarre Bizarre, which no points for originality there. I mean, I feel like I've heard that before. I'm not into it. Stop.

Minus 10 points for a lack of originality. Yes, exactly that. He used money from the oddities he sourced and sold to finance the fines for his various drug arrests that he had accumulated over the years. And that's something that we should remember about Berdella. He always had drugs, all sorts, all the time. Sometimes he sold them and sometimes he used them to get young men to do what he wanted. And what he wanted usually involved his penis.

It usually does, doesn't it? Usually. All the time. Just like, well, if you're going to want that, I'm going to need something from you. And that something is, you're going to have to do my taxes. It's always,

you're going to have to touch my penis. That's what it is. You knew that's what I was going to say, right? Not in this economy. Bob Adela had been openly gay since his enrolment at art school and he was very active in the community around him. He worked in various restaurants as a chef and trained people who were aspiring cooks at a community college.

He's very, like, present. Like, he wants people to know that he's around doing life. It's very, like, and I know he's not the same in lots of ways, but, like, very like John Wayne Gacy, like, very much part of the community. He's not a loner. He's not the, like,, oh, like everyone sort of thought he was a bit shifty. I'm sure they thought he was shifty, but like he's got mates, he's got friends, he's out and about. He's not locked away in his house, like twitching curtains.

Definitely. And I think that's what makes him quite an interesting serial killer because he wasn't hiding away. He wasn't sort of like this weird recluse that was like skulking about in a big like trench coat. He was out there, part of the community, like teaching aspiring cooks, etc. Exactly. He spent quite a lot of his time with sex workers, drug users and general sort of waifs and strays. He'd often take them into his home as long as they did some work around the house and in some cases, touch his penis. Penis touching. Yeah, literally. Can't really dress that up any other way, I'm afraid. Yeah, I just need you to come over and dust my really dusty house and then touch my really dusty penis.

Oh, God. It's like too early on a Monday morning to even be thinking about penises and I've had to think about them so much already. Dusty penises. Keep them away from me, please. Okay. Right. So this penis touching soon turned into something much more sinister.

Not that sexual favors for manipulation is not sinister. Let's make no mistake. Berdello was manipulating these young, vulnerable men in the most sadistic way. He, like so many other people we deal with on this show, is all about the power. That's the only theme i would argue this week it's just he needs to control everything around him including the people he had sex with and i guess that goes some way to explaining why he's inserted himself so much into like being a part of the community because even though that wasn't necessarily about manipulation well i guess in some way it is because

it's about manipulating the way that people think about you. It's just, again, about just having this power, being seen to be seen in the community and et cetera, et cetera. It's how he gets access to all of these people. Yes, yes. He'll meet them in a bar and he's like, oh, you know, it sounds like things are not going well for you. I will help you. You can come and stay with me.

He's the saviour. Exactly. So soon, Bardella's antique collection took over his entire three-storey house. So he rented a stall at Kansas City's Westport Flea Market in 1970. The stall, actually, fun fact, is still there. But for reasons that will become clear as we go on through this episode, it has fallen into different hands. Imagine if this rest of this episode we were just like,

oh, it's completely inconsequential. He's still there selling his shit over at the flea market. You can go see him today. Go and say hi to Bob. I know that like the property market is different in America and this is, you know, decades ago. But isn't it fucking bullshit that you could literally drop out of art school in the late 60s and then buy a three story house in your 20s? I mean, it was just the fucking building blocks to the 2008 recession. Subprime mortgage lending, but there you go.

Anyway, before I go off into a not-in-this-economy rant about that and how millennials are literally the least lucky fucking generation in modern history, I'll move on. Back to the stool. Because while it was Bardella's, as it is now no longer, back then it was filled with shrunken heads drug paraphernalia occult shit and also just like other dark and interesting things i would probably frequent this store for sure like it's interesting stuff sounds fun love a shrunken head that sounds horrifically morbidly something that i want to probably have a look at. So now we know what we're dealing with,

let's fast forward to the 80s and to Chris Bryson. So once Chris and Bardella entered the house overrun with dogs, the pair headed upstairs. Bardella was first. As soon as Chris got to the top of the flight of stairs, Bardella smashed him in the head with an iron pipe and stuck a syringe into his neck. Chris lost his balance and fell into unconsciousness. Badala dragged Chris into the bathroom and sat him up. Then he took multiple Polaroid pictures of him and then he swabbed Chris's eyes with ammonia before beating him repeatedly with the iron bar

while straddling his chest. Fuck. The ammonia in the eyes. Yep, buckle up, lads. It gets worse. It's gonna get real bad, guys. So he then pulled out his favourite machine, an electrical generator that had two clamps on it.

And he attached one of these clamps to Chris's thigh and the other one to his testicles. He then shocked him and continued to take Polaroids throughout the process. But Bardella still wasn't done. As you might have guessed, this was not his first rodeo. He followed up by giving Chris two more injections. One was of asopromazine, an antipsychotic and sedative, and then he injected drain cleaner into Chris Bryson's voice box.

This was to ensure that Chris couldn't scream and raise the alarm. But Adela told Chris, quote, this is just for my security, but if I ever catch you yelling again, I'll put it straight in your vocal cords and you won't have a voice anymore. How would you even think of that? How do you even know where it is to inject it? Like, I don't know. This is one of the darkest episodes for sure.

I really was not expecting it at all. I was completely like taken aback. So after he injects Chris with drain cleaner, Berdella tied him to a bed with ropes on his ankles and wrists. And then for Chris, yet again, everything went dark. At 3.30pm the next afternoon, Berdella injected Chris again, this time with penicillin

to fight any sneaky infections that might be hiding in his injuries. Berdella didn't want to kill Chris. He wanted him alive so he could keep him as a sex slave. This is going to get very Jeffrey Dahmer quite quickly. Yeah.

It's such a common thing, isn't it? Because obviously, not a common thing. That's not the right Yeah. It's such a common thing, isn't it? Because obviously, not a common thing. That's not the right word. It's such an interesting type of male serial killer. So, Des. When I watched the Des show and the documentary about him that was on afterwards, I really felt like he is the British Jeffrey Dahmer, isn't he? He was so similar in so many ways.

And Bardella is, again, very, very similar in that whole like, I don't want to deal with you or your fucking shit or your emotions or having a conversation with you. I just want you to be a sex zombie. And that's what I'm going to try and make you. A lot of places, a lot of articles, etc. will describe Bardella as having sex with Chris. That is not what this is. This is rape. And I i think if they were women that word would be used a lot more but they're not they're like hardly anywhere calls it what it is they're like oh and then he would have anal sex with him i'm like no he's raping him anal sex are you fucking serious i don't know what to say that's shocking i know it's completely and utterly shocking wow after the

penicillin injection bardella anally raped chris whilst he was still tied to the bedpost telling him you did not choose to be here but here you are for you to survive being here and for you to you know make it could either be rough or it could be easy if i grow to like you and trust you then i could do special things for you such as buy you cigarettes chris would be tied to the bed until Berdella wanted to rape him again. He told Chris that if he fought him, he knew a lot of people who were into the same thing as him, and he could call all of them at the same time and Chris wouldn't stand a chance. Chris was periodically allowed to use the bathroom, drink coke and smoke. Every move

that Chris made, every item he consumed, every poison he was injected with and every twisted way Berdella chose to rape him was all noted down by Bardella in a stenographer's pad. Chris was constantly issued with verbal threats such as, quote, the only way you can harm me are with your arms and teeth. I can make it so you'll never be able to use your arms again and I can surely take your teeth. Try and escape, you'll be dead. Bardella fell into a routine. He would rape Chris in the morning. Then he would tie his arms and legs back onto the bed posts. Chris would also be gagged and in a final humiliation, a dog lead and collar would be tied

around his neck and also to the bed. And then Bardella would put the TV on loud before he left for the day to run his stall or to do errands or feed the dogs or whatever. And make no mistake, Bardella didn't leave the TV on to be nice. He did it so that Chris couldn't hear whether he was coming up the stairs or not, leaving him in a constant state of suspense. Days passed like this. Bardella constantly reminded Chris that others had been in his position before and they were now dead

because they hadn't followed Bardella's rules. So Chris followed the rules and Bardella began to trust him more and more. He bought him cigarettes and one evening he even rented him a VHS version of The Lost Boys and Robocop. Because yeah, that will make up for all the fucking anal rape. Thanks. And they watched them together and And the night of the movie marathon, Chris actually convinced Bardella to leave his arms tied in front of him rather than to the bedposts as they usually were because it cut off circulation to his arms. The next morning, Bardella did just that. When Bardella left, Chris worked away and figured out that he could loosen his tights, but he was scared that he would not be able to get totally free before Berdella returned but he decided that the next day he had to at

least try. In the morning after Berdella left for the day Chris managed to get his right hand free of its bond after just 20 minutes. Then he freed his left hand and he got the gag out of his mouth and the dog lead too. He grabbed some matches from the bedside table and burned the rope from his ankles. But he wasn't free yet. He still had to make it out of the house. The room in which he was being held captive had a window. Surely it had to be locked, Chris thought. As he tried it, he was amazed to find that it opened easily and Chris was able to look onto the street below. He was going to have to jump. As Chris looked down, he decided his safest bet was to launch himself onto the grass away from the building. He lowered himself, still totally naked with a dog lead swinging from his neck. But before he gave himself a chance to steal for the drop, the window ledge gave way and he plummeted onto the concrete pavement. Bones in his feet and

ankles crunched, but it didn't stop him. He ran across the road towards a man I believe is what Americans call a meter maid or some such nonsense. But the person who comes and looks at your water crunched but it didn't stop him he ran across the road towards a man i believe is what americans call a meter maid or some such nonsense but the person who comes and looks at your water meter essentially is what i understand this person to be and chris screamed to the water man hey man call the police for me that son of a bitch is crazy he's trying to kill me my god again it's kind of like an urban david Ray situation. Yes, exactly that. When that lady ran out naked with a dog collar on. So the bewildered meter man took Chris to a house and asked to use the phone.

The man inside was so terrified of the itching, bruised, limping, dog-collared Chris that he didn't let him inside the house. But he did call 911. And at 10.28am on the 2nd of April 1988, the police showed up. They, of course, immediately assumed, after taking one look at Chris, that it was some sort of, like, you know, sex game gone wrong, which is, you know, our favourite fucking misnomer that we see again and again with this. And the officers asked Chris if his lover had done this to him.

And he emphatically replied that that was not the case. Not wanting the police to know that he had been tricking, he told them that Bardella had picked him up in a different area of town as an innocent hitchhiker and then had abducted him. The police were already well aware of Bob Bardella, the occupant of 4315. He had been connected to a couple of disappearances of young men before. The first being 19-year-old Jerry Howell, who had vanished in 1984. He had last been seen in Bardella's car. The two had hung out a lot, and Jerry's dad, Paul, was not very happy about it at all. But the older Jerry got, the less there was that his dad

could do about it. Bardella had, quote, helped Jerry out with money when he was in trouble with the law and needed representation. And I think we can all guess, coming back to the dusty penis, what he took as payment. So when questioned at the time, Bardella claimed that Jerry had tickets to go and see the Jackson 5. And he said that he had dropped him off at a 7-Eleven. And he'd just never seen him again. Nothing came of this. The police had nothing to go on. But Paul Howell knew that Bardella had something to do with his son Jerry's disappearance. He could feel it. The rest of Jerry's family felt the same. So much so that his brother stormed into the flea market one day

and punched Bardella screaming, I want to find my brother, motherfucker. You know where he is. How Bardella doesn't get pulled up for this is astonishing to me. I don't know. I don't know. I think it's because it's like young gay men going missing in the 80s. The police are just not that bothered about that, really, I think. Yeah, you're right.

And I also think because Jerry had been in trouble with the law before and I think they're just like, oh, he's just running away. He's going to go start a new life. He's gay, therefore transient, probably on drugs. Off you go. And this isn't something that was just resigned to the 80s. I mean, God, the first episode we ever did on this show was Stephen Port. And that happened, what, like in 2015 or something?

I don't even remember, like 20-something, like very, very recently. In London, you know? It's just the typical. 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. Claudian 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, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. 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. 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 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. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment,

hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. 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 favourite podcasts. So as the police dug deeper into Bardella, it appeared that he was the last person to be connected with a lot of missing young men. All of the men had these things in common. They were all young, they were all vulnerable, and they all looked to Bardella for help. Chris Bryson's version of events was all the police needed to put Berdella's house of horrors under surveillance, and they didn't need to wait for long. At 11.30, so about an hour after Chris escaped, Berdella pulled up in his Toyota and was arrested on the spot for sexual assault. The officers told him that they were investigating a report from a man named Christopher

and all Bob said was, where is he? That's not the right question. No, it is not. It's not, why are you arresting me? No, it's who is he? Who, who is he? Yeah. Of course, at this stage in the game, Berdella had absolutely no idea that Chris had escaped and he was taken down to the station where he refused to sign a consent form so that police could search his house. But they didn't need him to sign it because pretty quickly a search warrant was well on the way.

And soon, the top-to-tail search of the three-story house occupied by Bob Berdella, his dogs and his clutter began. And it would turn up a trove of terrifying artefacts. First, there was the bed where Chris had been held captive. It was discovered complete with its ropes still attached. There was an electric transformer, wires, syringes, small bottles of prescription drugs, eye drops, Polaroids of Chris in various degrading positions, Polaroids of many other men,

some with cucumbers shoved in their rectums, gay porn magazines, leather belts, rope, steel posts, and the notes that Berdella had kept. There was also some satanic texts, poison textbooks, teeth in envelopes, vertebrae, and worst of all, a human skull tucked away in a cupboard. It doesn't sound real, does it? No fucking hell. Oh my god.

That is outrageous. Oh, wow. Until you get to like the teeth in envelopes, you are like, he could still get away with this. He could still say that this is like consensual shit. These guys were into it. I don't know where they went after, etc, etc. But then you get to the teeth and the vertebra and the human skull. It's a tough defence now. It is pretty tough. But he so nearly gets away with all of this. It's unbelievable. Yeah, yeah. No, you're right.

All in all, 334 Polaroids were collected displaying 34 different men who were either unconscious, asleep or dead. And the way that they could tell they were dead is the blood starts to pool when you die. It stops moving. So what's it called? You can see it through the skin. It looks really dark.

So you can tell if someone is dead. Levidity. That's it. That's the one. That's how they know. So Bardella was well known for having sex parties at his house, where the attendees would be injected with drugs, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes very much not so voluntarily.

The whole house also stank of rotten food. And one of the junior officers on the scene uttered the immortal phrase, Captain, I think we might have something more than sodomy on our hands. I know it's not funny, but it is really funny. I mean, you know what? Top marks to this junior officer for being like, I think it's a bit more than just like some gay guys getting around and having sex. Like, I think there's something else going on

here. Look at this envelope full of teeth I just found. So they were indeed going to need a bigger boat because the house had even more to give. Officers found yet more Polaroids of naked men in Ziploc bags inside suitcases. They also found a wallet complete with a driver's license. It belonged to a man named Walter James Ferris, who was, you guessed it, missing, and had been missing for three years. In the basement, there were also footprints on the ceiling. So either someone had been pulling... Who's Feathers McGraw? You don't know who Feathers McGraw is? Have you seen Wallace and Gromit? The wrong trousers. Oh, but not in ages.

He's the penguin. Oh, okay. Okay. And he steals the wrong trousers and tries to steal the diamond and he walks along the ceiling upside down. Oh, okay.

I didn't know that. Okay, there you go. Have you not seen the wrong trousers? I'm so... Oh my God. Right. Prepare yourself. I'll just say it with conviction.

So either someone had been pulling a Feathers McGraw or someone had been hung from a beam down there. That is so fucking scary. So much of this is absolutely fucking terrifying, but that in particular. Jesus. Imagine just like looking up and just seeing some footprints on the ceiling. The last place where they should be. The opposite of where they should be. So the case expanded into Bardella's garden, where in true Ed Kemper fashion, an entire

human head was discovered buried. And it would later be identified as belonging to a young man named Larry Pearson, yet again a known associate of Bardella, who was, of course, missing. The vertebrae attached to the head had clearly been attacked with a saw, so all of the sharp objects in Bardella's house were seized. Even when presented with all of this incredibly incriminating evidence down at the station, Bob Bardella just kept his mouth firmly shut. Despite the head in his back garden, the police didn't have any bodies. They couldn't get Bardella on anything more than the sodomy and abduction of Chris Bryson. They needed a confession, but of course Bardella wasn't playing ball.

Let's talk about the notebook, the stenographer's pad that was found in the house, because it really reveals just the specific variety of twisted fuck that Bardella is. Here's an extract. 3 CP right A, 9 20, photo, clothes off, no react. 940, turned over, slight arm movement. 950, effing F, no react. 1.5cc ket, arm, no react. Front F, no react. 1015, BF, no react. 1030, tied arms tied arms brackets out 10 50 to 11 carrot f slight resists even if you don't want a translation of what you just heard you're going to get one it's not really a code it's just incredibly lazy shorthand ket is ketamine which is if you don't know what vets use

to tranquilize horses and what students use when they can't afford MDMA. F stands for fuck. So F is front fuck and BF is like butt fuck, basically. Oh, fuck off. Oh, fuck off. And carrot fuck stands for exactly what you think it stands for. So what Bedella is doing was meticulously minute takingtaking every second of his conquests. As we already know, clearly some of the men in the Polaroids were dead. But if that was the case, what the fuck was he doing with their bodies? Where were all of these missing men? Was he feeding them to the dogs? And who was the skull in the cupboard? In a desperate attempt to get things moving, police appealed to the public.

Loads of people came forward saying what we already know, that young vulnerable men were last seen with Bardella, sometimes never resurfaced again. But one lady had a little info nugget that we had not already figured out. She was a college friend of Bardella's. That's embarrassing. Imagine even at the time being like, oh, here's my friend Bob. He makes mazes and kills chickens with his hands. I mean, I don't know, man.s people were just fuck it I don't know is that still a thing people do tell us are you at art school what's going on I'm sorry if you've just started art school and

you're isolated in your student halls sorry guys about that I am sorry I feel like the university tricked you and that's not okay fucking paying full fucking fees to go to university in 2020 is an absolute joke it's daylight robbery it's unbelievable it's a scandal it's a fucking scandal give those kids their money back you absolute crooks i was talking to my friends about it in the pub yesterday and they were like yeah like imagine having to do your degree that's the only thing that they can do did you see there was like bbc news were reporting on freshers week in manchester and like obviously everything's getting kicked out at 10 now well actually they start kicking out half past nine basically there's like all of these like drunk

freshers with like a full liter bottle of vodka in their hand being like yeah it's just really shit we have to go back now and go like sit in our halls and like do nothing can you imagine the hangover anxiety of realizing that you were fucked up and talking to BBC News? Your mum's definitely going to see it. It's like in Peep Show where he's on the picnic and a picture of him drinking a lark gets on the news. That's the best bit. We had crisps! Anyway, so this lady, info lady, she told the police that Bedella had visited her farm several times where I'm Missouri after all, and perhaps that's where the bodies were buried. This is not that important part of the story, but I just really like the sniffer dogs.

So that's what we put it in. The sniffer dogs were sent out to this farm in force and the top dog was called Junior. He slept in a hotel room with his handler and his handler had love and hate tattooed on his knuckles. But just like really loves dogs. On the farm, the dogs made a beeline to a creek had love and hate tattooed on his knuckles, but just like really loves dogs. Oh. On the farm, the dogs made a beeline to a creek and lo and behold, there was bones sticking out of the ground

and they looked human. But turns out it was just a cow. Good suspense building. Thank you. So the cops stopped following that lead and decided to concentrate instead on the bit of body that they did have already, Larry Pearson's head. 60 of the Polaroids that they had taken from the house clearly showed Larry Pearson being sodomized and tortured. It is clearly him in the photos because he had a very

distinctive scar on his right leg that was clearly visible in the shots. There were 20 pages in Bardella's notebook pertaining to Larry Pearson. But it still, somehow, wasn't enough to charge him with murder. Why? Why is that not enough, police? I don't get it. Larry Pearson is the strongest case. They're just trying to get as much as possible. I think at this stage they're like, this can't be it. There has to be more and we want to get him for all of it. No, you're right.

And I guess it is kind of like other cases we've seen before where they know that there are going to be many, many more victims and they want to get him for as many as they possibly can and not just go for like one case of murder. But still, it's just frustrating to even think about, you know. What they really needed was for Chris Bryson, the survivor, to testify. But Chris was proving to be a slippery character. He was back on drugs and he was in and out of psych wards and constantly going walkabout, which given what happened to him. Pretty understandable. Absolutely. Mate, I wish someone was there to help you more so that that wasn't happening, but understandable, very much so.

Authorities would only be able to go after Bardella for the abduction and torture of Chris if he sat down and gave a video statement. But Chris just couldn't do it. So eventually the police in the state of Missouri decided to go for the strongest case that they had, the murder of Larry Pearson. They only had circumstantial evidence and they were not convinced that Bardella would go down for it. But they had one ace left to play. The death penalty in Missouri was reinstated in 1977, and Bob Bardella could only afford public defenders. He was becoming increasingly worried that they were not giving his case enough of their time. He was scared that he was going to

get the chair. They now use lethal gas, though, and at the time of recording, the last time they gassed someone to death was just four months ago and his name was Walter Barton that's crazy they use the gas chamber in Missouri it's the gas chamber yeah whoa let that sink in it's 2020 I was really expecting it to be like nobody has been sentenced to death in Missouri for like 15 years or whatever no four months ago yeah I thought it'd be like oh well you know there's the choice to use the gas chamber, but they haven't actually done that since the fucking Civil War or something.

No, four months ago. So what is it? It's October now. So like in July. Jesus. I can't remember the name of the website where I found it, but there is a website that lists

every like execution. It's like an advocacy thing. It's not like a morbid thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like these are the names of the people who are dying. I really want to do an episode on like executions. Do you guys want to hear about that?

I don't know. Tell us. We'll then think about it. I quite like the fact that the last execution by guillotine in France was the same year Star Wars came out. That's fucking mad. I feel really sad now. I feel sad for Walter Barton as well.

I don't know what he did. No, but still, fucking gas chamber. Anyway, sorry. Eventually, Berdella was charged with the murder of Larry Pearson and he shocked everyone and entered a guilty plea, clearly in an attempt to cooperate and escape the electric chair. This plea was followed by a mini confession and the judge asked Berdella, did you, after deliberation, knowingly cause Mr Pearson's death by asphyxiating him? And Berdella responded, yes. I put a plastic bag over his head, secured it with a rope, and allowed him to suffocate.

It was deliberate, and it all happened on the 5th of August at 4315 Charlotte Street. But the authorities knew that Berdella had more to give. There was just no way that he'd only killed Larry Pearson. What about all of the other men in the pictures? They and us and you are about to find out. Over the course of three days, not in a courtroom, but in a jail, Bob Bardella would confess to no less than six murders. Every single one of the men he murdered was featured in his library of Polaroid porn. I think the reason this is like a lesser known case than like Jeffrey Dahmer or Dennis Nilsen is because it didn't go

to trial, because there was no like press coverage in the courtroom that it sort of got swept away. That's a very good point, yeah. So Bob Berdella's first victim, just as Paul Howell had suspected was 19-year-old Jerry Howell. Berdella had taken him into his house and drugged him. He tied him up and gagged him. And on the second day, while Bardella changed the gag that Jerry had around his mouth, according to Bardella, Jerry just asphyxiated. What he means by this is that Jerry drowned in his own vomit.

Bardella then cut the dead Jerry up into pieces, put him in bin bags, and waited for the dustman to take him away. The mystery of the missing bodies was finally solved. The taxpayers of Missouri were funding their transportation to landfill, where they would never be found. There's so much, especially in rights of burial, police really take their time.

How is he getting rid of it? It consumes almost the entirety of the investigation. They just can't figure out what he's doing with them. But it's the most obvious thing in the world. He's literally just putting them in the bin. Yeah, yeah. And if no one's onto you, you're just going to a massive landfill

where how are you ever going to siphon out bodies in that mess? It's just never going to happen. Exactly. So next up after Jerry was 23-year-old Robert Sheldon. He was a drifter that Bardella had extorted for years. Sheldon was the first recipient of Bardella's chemical attacks.

Bardella also bound Robert Sheldon's wrist with piano wire to damage the nerves. He poured drain cleaner into his eyes, shoved needles under his fingernails, and filled his ears with cork. What's cork? I believe it's what you use for grouting. Oh. You know, they come in like big syringes. Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like white. Do you know what I mean? I don't know what the British English word is for it. I couldn't figure it out. So he's basically just squirting that in people's ears so they can't hear. Oh, my God. And it's very similar here again, I guess like sort of like we see with other killers where the first kill is almost accidental.

I mean, they're being incredibly reckless and obviously it's not like they didn't know that that person was going to die. But then they're like, oh fuck, I really enjoyed that. It really got me off. Next time I'm going to take it to a whole nother level, which is what he does here with Robert. And all this, obviously with the piano wire,

the drain cleaner, the sealant in his ears, is all in an attempt to incapacitate him. And Bardella kept Robert around until his house needed some building works. Then he suffocated him, cut him up and again left him out for the bin men. And the way he talks about that, he's just like, oh, well, like it was just quite inconvenient to have him there because I had builders in the house. So I just got rid of him. And if you remember, the police found that skull in Bardella's cupboard it was of course Robert's. Now the next victim after Robert was a man named Mark Wallace. Again he was homeless. Bardella found him hiding in his shed. He drugged him and then held him captive from summer until autumn

in 1985. Regularly administering him with electric shocks and experimenting on him with a cocktail of injectable drugs. Just like Jerry, Mark choked to death on his own vomit and it didn't take long for Bardella to pick up his next victim, a man named Walter James Ferris. Walter found himself in Bardella's clutches just weeks after Mark died and he, of course, was the owner of the wallet that the police had found on Bardella's clutches just weeks after Mark died. And he, of course, was the owner of the wallet that the police had found on Bardella's property. Ferris was an acquaintance of Bardella's.

He ended up being tied to a bed, shocked with electricity, for two days until he died. Towards the end of his life, he was in such unimaginable pain that he could only stay conscious for 10 to 15 seconds at a time. Bardella waited until the new year before he snatched his next vulnerable man. This one was called Todd Stoops. He went missing from a park on the 17th of June, 1986. Berdella kept Todd alive for weeks, repeatedly raping and torturing him. Berdella told police in his confession, quote,

Todd died because at one point I fist-fucked him, rupturing the anal wall. And between the loss of blood, infections that set in, he died of not getting proper treatment. Jesus. Berdella kept Todd's corpse in the basement for about a week before chopping him up and leaving him on the side of the road outside his house. And this brings us all the way back to Larry Pearson, the final victim. In 1987, he was staying with Berdella and battling a drug addiction. Soon, he had been forced into sex slavery, like the five men before him. On the 5th of August,

while being forced to give Berdella oral sex, he bit down on Berdella's penis so hard that it bled profusely. So, Berdella strangled Larry until he was unconscious, and then took himself off to hospital. Once at hospital, he was told that he'd need to stay for several days while he healed. Berdella explained that he needed to go home to feed his dogs. The doctors let him leave on the promise that he would return to receive the treatment that he needed. Berdella got back to his house, fed his dogs, and then went upstairs and killed Larry by tying a plastic bag around his head. And he did all of that while a cab waited for him outside

to take him back to hospital. That's the worst bit for me. It's literally like an error. Oh, I've got some loose ends I need to tie up, actually, before I can be in hospital for a few days. So after he had healed up in hospital, Bedella came home a few days later with a catheter and a job to do. He dismembered Larry's body and kept his head in the freezer for a few days

before burying it in the back garden. So now we have all of the how, but literally none of the why. Bardella never really gave a motive for his catalogue of crimes. He said that he got his drugs from the vet, pretending that they were for the dogs. Do vets give dogs ket yeah oh do they okay quite a standard anesthetic yeah okay i'd be like father the vet why why so much ket don't know but that's what he says he did and he said that he took the notes that he did because he always wanted to be a note taker okay fine it's just like the most basic thing in the world like he's just like oh i just take notes it's just like the most basic thing in the world. Like he's just like, oh, I just take notes. It's just what I do. I just always wanted to be a note taker.

Always have. I got all these notebooks once. Somebody gave them to me and I just felt like they were being wasted being sat around the house empty. And so I decided to take notes of all of my horrible murders. And he also just said to the police, you know,

with regards to the horrible rapes, he just said he liked to be in sexual situations where he was in complete control. I think, yeah, that's putting it fucking mildly. And he said that he never felt remorse. He was only concerned with how he was going to get away with it. And I believe him completely. He said, quote, I don't think objectively. I never consciously had an intent. It became, they didn't catch me the first time. They're not going to catch me now. So who gives a shit? And he also couldn't give a reason for keeping Robert Sheldon's skull in his house. He just said he filed it for future reference. And the only thing that he could point to was

watching a film called The Collector, where a man holds a woman hostage until she fell in love with him. And he claimed that that was where the sex slave fantasy had started. I don't know. I feel like, is it? I feel like it's kind of there before, probably. What was that new film on Netflix that everybody got really angry about because it was like a man who takes a woman hostage and then she falls in love with him? 43 Days or something Days? I don't know. No, I haven't watched it. Have you watched The Devil all the time yet? I have. Have you? Yes.

I just didn't, like, is the message that guns shouldn't be allowed? Because that's what I took from it. I didn't get what the message was. I was like, okay, fine. I appreciate this film as I'm watching it, but I don't know. I want to watch it again. Yeah, I felt like there was something I didn't get. Yeah, I felt the same. And I just felt kind of like a bit grubby after watching it

and didn't really feel like I got anywhere. But maybe that's an unpopular opinion. I don't know. Anyway, so yeah, Pardella does the classic thing of like blaming pop culture on like why he's a fucking sexual sadist, which is very typical. And this wasn't a dramatic retelling the way that he tells the police. He says it all in a very calm and considered way. We also have to remember that while all this is happening,

it was bang in the middle of the satanic panic. And when Bardella was asked if he'd ever dabbled in the dark arts, he replied, I have never exercised anybody. I don't even like aerobics. Nobody laughed. And I hope you're not laughing, because if you are, take a good long fucking hard look at yourself. I'm laughing.

I think there's quite a lot of, like, because of, like, the occult stuff in his house, which I genuinely believe was just, like, collector's items. I don't think he actually had any interest in it. But, like, they spend a lot of time being like, are you sure you're not a Satanist, Bob? And he's like, nope, pretty sure. And even if he fucking was,

that's got the least to do with anything. That is the least important thing that could possibly be happening. Doesn't fucking matter if he's a Satanist, whatever the fuck that means. He murdered so many men, way more probably than six. This confession added five more counts of murder

along with the charge for the killing of Larry Pearson and Berdella pled guilty on all six counts and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Once inside he proved to be a giant pain in the arse. He frequently accused prison officials of abuse and he even complained that the media dehumanised him which is probably the richest thing I've ever heard. My god this man needs I don't know I won't say it. He's not around anymore. He died of a heart attack at 43 years old while he was in prison on the 8th of October 1992, which if you're listening to this on the day of release is today. Oh my God. Completely by accident. We did not plan that, but that is the day he died that's crazy well there you go guys what a fucking

bomb shelter end on yeah Bardella he's awful way worse than I like thought because he's the butcher of Kansas Kansas City butcher something like that I assume just because he was like chopping the bodies up and then leaving them out in bin bags yeah exactly but it doesn't really give you an idea of just how horrible it was no No, it doesn't like come close. I feel like anybody when it's like the butcher of Kansas City, immediately to me feels old and timey. Exactly. And then it secondly just feels like someone running around with an axe,

which is not the same scary as what fucking Robert Bardella actually did. So yeah, there you go, guys. Now, if you were as ignorant as us before it, now you know the full story and it is way worse than you probably thought. So yeah, hope you guys enjoyed that. I don't know. Happy Halloween. Happy October. Like we said at the start, if you would like to go get your hands on some merch, you can do that now. Redhandedshop.com. Link is in the episode description below. We've also got some like really fun extra content planned for you guys this month. So yeah, keep your eyes peeled for that. If you would like to become a patron and get your hands on even more content you can do that for all $20

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will see you guys next week when the horror only continues. We'll see you then. Bye. Bye. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light 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

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