RedHanded - Episode 20 - Halloween Special Part 2

Episode Date: November 9, 2017

Halloween continues at RedHanded this week as the girls plan to traumatise themselves, each other and you with tales of a blackout home invasion and a satanic cannibal cult. So, keep the spir...it of Halloween alive and listen now, if you're ready for round 2 that is...   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti.
Starting point is 00:00:40 I'm Hannah. And welcome to part two of Red Handed's Halloween special because at Red Handed every day is Halloween although some people have said that we might have gone a bit too far last week mainly my colleagues it seems but no we got a lot of messages so I was in Iceland last week and I was getting messages there while I was on holiday from friends and colleagues telling me that we'd gone too far they were trying not to throw up and lots of swear words yeah I'm never going to apologize for the swearing no and I also think this we thought this is what you guys wanted I thought you wanted horrifying true crime we haven't misunderstood you no and if we have maybe this week is not for you if last week was
Starting point is 00:01:29 too much this is not the week i would agree with that but i also don't think we have misunderstood you because we got loads more five star reviews this week we did it's basically just my just my friends being annoying because you guys love it apparently So we'll do some really quick five-star review thank yous before we kick off today then. So we got a five-star review from Cutette, who says that they typically don't like the banter between hosts on podcasts, but says that these two women keep the banter on topic, and it feels like chatting with two friends. Plus, Hannah, we're really funny apparently apparently especially when we get locked in cupboards and they said that there's enough cursing to make you feel like we don't take ourselves too seriously which is definitely true yeah i feel like i spent the first maybe 16 years of my life taking myself far too seriously since then i've tried to not do that I think I'm I was along the same lines to be fair
Starting point is 00:02:26 good and then we've also got Liza L33 who says that she's so happy to have found this podcast and the hosts are smart funny curious and passionate and excellent storytellers so thank you very much Liza with a z I feel like I need Liza to write me like a Tinder testimonial. Oh what like when people have like reviews from their ex-boyfriend being like five stars. I know just like she's so smart, funny, curious, passionate and an excellent storyteller. That's what that's what guys want right? Please Liza with a z write write us our tinder profiles write us our tinder profiles help and then we have another one which i love because there's dot dot dots and connecting sentences because the title is do not be caught red-handed dot dot dot in the review dot dot dot
Starting point is 00:03:20 without this podcast on your playlist oh the suspense i know i love it because it's delightfully snarky yet still respectable and we're a new favorite i love this new word snarky i don't use that enough snarkzilla yeah you do you like that word i'd never use that i'm more a salty sassy i hate that word salty's my favorite salty's my favourite. Salty's my favourite. At work, everyone's just like, you're so fucking salty. Am I? Okay, and then we've got Kate Decker, who says that she created an iTunes account just to rate this podcast, which is so sweet. Thank you so much. Reviews are really important for us to climb the charts, so please leaving them creepy true crime stories told by two hilarious ladies with adorable accents and i feel like i'm sitting in the room brackets or closet chatting with my girlfriends and her favorite episodes are oklahoma girl scouts and white
Starting point is 00:04:16 house farm yeah i they're strong favorites me too i think white house farm is probably my top i think white house farm is my favorite Also, I went home on the weekend. So my mum now listens, which I have mixed feelings about. That's adorable. And I went to my mum's house yesterday and I was like, oh, so I got a car and called food and I did this. She was like, I know you did. Heard it on your podcast. Oh, my God.
Starting point is 00:04:43 You need to be careful. And also, I'm wondering, like like what's going on with mine like my parents have listened to bits but they find the swearing a bit much i know that my gram my granddad has listened to a couple of episodes which is hilarious but mainly what happens is when i'm on dating apps i keep telling guys i have a true crime podcast and then they find it and then they listen and i'm always like oh so either he thought it was hilarious or he thinks I'm fucking mental I'm also trying to find a new house at the moment and I've learned that it's not the thing to lead with is it not is it not oh okay our social media shout out of the week is to someone who's just called Jay and their handle is jaysb1989.
Starting point is 00:05:29 They said for Christmas this year, maybe we could get two pods a week. Someone shouting fuck in my ear once a week just isn't enough. That is excellent. We would love to do pods every day but we have jobs we have very stressful jobs no but we would love to do that and i did say though we're gonna the patreon is launching on friday yes so please do we keep forgetting about it so the patreon is launching on friday you know we're still working on kind of what the rewards are going to be but they will be all clarified that will all be set up and ready to go on Friday.
Starting point is 00:06:06 You never know. Maybe you'll get some bonus bloopers. Maybe you'll get some secret mini episodes, Patreon only. And also, actually, I know we did social media of the week, but there was another one that I thought was really hilarious from a gentleman named Kurt on our Facebook group who said that he would love it if Hannah and I just simply read aloud
Starting point is 00:06:27 from an encyclopedia, a magazine, or my favourite, just read out instructions on building things, like flat pack furniture. We'll just read out the instructions. So maybe you'll get some of that. And I reckon you can probably also, we can definitely do some uncut blooper bits because we cut out a lot of stuff into these episodes when i read that comment it did make me think of like you know there's like very specific porn fetish sites where you're like i just i'll pay you five hundred dollars just to sit on a cake like it's i do that five hundred dollars sit on a cake yeah send it to some creepy guy you wouldn't do that. $500 to sit on a cake. Yeah. And send it to some creepy guy. You wouldn't do that for $500.
Starting point is 00:07:07 Yeah, I probably would. I mean, I just got back from Iceland. I am so broke. Do you know how expensive everything was there? No. I mean, everyone at work heard me shouting about this all day because it was my first day back. Guess how much a glass of wine in a bar was in Iceland? In pounds?
Starting point is 00:07:19 Cheapest. Yeah. Cheapest glass I found. £12.50. A week I was there. £18. Fuck off. No. You fuck off no that is like off Iceland that's a human rights violation that is atrocious and we were there on my birthday I had one glass
Starting point is 00:07:33 of wine on my birthday oh because it was so expensive I know it's so miserable I mean it was beautiful in three words it was beautiful expensive and cold but and I did also want to tell you about how many rules are of my own I broke while I was out there namely one being I felt like I was pushed to the limit because of how expensive everything was so my friend and I who I was out there with we were getting public buses everywhere because it was so expensive and we got a six-hour bus from uh Reykjavik the capital, to Akireli, which is in the north. Everyone laughed at us. We were the only tourists on that bus.
Starting point is 00:08:08 And we were the only ones that stayed on for the full length of the journey. We decided to stay there for three days because of how long it took to get there. And we were like, oh, we have to leave tomorrow on a six-and-a-half-hour bus. But that night, we met two young men that we didn't know. Were they strapping? Were they strapping Icelandic men? No, they weren't. They were British.
Starting point is 00:08:29 They were the biggest Rars I've ever met in my life. And I spent the entire four hour drive from Aki to Reykjavik calling them that. So it's okay. Should we explain what a Rar is for our international listeners? It's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A Rar, a Rar. So it's's that it's like the girls wear UGG boots and
Starting point is 00:08:49 have like giant handbags and like messy messy hair and the guys all speak like like Hugh Grant yeah oh yeah but Brad and Ed thank you for not murdering us and thank you for driving us back but I broke so many rules. We didn't know them. We met them while we were drunk. And then I got in their car the next day and let them drive me for four or five hours across Iceland. I am horrified with you right now. It got worse.
Starting point is 00:09:15 You'll be more horrified. They listened to Disney music the entire way. And can I also say they were both army officers? Of course! No, I will not. They were these two huge army officers, like from like Sandhurst or some shit, who were just like, ya, ya, ya,
Starting point is 00:09:32 all the way back from Akiradita Reykjavik, listening to Disney music. And not just listening, singing to it. It was so surreal. My friend and I just sat in the back looking at each other like, what is even happening?
Starting point is 00:09:44 It was so strange. How are you not dead? And also because I told them about the podcast, they also made loads of jokes about murdering us, so. Oh, that's always fun. That's fun when you're in a car with strangers. And there was like no other road, cars on the road either. But anyway, that was my little story from all the rules of my own that I broke while I was over in Iceland. If any of you listeners are from Iceland, guys, why is everything so expensive? I bet they've got really good healthcare and schools though, hey? They have good healthcare.
Starting point is 00:10:10 They've got good schools. I mean, there's only 30,000 people. So like, if even only half of them are kids, of course you have good schools. That's true. There's like 12 kids to go to school. Like, that's fine. But I saw like one homeless person
Starting point is 00:10:23 the whole time I was there. I don't know if this is true, but I saw like one homeless person the whole time I was there I don't know if this is true but I heard that in Iceland because the population is so small there is a specific dating app that will tell you if you are related to someone I feel like that's probably quite necessary I mean my understanding is from what I learned while I was there is that they're all just Irish or from Norway so they probably are really related. You're probably related to some of them. That's weird.
Starting point is 00:10:49 I'm related to basically everyone. Everyone was white and blonde. And my friend and I, who is of the same complexion I am, we'd be sat in a bar. And like, I'm not kidding, the last night we were there, we were like, fuck it, let's just go on a night out. And we sat in a bar and there was just a group of like six guys, blonde guys, sat at the table next to
Starting point is 00:11:05 us just staring and we were like it's just because it's exotic I feel like and then they came over and then they were like so my friends and I have been speaking and we wanted to know are you from Colombia or Chile you two I'm from England then he told me my accent sounded like Noel Gallagher like it was so weird oh my god I think if I had to rate your accent on one to Noel Gallagher it would be like minus 25 I can't even do an impression of him anyway they came here for some Halloween scares they came here for some Halloween scares give the people what they want Hannah I'll give you what you want this one is very I feel like it's very much a crime of our times. It's not as gruesome
Starting point is 00:11:46 as the one I did last week. So, we're leaving Poland behind, say goodbye to Poland, and we are going to Boise, Idaho. And I feel like the only reason I even know that it even rings a bell in the back of my mind is because of this case. And it's definitely one of
Starting point is 00:12:02 those cases that you kind of feel like you know in the back of your head, but you're not totally sure of it. Anyway, fear not, friends. I don't feel like I know this one. I think you're gonna know as we go along. I've got you. So, 16-year-old Cassie Jo Stoddart
Starting point is 00:12:16 was house-sitting for her family friends, the Contreras, I think it is, who were away for the weekend. This is in 2006. They knew Cassie really well and she babysat their son often. I think they might, who were away for the weekend. This is in 2006. They knew Cassie really well and she babysat their son often. I think they might even have been cousins or second cousins or something like that. So they were close. Like it wasn't, they were just like leaving their house to someone they didn't know. And this house was called Whispering Cliffs.
Starting point is 00:12:38 Have you heard a more creepy house name in your entire life? It's very Wuthering Heights, isn't it? It is. Yeah. There heights isn't it it is yeah there's actually it made me think there's a place in the uk near guilford called silent pool whenever i drove past it with my mum which i do like quite often when i was a kid like it always just like sends a shudder down your side i always drove past it like at night as well like it was but apparently they distilled in there so it's got some redeeming qualities. Shout out Silent Pool. I don't think I could live somewhere called Silent Pool. No.
Starting point is 00:13:12 So, it's Friday night on the 22nd of September 2006, and Cassie Jo heads over to Whispering Cliffs after school. And around 6pm, her boyfriend, who's called Matt Beckham, no relation, came over as well. And I can only assume that they do what 16-year-olds do free house, which is probably like get drunk and like fool around a bit. Probably. That's that's what you do when you're 16. In my opinion.
Starting point is 00:13:30 Sorry, mom. Yeah, I was going to say. My sister rang me once. She was my sister's maybe five and a half years younger than I am. She rang me and she was like, one of my friends is like paralytic. Like, I don't know what to do. Blah, blah. We drank all of the tequila that's in the cupboard.
Starting point is 00:13:44 I was like, no, you didn't like paralytic. Like, I don't know what to do, blah, blah. We drank all of the tequila that's in the cupboard. I was like, no, you didn't. That's been water since I was 15. Because you should fill it up. Oh, dear. Mum, I'm sorry. So soon after, so Matt gets there about seven o'clock and he invites two of their mutual friends from school over. And they're called Brianrian draper and tori
Starting point is 00:14:05 adamsick which might be ringing some bells for some people listening who know this case so they invite them around and be like oh like let's watch a movie together and they didn't stay long however brian and tori told cassie joe and matt that they would rather go and watch a film in the local cinema instead and they left and 15 minutes after tori adamsick Sick and Brian Draper left the house, all of the power was cut to whispering cliffs. Just out of nowhere. Blackout. Yes. Fuck off.
Starting point is 00:14:33 Matt Beckham rings his mum and he says, can I stay the night because Cassie's scared because the lights have gone off and she's frightened. And I would be frightened too, but also his mum was like obviously fucking not like I wouldn't believe that if I had a 16 year old son and he'd be like oh like I need to stay over in this empty house with my girlfriend because the lights are off like come on fuck though that if I was Cassie I'd be like fine I'm gonna grab the kid and we're both going to your house and I'll sleep in your mum's bed if I have to I'm not staying here the power mysteriously comes back on and Beckham's mum comes to pick him up from whispering cliffs a short while after so i think matt beckham's only been in this house
Starting point is 00:15:10 for about two hours really beckham rang tori adam sick once he got home and said that he'd left then cassie was there on her own matt beckham would actually be the last person to see cassie joe start out alive the following sunday the contrareras family returned from their trip and their 13-year-old daughter found Cassie Jo stabbed to death on the kitchen floor. Oh my God, that is horrifying. Yeah, it's like, it's a film, isn't it? It's like, it's like Strangers, The Strangers. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:36 Oh my God, that film scared me so hard. Cassie Jo had been stabbed over 30 times and as many as nine of the wounds were serious enough to have killed her. So this isn't like a smash and grab they really went for it overkill but so it feels personal doesn't it doesn't feel like a home invasion or anything like that and naturally because matt beckham had been the last person to see cassie alive the police brought him in for questioning but soon ascertained that cassie joe must have been murdered after he left the house
Starting point is 00:16:05 and he was obviously with his mum so he's got a cast-iron alibi it can't have been Matt Beckham. Then Beckham said that Tory Adam Sick and Brian Joper had been at the house as well. The police brought them in and they questioned them separately and the pair told the police independently that they had gone to the cinema they weren't there But when they were asked what film they had seen and to describe the plot, they couldn't do it. Oh no. They couldn't do it in any detail at all. I think they knew the name of the film, but it was reasonably obvious they hadn't gone to the cinema. This obviously aroused suspicion. And then Adam Sick and Draper changed their story and they said they actually, they'd gone downtown and they'd been joyriding, they'd been stealing cars and they didn't want
Starting point is 00:16:43 to say anything because they didn't want to get caught. But Draper was the one to break. So this is what actually happened. Brian Draper and Tori Adam Sick, who in the same year at school they're all in high school together, they're all same age 16. Is Tori a boy or a girl? It's a boy. They're both boys. Okay. They'd never left the grounds of Whispering
Starting point is 00:17:00 Cliffs. Fuck off. They waited. Oh my god. They waited outside the house and it was them who had cut the power. Oh my god. How old were they? 16. Fuck off. What the fuck? So they turned it back on to ensure that Beckham would leave Cassie Jo on her own. Oh my god. Then once they saw Beckham leave they cut the lights again from the circuit breaker and both of them waited in the basement, hoping that Cassie Jo would come downstairs to check the fuse box. But she didn't because she was too afraid. She stayed in the living room.
Starting point is 00:17:35 So Draper and Adam Sick put on masks and like dark clothes and went upstairs and stabbed Cassie Jo to death. Oh my God. What? The worst thing about this, well, it's not the worst thing, but it's the thing that makes me feel the most gross, is that Adam Sick spent the whole of the next day with Matt Beckham and he kept trying to call her
Starting point is 00:17:57 and he was like, oh, I don't know. I don't know why she's not picking up the phone. And this is 2006. So it's not totally unusual to just not hear from someone for a few days. She was just in the house. She was house-sitting. So it was weird that he couldn't get hold of her. So it's just so gross that Adam sits with him the whole of the next day.
Starting point is 00:18:15 And he's like, oh man, she's probably fine. So she was house-sitting. She wasn't babysitting. No, she was house-sitting. She was the only one in the house. Why the fuck do houses need to be sat? Why couldn't she just be in the house? That's for a weekend as well, you know? Oh oh my god that is so too much like yeah what that's horrifying i vaguely
Starting point is 00:18:32 recall that story but i didn't remember like i didn't know it in that much detail like i thought it was like strangers like strangers that had just done it that's it gets so much horrifying oh my god i don't really i actually am quite scared by things like this because i'm in the house i don't want to say that i'm never in the house by myself she's got a giant dog it'll rip your fucking throat out i actually do he will so adam sick and drape were arrested three days after cassie joe's body was discovered and this is where it gets really fucking horrible they They had recorded themselves, they'd filmed themselves the day before the murder, detailing their plan, and I'm going to play it for you right now. There should be no watch against killing people. I know it's the wrong thing, but
Starting point is 00:19:15 hell, hell, you restrict somebody from it, they're gonna want it more. We found our victim and as sad as it may be, she's our friend. But you know what? We all have to make sacrifices. Our first victim is going to be Cassie's daughter. She's gonna be alone in a big dark house out in the middle of nowhere. How perfect can you get? I mean like, holy shit dude. I'm horny just thinking about it. Hell yeah. This gets important as you get on to, like, Draper's defence of himself, but they are so gleeful. Like, the way they're talking about it is like, yeah, we're just going to fucking kill her. I'm so horny thinking about it.
Starting point is 00:19:56 Yeah, it's really vile. Oh my god. And, in fact, they filmed themselves just before the murder. Listen to this. 2006. We know there's lots of doors. There's lots of places to hide. I locked the back doors.
Starting point is 00:20:11 That's all I locked. Now we just gotta wait. That bit is like they're just outside her house. They're about to go in. And they say the date. They say the date and the time. Fucking idiots. Fucking idiots.
Starting point is 00:20:23 They've been planning this for however long and they actually film we'll come onto it later but they film like their whole plan. Like they film like the selection of Cassie and why it has to be her and like the way they're going to do it. This is just after they've murdered her so they've stabbed her 30 times. They come out,
Starting point is 00:20:40 get in the car and the first thing they do is pick up the video recorder and this is what they say. I just killed killed cassie we just left her house this is not a fucking joke i stabbed her in the throat and i saw her lifeless body just disappear dude i just killed cassie oh fuck that felt like i mean it went by so fast shut the fuck up we gotta get our ass straight okay my god it's like such a joke to them they just killed like someone's daughter sister granddaughter it's so bleak and it's so they just don't give a fuck i mean that level of premeditation that level of like no remorse in 16 year olds. And it's very interesting to note that the one who says, fuck, I just killed Cassie.
Starting point is 00:21:32 That's Brian Draper. That's very important to remember as we get onto the trial. During the interrogations, both Draper and Adam Sick blame each other, which is just fucking classic. Like, I mean, they're children. Like, they're children like they're gonna do that and Draper maintained that he thought that Adam Sick was joking and he never actually stabbed Cassie so he thought the whole thing this is his defense is he thought it was all just this giant joke and that he just wanted to scare Cassie and it wasn't until it was too late it wasn't until
Starting point is 00:22:00 he realized that he was actually stabbing her that that he came to and was like, fuck, he was never joking. But then why does he get in the car and immediately say, I just killed Cassie? Bollocks. Absolute bollocks. In the end, it's Draper who leads the police to this enormous pile of evidence. Like, the list is literally insane. So they discarded all of this stuff in a canyon nearby. This is the list of the shit that they just found in this hole matches black boots rubber gloves fingerless gloves hydrogen peroxide masks daggers different
Starting point is 00:22:33 kinds of knives like four or five different kinds of knives and the sony videotape which i just played you and stuff that they had tried to burn like there was loads of clothes that they obviously tried to burn but haven't really got very far so they just left them piece of black cord like it's a fuck ton of evidence like there's no way you can deny that that's what it was and the thing i just don't buy about draper being like the follower in all of this because he says in like interviews like after he's convicted he was just like oh like i was just a really lonely teenager and he was my only friend and i just wanted to go along with what he was doing but i mean i get that people get carried away but come on that it's it's too much obviously like murder is bad but like they
Starting point is 00:23:17 didn't even do a fucking good job they left a shit ton of evidence they didn't have their alibi straight they couldn't even describe the film and in the videos they have like running up to the murder like detailing how they're gonna do it they described ted bundy as an amateur and like they're gonna be way better than him yeah exactly they wanted the fame they wanted to be like super serial killers and draper admitted in police interrogations that he was much more interested in Columbine, but Adam Sick wanted to do a scream murder. So he was like, oh, well, I don't want to be on my own. So I'll just go along and do his scream thing. How did these two find each other? They went to school together. No, I mean, like, cosmically, how did these two find each other? Well, this is actually a really,
Starting point is 00:23:59 because like in the one of Draper's interviews, he says, you know, no, like me and Tori were just interested in the same things like death and murder. i like when i watched that i was like i'm gonna have to i will only make you come out and get very drunk with me never ever to murder someone well this is the thing like i can understand i used to play loads of pretend games when i was a kid and like it's really serious at the time but like i mean not when I was 16 but like it's I can understand this is beyond that it's this is completely beyond meditation it's just it's mind-boggling though it's in two people so young but hey look at school shooters look at things like that look at what he wanted to do he wanted to be a school shooter but then apparently like this cassie joe was supposed to be the first one and they were planning like a columbinesque massacre so draper in the police
Starting point is 00:24:50 interviews gives it all away he gives a full confession blah blah blah tory adam's sick all he says is i want to speak to an attorney and that is that closes down questioning then there's nothing there's nothing they can do they had separate trials and both of them were sentenced in 2007 to life without the possibility of parole on one count of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. And they're clearly, they're severely disturbed.
Starting point is 00:25:13 And do you know what it made me think of? Have you seen that Marilyn Manson interview in Bowling for Columbine? I have watched that, but I can't remember. There's an interview with Marilyn Manson like reasonably recently after the Columbine shooting, because there was all that thing of it being, like, linked to his music and... Are you thinking of the Devil's Not Kids? The Memphis Three?
Starting point is 00:25:32 No, it's definitely Columbine. And they do this interview with Marilyn Manson, like, wanting a comment on Columbine, and he was like, I just, I just would have listened to them, because clearly nobody was listening to these kids. And that's why it got to the point it did. And it's actually interesting. Cassie Jo's family sued the school district because they said that they should have seen it coming. Like, surely there should have been signs.
Starting point is 00:25:54 Like, how did it get to the point where they're planning a murder? And they're filming on school grounds. They're filming each other being like this. We've chosen Cassie. They get her to wave at the camera. Oh, my God. How are they filming on school grounds planning a murder? No one at the
Starting point is 00:26:08 school even thinks something might be a little bit wrong. It's shocking. That's a truly, truly horrifying case. And fuck. Thanks, Hannah. You're welcome. Right. Is it me? It is you. Okay, right, guys. I'm gonna warn you at this stage
Starting point is 00:26:24 that this is very brutal. This is very, very Saw-esque. It's body horror. This is not a fun episode. Is it worse than Martyrs? Yes. Oh God, okay. It's one of the worst things I've ever heard in my entire life, okay? Ready. In last week's episode, I chose one
Starting point is 00:26:47 that there wasn't much information about and that's why I chose to do it. This one, there is loads of information out there, but I wouldn't want to talk about these sick fucks for an hour. So we're going to keep it to about 20 minutes and that's what I'm going to do because they don't deserve more airtime than that. They were a quote-unquote satanic cult led by a power drunk egomaniac and together they abducted, raped, tortured and murdered potentially up to 18 women. Now a truly horrifying aspect of these crimes and the main reason I chose it was because of the sheer range of the victims that these men would target. Working, professional girl, sex worker, day, night, black, white, young, old. If they spotted you, it was over. They did not care what you looked like,
Starting point is 00:27:39 who you were. You just needed to be a woman, alone on the streets and they'd take you and they'd kill you but not before they made you suffer. It all started in Chicago in 1981 with the discovery of the group's first victim, 26-year-old Linda Sutton and they found Linda in a field behind a motel face down with her hands handcuffed behind her back. She was in just a jumper with her underwear down around her knees. Her body was really badly decomposed and the only reason they found her was because somebody in the motel called the police because there was a bad smell. So they go find her body and it's horrifying to see just lying face down like that in the ground. She had $17 tucked into her socks and luckily they were able to identify Linda through
Starting point is 00:28:25 her dental records. The post-mortem showed that she'd been only actually dead for three days but had shown such a severe level of decomposition. I guess May in Chicago is hot. But the autopsy showed more. She had suffered horrendous injuries. She'd been stabbed 17 times and horrifically her breasts had been removed no no i just had to check mine was still there not to be really creepy but the whole time i was typing up this case i couldn't stop checking that mine was still there they say hollywood is where dreams are made a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his
Starting point is 00:29:20 death. The last person seen with him was L Laney 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. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. 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
Starting point is 00:30:09 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 favorite podcasts.
Starting point is 00:30:57 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 this bridge,
Starting point is 00:31:25 but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely 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,
Starting point is 00:31:42 and this time, if all goes to 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. I was really interested to understand what this kind of body mutilation actually means and the police had no idea what it meant so they turned to an expert forensic psychologist. And in this interview I watched with her, she explains that it can mean one of three things. It can be a paraphilia, which is like a deviant sexual practice in which people get aroused by kind of unusual objects or strange, non-typically sexual activities.
Starting point is 00:32:22 Like people who fall in love with buildings? Yeah, it is. It's interesting that they call it a deviant sexual activities. Like people who fall in love with buildings? Yeah, it is. It's interesting that they call it a deviant sexual practice. Yeah, I guess like falling in love with a building is still deviant. It's not depraved, it just deviates from normality. Or it can be symbolic. So it could be a way to defeminize this victim and to empower himself in that process.
Starting point is 00:32:41 Or it can be a memento or a souvenir. I think as we go on through this case it will become interesting because from my point of view I think it's all three of those things based on what these guys do with it and do around this. The police struggle with this case when they find Linda's body originally because aside from identifying Linda Sutton as the victim they didn't have much else to go on. So they conclude because because she had the money hidden in her socks like that, that she was a sex worker. Because apparently, hiding the money in their socks was a really typical practice
Starting point is 00:33:10 of the sex workers that work the streets of Chicago. I hide money in my socks. If you're found dead in Chicago, they'd call you a sex worker. This is what they said Linda was. And to be honest, I think it was true that that was probably what Linda was doing. I don't want to be unfair to the police, because by all accounts, they did lead a thorough thorough investigation but as far as the situation is now they have on their hands a dead black sex worker. I don't know how much this influenced the police investigating or
Starting point is 00:33:34 pursuing this case further. I mean we'll all be familiar with this concept of kind of the less dead when it is a person of colour especially when it's a woman of colour, especially when it's a woman of colour, and especially if they are practising sex work. And I don't think it's unfair to say that there are situations in which that is the case. I'm not saying that that's what happened here, because the police investigators, when they talked about this in the interviews I watched, they seemed genuinely distraught by this case. So later, actually, that same day that they found Linda, in another Chicago suburb, the police received a call and a report that a 21-year-old woman named Laurie Borowski had been snatched off the street in front of the store in which she worked at. So her colleagues turned up to work, and Laurie was meant to be there first, unlock, get everything set up in the store. But when they turn up, she's not there.
Starting point is 00:34:21 The shop's still locked, and they think that's weird because she's incredibly punctual. And they also see her keys, her shoes, and some of her makeup just lying on the floor of the car park. Now her colleague, smart lady, immediately calls the police and tells them that she thinks Laurie's been taken. You know, to come back to this, the difference between Laurie and Linda, the first victim, there couldn't be a bigger difference. Laurie was from a loving family. She was white. She was pretty much the opposite to Linda in every way. She was a professional working girl. She was a real estate agent. You know, it's just very, so different. The police don't even make the connection. Why would they make that connection, you know? Now, with Laurie's disappearance, the pressure was on the police because they have a family pursuing them for answers so the police are desperate and they even bring in a hypnotist to hypnotize people
Starting point is 00:35:11 who may have been witnesses to Laurie's disappearance so if you listen to previous episodes we've done like the Enfield Poltergeist you know that we don't put totally a huge amount of stock in eyewitness testimony but I do think this hypnotist is legit it's like a style of interviewing I never ever thought I would hear you say I think this hypnotist is legit oh my god I'm breaking all my rules no I'm still cynical don't get me wrong but I do think that tell me why this hypnotist is tell me why Mr Magnificent is legit no No, okay, so I have many, many problems with hypnotism. Hypnotism? Hypnotism. Like, if you look back at things like the satanic panic
Starting point is 00:35:53 that happened in the 80s in America, we know that lots of those kids were put under, were hypnotized, and then they recovered these false memories. So I have a huge amount of distrust for the profession in that sense. But I do also believe that there is probably a form of interview technique which could utilize hypnotism to be
Starting point is 00:36:11 able to it's a fine line are you placing memories in this person's mind or are you recovering memories so it's a very fine line but the reason that i say this is because something interesting does come out of this so of the people they interview a couple of them mentioned that they saw a red orange van in the area around the time lorry's disappearance but again nothing came of it and the case just went cold i don't think like i said that the police even linked the two women i mean why would they over the next four months though, more women are found dead in and around the kind of outskirts of Chicago, like under bridges, in abandoned like fields, things like that. Despite all that the police didn't know yet, one thing was absolutely
Starting point is 00:36:58 clear. It was their bodies and their fear that this killer wanted. The attacks that these women had suffered, they increase in brutality with each kill. They were covered in violent axe marks, their faces had been beaten, they'd been raped, and their breasts had been slashed, and in every single case, at least one of the breasts had been removed.
Starting point is 00:37:25 Oh, no, thank you. I know. And this was no surgical amputation. And as if this wasn't enough, it gets worse. The autopsies on these women showed that the breasts were removed anti-mortem. So whilst these poor, poor women were still alive, this sick fuck was removing their breasts. The police now know that they have a violent serial killer on their hands. Even though the victims all look completely different,
Starting point is 00:37:50 come from different walks of life, the MO is so, is the same. Not even similar, it's the same. And it's so specific to you. So specific. It's horrible. So they know now that this killer is a violent sadist. This killer needs to see this kind of extreme suffering. I mean, he's someone who gets off on the pain and the terror and humiliation of others. And the police, I mean, if you're police working on this case, that's fucking terrifying because that is going to be one of the most hard serial killers, violent criminals you're going to have to catch because this kind of serial killer is truly terrifying. They will not stop if you cry or scream or beg or plead
Starting point is 00:38:25 because it's that very thing that they need from you to satisfy their deviant sexual desires. Yeah, it's a process killing. Absolutely process killing. And he needs to see the fear in your eyes and hear the screams while he's hurting you to get off the way that he needs to. And how this kind of killer forms
Starting point is 00:38:42 with that association between pain and violence becoming fused with sexual desire, is really interesting, and it creates this kind of most violent, most horrifying, and most dangerous of killers. And whilst the police at this time thought that they just had a single serial killer on their hands, little did they know the true extent of what they were really dealing with. By this point, several women have been found dead. But with each kill, the police are still no closer to identifying the killer. And truly imagine the range of victims. There was just no correlation. Serial killer investigations anyway are the hardest investigations to carry out. Now throw into the fact that there is no link between the victims. I can empathise with
Starting point is 00:39:22 why this was such a difficult case. Oh, definitely. And this is why I chose it again, because it's that, imagine the fear if you were living in that time as a woman. It could be anyone, anytime, anywhere, just disappearing and turning up, having been brutalised in the most horrendous and ritualistic way. It's barbaric. It is, that's the word, it's barbaric. But with the police completely stuck, even with the number of victims that were turning up, they finally get a real lead. So almost 15 months after Linda Sutton, the first victim's body, was found, another woman, another black sex worker named Beverly Washington, was found in Chicago.
Starting point is 00:40:00 Once again, she had faced a desperately vicious attack. She'd been beaten terribly and her breast just like the other victims had been removed but shockingly she was still alive what no no no yeah so beverly's rushed to hospital in a very serious condition she couldn't speak which is understandable she was completely terrified i bet she bloody couldn't but the police need to hear her story and so they go to try speak to her and seriously how brave is she completely astonishing to me that she found the strength she couldn't speak to them but she wrote down a detailed description of the man who attacked her and the story she told the police shocked even the most
Starting point is 00:40:43 seasoned police officer and honest to god I could barely read this at first. She said that while she was working, a man grabbed her, handcuffed her, and forced her to swallow a handful of pills. Then she described a truly nightmarish attack. This man took a length of piano wire and wrapped it around her breast. What? And pulled and pulled and pulled. And she said that at this point the pain caused her to pass out.
Starting point is 00:41:12 And when she woke up, she was in the hospital and her breast was gone. Oh my God. It gets even worse. I don't, how can it possibly get any worse? You're going to have to wait for that bit because, so she says that he abducted her in a red van, just like the hypnotist people told them. She was able to give them more information. So she said it was a really old red van with feathers hanging over the rearview mirror on the inside of the car.
Starting point is 00:41:40 The van looked just like the van, as I said, described by the eyewitnesses from the disappearance of Laurie Borowski. So the police now finally have a vehicle to look for. And in the meantime, they also miraculously find Laurie's body in a suburban cemetery. Now, as expected by this point, she was also found missing her breast. So the connection was finally made. Ten days later, there's another break, which is just like absolute miraculous break. In Chicago, two police officers spot a red van matching the description given by the survivor driving down the street. They are like, this can't be happening. They pull over the red van and inside driving the red van, is 21-year-old Edward Spritzer. Spritzer is immediately nervous looking. He looks terrified. The police are, therefore, rightly,
Starting point is 00:42:32 completely suspicious of him. And he tells the police, though, that the van doesn't belong to him and belongs to his boss, Robin Goethe, a local carpenter and electrician. So the police go looking for Goethe. And as soon as they see him, they again know that this man, Robin Gett, matches perfectly the description given by Beverly Washington as to the man who attacked her. So they take him in. And during questioning, he's totally calm. He says he was home with his wife that night and he couldn't have done anything. He had no knowledge of what they were talking about but the police know that they need to put him in a lineup but beverly is still in hospital so they take get to the hospital that
Starting point is 00:43:11 seems incredibly unethical just gonna flag that it seems a bit much but she points him out she identifies him immediately and then she collapses and they have him. So the police, they take him in. They know that it's him now. The van, the, you know, positive ID from Beverly. But for some reason that I just cannot understand, given that he was in custody for a violent and horrific attack, I'm under suspicion of being a fucking serial killer, he was released on bail. I know I have spoken about this before,
Starting point is 00:43:42 but I hate the idea of bail in general. It's wrong that you can pay to get yourself out of prison. It's wrong. I don't agree with it. It's wrong. Don't understand. But he was released, especially for a crime like this. It's not like he was nicked for fucking stealing a car or something. They had him under suspicion of being a serial killer and they let him go on bail. And what do you think happened? Predictably, he disappeared. Of course he did. So now again, they're fucking looking for Robin Goethe. Why did you let him go? So then, just days later, another sex worker comes forward,
Starting point is 00:44:13 claiming that Goethe has attacked her. The police are now once again hunting Goethe, and it's just so stupid. But in doing so, they turn their attention back to his employee, Spritzer. They feel like just because of how nervous Spritzer was when they pulled him over, does he know more than he's letting on? So they interview him for hours. And Spritzer is weak.
Starting point is 00:44:34 He breaks. And what he revealed was more dark and sinister than anyone could have imagined. Again, I feel like it's really similar to my case last week in that parts of this almost seem beyond belief, but it's all true. So Spritzer tells the police that they abducted these women for ritualistic purposes. He said that he would help Gekt kidnap and stab them and that Gekt would then cut off their breasts. He then shocked the police further. And this is the bit of the crime that is just truly horrifying. Are you ready?
Starting point is 00:45:15 No, I'm so unready, but go on. He told the police that Robin would then have sex with the wound on the woman's chest. What? I know. I'm going to say it. That is the worst thing we've ever said on wound on the woman's chest. What? I know. I'm going to say it. That is the worst thing we've ever said on this podcast. It's horrifying.
Starting point is 00:45:33 So he'd stab the place where he'd cut the breast off and then have sex with that. I don't even know if sex is the right word. I mean, like, he'd masturbate into it. You don't have sex with that. I'm really sorry, guys. I'd already picked this case and I didn't have time to change it. It's fine. We're in this deep.
Starting point is 00:45:44 Just keep going. I know. I mean, just what the fuck? And then, if it's even possible at all, it gets even weirder. So what are they doing with the breasts that they remove? They, according to them, use them in ritualistic ceremonies. They're just such fucking losers. For God's sake. This whole Satanist bullshit, for a start. I'm not a religious person at all in any sense. But if you want to follow any religion, let Satanists have their religion. But if you really actually read the Satanic Bible, it says not to kill people in there. That's not what Satanism and the Satanist Bible is about.
Starting point is 00:46:19 The Satanic Bible written by LeVay is not about murder and torture and rape. These sick fucks do what so many people do is they take something, it could be anything, take some book that was written thousands of years ago or hundreds of years ago or Scientology tens of years ago and then use it, twist it to do what they want to do and then claim that they're acting in a higher purpose. These sick fucks were not acting with a higher purpose they were doing exactly what they wanted to do and they were trying to justify it using some external means that were larger than them so i won't when i say quote unquote satanic is because that's bullshit these were sick crazy
Starting point is 00:46:55 fucks so anyway what they would do is they would go up to gex attic with the breasts that they would cut off they would put them in a box that was like covered again in quote unquote satanic carvings, but it's basically just like pentagrams and upside down crosses and like pictures of goats. And they would kneel around a table and chant. And once the chanting was complete, they would masturbate into the box on the breast. It gets worse. And then they'd cut up the breast and eat it. With their business on it yeah
Starting point is 00:47:25 oh god and this is all 100 true yeah welcome to what i was doing before i went on holiday it's awful i'm like i'm speechless like i can't i can't comment it's like it's not real if they made a movie of this and i didn't know it was true, I'd be like, what sort of tacky bullshit is this? You've gone so, you've gone too far and it's so unbelievable. It's so hokey. Yeah, that's it. But this is true. This is true. So, Spritzer, he's the one telling
Starting point is 00:47:56 them all of this because Gekt is, you know, they haven't found himself, they've got Spritzer, he's confessing to all of this. So Spritzer confesses to the murders of seven women and also implicates, which is now interesting, another man, 19-year-old Andy Cocorales. They know that Goethe's involved. They now know Spritzer is involved. And now Spritzer implicates Andy Cocorales. So the police are baffled. They thought they were just looking for one maniac. And now they have three. And also these police officers in the midwest in chicago yes it's
Starting point is 00:48:26 it was probably a gritty city with lots of high crime but all of the interviews with these police officers they are just like what what are you even how do you even begin to process a crime like this i just it's the process of coming up with it like it's it's someone thinking like do you know what i really want to do and also what i always find really the most horrifying is when you're watching these people in their police interviews admitting to these absolutely horrendous things they're doing and they're talking about it like they're reading a shopping list the level of disassociation in this is so high so they they now have these three maniacs and coca ralph admits to everything including the fact that all three of
Starting point is 00:49:05 them so him this andy cocorallis and robin get all had sex with the stab wounds with the women they killed what the fuck so to find out more about cocorallis the police now interview his brother thomas who now also fucking implicates himself. What? So now there's four of them. I don't want to believe that there's that many people in the entirety of the world that want to do something like that, let alone fucking Chicago. I know, but I feel like this is why I called it a cult.
Starting point is 00:49:37 Because I, and we'll come on to this later, but I really feel like this was Robin Goethe's dream. This was Robin Goethe's vision. This was Robin Goethe's vision. But we'll come on to that in a sec. So Thomas Cocorallis now also implicates himself by describing in detail how they abducted, raped, and removed Laurie Borowski's breast. He then confirms that all four of them
Starting point is 00:49:58 had sexual intercourse with the wound. I mean, again, it feels weird to say. I feel like masturbated into it is more correct. And then he said that they hacked her body up with an axe and dumped it in the cemetery where she was found. Now, Thomas Cocorales said that the removal of the breast and the sexual activity with the wound was all Gecht's idea, but admitted that he also took part in it. And this is what I mean. I feel like it was the ultimate control because there is no way I can see that randomly all four of these men had this type of paraphilia, this kind of deviant sexual desire to act out this very bizarre behavior. This was Gecht's perversion, I feel like. He got off. And how much older is he than that? No, he's not. He's not that much older.
Starting point is 00:50:48 He was like 26 and they were all like 21, 18, 19. Like, not that much. Oh, God. But I feel like Geth got off on doing it himself. But I feel like he probably got off even more on being able to control these other men into doing something so perverse, so depraved. Imagine that. This is why Geth, to me, me is so terrifying because he transcends a quote-unquote normal serial killer he needs to watch others under his control commit vile acts as well he doesn't just act solo and do these horrendous things and keep it a big secret he
Starting point is 00:51:17 grooms these up and i'm not excusing their behavior fuck no but he grooms these other men into this and then gets off on the like power of making these men commit what would make any normal person run and i really feel like that has a lot to do with this and that's why i call it a cult and that's why it's not satanic this is about one sick sexual sadist who was somehow charismatic, powerful enough, whatever it was, to form a cult of these three other men and go on this killing rampage. So what is truly horrifying though, based on all of this, is Gecht was never charged with murder. What? Just with attempted murder. And guess what? He'll be eligible for parole in 2042, at the age of 89, but but still is it like a yoji obara situation where they couldn't prove that he'd actually done any killing yeah basically and he still maintains his innocence
Starting point is 00:52:12 to this day but spritzer was sentenced to death but then it was later commuted to life imprisonment andy cocavales was sentenced to death and executed in 1999 and And that is, my friend, the story of the Ripper crew of Chicago. Now before we go through this, when I said at the start they may have been responsible for the deaths of 18 women, it's because there were so many bodies, they think there may have been so many more that they didn't link to this because they feel maybe the MO was developing. I felt like we spent a lot of time talking about them and we do know the names of at least four or five of these victims. So Linda Sutton, who was 26 years old, was the first victim. Then the second victim was Laurie Borowski. The third victim that we know of was Shuey Mack. The fourth victim that we know of
Starting point is 00:52:56 was Sandra Delaware. And another victim we know about is Rose Davis. And the final victim, the one who survived, was Beverly Washington, who led them straight to these men. Now, before I close this case out, I have a really interesting fact that I feel like... Is it going to make me feel better or worse? No, I feel like it's going to... It's not going to make you feel better or worse, but it's going to make you absolutely freak the fuck out.
Starting point is 00:53:19 So, are you ready? Yeah, born ready. So, Goeckt, as you may recall, was an electrician and a carpenter. Yeah. Guess where he learnt his craft, so to speak? Mr. Robin Gecht worked as an apprentice at PDM Contractors, the company owned and run by none other than Mr. John Wayne fucking Gacy. Fuck off with your entire life.
Starting point is 00:53:42 Oh my God. And if you remember about the john wayne gacy case the police always suspected that he may have had a young male apprentice or someone helping out with the murders that he had a young male accomplice i remember that i was at a party the other day and i just started talking about john wayne gacy in like a very casual fashion. Classic. And everyone was like wait who's that and I just assume that everyone knows John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy. I feel like they're the basics. They're like 101. I know that hey guys out there everyone who is a true crime fanatic knows who John Wayne Gacy is but I feel like we also attract the casual listener. The
Starting point is 00:54:22 casual true crime audience who maybe doesn't know who John Wayne Gacy is, as unbelievable as that is. So quick rundown, John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer and rapist. He was born in 1972, died in 1994, and in that time he sexually assaulted, tortured, and murdered at least 13 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago. And guess where he kept the bodies, friends? In the walls and floor of his house. Yeah. They found another victim as recently as this year.
Starting point is 00:54:57 They were able to name them as a victim of John Wayne Gacy. And John Wayne Gacy ran a contracting company. A very respectable man from the outside he was a politician ran a business he also managed a kfc for a bit he did took in loads of young boys and young men to work on his building construction business one of which was robin gecht the leader of the ripper crew sex cult sex cult ripper crew cult that's like serial killer linkedin i thought that you that's why i saved it to last i thought you would um find that really interesting Sex cult. Sex cult? Ripper crew cult. That's like serial killer LinkedIn. I thought that you would, that's why I saved it to last.
Starting point is 00:55:29 I thought you would find that really interesting. How horrendous is that? Yeah. So guys, I feel like we've really thoroughly done a number on you in terms of horrifying Halloween episodes. Yeah, we really have. Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with us through these past two episodes. And next week, we shall return to our usual format. We'll dial it down a notch.
Starting point is 00:55:49 But tell us what you think, because as hard as it is to hear these, it was really hard to research them. But we wanted to do it because, well, it's Halloween, but also because just because of how horrendous these crimes were, these victims don't deserve to not be talked about. So, join us next week for probably something a bit different hopefully so hope we haven't bummed you out too much go do what tracy clayton said that she did after she listened to our part one which was go listen to
Starting point is 00:56:16 some really happy music and chill out and remember to follow us on the social medias. We are perilously close to cracking a thousand on Instagram and on Twitter. And you can make that happen. You can make that happen. Only you can. And don't forget, Patreon launches on Friday. We would very much appreciate it. We know that lots of you guys listen to loads of podcasts. And like us, you will be supporting your favourite podcast.
Starting point is 00:56:41 But just for anybody who doesn't know what Patreon is, I'll just give a quick run through. So it's going to launch on Friday and it's basically an optional subscription service. If you would like to donate a dollar a month, two dollars a month, five dollars a month, ten dollars a month to us, red-handed, as a contribution to enjoying our podcast. You can do that if you enjoy our podcast and even if you don't want to or can't afford to right now, that's totally fine. Please just keep listening. But if you can, it would make such a difference to mine and Hannah's lives being able to do this, just to be able to buy some more of the equipment that we need for this. And we obviously don't expect to do
Starting point is 00:57:21 that for nothing because what we'll do is give you guys this little something back in exchange for your optional donation, subscription, whatever you want to call it, ranging from a shout out, sticker, all the way up to t-shirts, mini episodes, blooper reels. And someone even suggested a great thing where maybe if we hit a thousand dollars, a thousand pounds, whatever it is,
Starting point is 00:57:42 that we do like a live show like over facebook live or something where people can ask us questions hang out with us so basically if you join us for whatever amount you can afford then you'll get loads of free extra goodies from your favorite girls are red-handed that's it we'll still love you if you don't give us some money definitely we will so that's it but watch out for more information on the social medias. We'll explain it all there. And we will see you next week. Bye.
Starting point is 00:58:10 Bye. Bye. 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, subscribe to On the, wherever you get your podcasts. 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
Starting point is 00:59:02 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,
Starting point is 00:59:18 investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today.

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