RedHanded - Episode 54 - Charlie Brandt & His Demons

Episode Date: July 12, 2018

Charlie Brandt was a happily married family man, until September 2004 when he was found hanging in his niece's garage. The scene he left behind was brutal beyond belief, and no one could make sense of what had happened - until his sister Angela turned up to reveal Charlie's dark childhood secret. All families have secrets, but none quite so dark as the one the Brandts had kept hidden for almost 30 years.    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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes carbon tax supporter. Oh, yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here.

She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM,

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It is the anniversary of the day we accidentally locked ourselves in the cupboard. And that means it's essentially also a year since we started this podcast. So we wanted to take a second and reflect on how far we've come from being trapped in a cupboard, genuinely thinking we were going to die and waiting to be rescued to 12 months later honestly can't believe it was 12 months ago we were trapped in a cupboard because since then we have been recognized as new and noteworthy by apple podcast we were featured on the front page of stitcher we also made it into the top 20 for the listeners choice for the british podcast awards i think we charted once at number nine. Am I? Yeah, number nine. Right in between This American Life and S-Town. That was a good day. That was a good day. And we also got our very first sponsor, which was Audible. We are absolutely killing it on Patreon.

It's so tacky to talk about money, but go take a look at how many of you are doing such amazing things supporting us. It's fantastic. And we've also built this absolutely crazy engaged community on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Talking to you guys, just hearing what you have to say, hearing your thoughts just makes it so worth it. And we are also on the verge of launching a merch line. Did you ever think we'd say that? I honestly don't know what I ever thought. No, I don't think we'd ever have a merch line.

I didn't think we'd get this far. But look at where we are just in in under a year we didn't realize it almost been a year since we were locked in the cupboard we ran into our friend if you go back and listen to the episode the gentleman that we are harassing on Facebook to come rescue us I ran into him on the train the other day and he showed me his calendar and on I think it's tomorrow it's tomorrow yeah the 9th of July So the day after we're recording this, it says hashtag cupboard day. And that's how I knew. It's a special, it should be a national holiday, I think.

Let's get the day off work. How about we just don't go to work tomorrow and demand that it's a religious holiday? Absolutely. Hashtag cupboard day. I'm all in. So thank all of you so much for listening and supporting us in the many many ways that you do there is absolutely no way we would be here without you without you we are just sitting under duvets for no reason and also you know what i'm gonna thank all the people who hate us as well

because you know what hate is gonna hate and before i you know do a kanye or start rapping or anything let's just get on with it before you incriminate yourself too much I'm Saruti I'm Hannah and welcome to Red Handed where today we have a hell of a case for you and I mean it seriously absolutely no eating. I will admit that while I was doing the research for this though I was mildly hungover and eating natros but I knew what I was getting myself in for. You guys don't and I don't want anyone complaining that I didn't warn you not to eat. So to the world Charlie Brandt was an ordinary guy. He was a loving husband and a real family man. But all that changed on September 15th, 2004, when he was found hanging in his niece's garage. Do you not say garage? Do you say garage music? Do you say that Craig David is a garage artist?

I do say garage. I don't. I always say garage, but I don't know why when I start speaking into a mic, I start saying garage. I don't say garage. Right. He was found hanging in his niece's garage. Why is that so difficult? Okay. He was found hanging in his niece's garage. And the scene that the police found in the house, well, let's just say that a fair few officers lost their lunches that day. But before we step into that house of horrors, we need to go back a few days. Charlie and his wife Terry lived in Big Pine Key in the Florida Keys. And in early September 2011, a severe storm warning was issued. Storm Ivan was coming to hit them hard. Michelle Jones, the couple's 37-year-old niece on Terry's side,

so Michelle's mum, Mary Lou, was Terry's sister, was worried about her aunt and uncle, so invited them to come stay with her in Orlando until Storm Ivan was done. So on Thursday 2nd September 2004, Charlie and Terry left their home and drove the six hours to Orlando. Michelle was really excited to have her aunt and uncle stay with her for the weekend and even invited her best friend Lisa over that night to hang out with all of them. But before Lisa could leave the house to join the party, Michelle called her and said that her aunt and uncle had gotten drunk and had an argument so it was probably best for her

to come over another night. Meanwhile in North Carolina, Michelle's mum Mary Lou was curious about how the visit was going. She and Michelle were really close and spoke almost every day. So Mary Lou was confused when Michelle didn't pick up the phone or return her calls all weekend. Mary Lou then called Michelle on the Monday and the Tuesday, but there was still no answer.

And when Wednesday night came and went with no word from Michelle, Mary Lou became seriously worried. So she called Michelle's good friend Debbie, who had a spare key, and asked her to go check on Michelle. Mary Lou even stayed on the phone as Debbie walked up the drive to Michelle's house. Debbie rang the doorbell, but no one answered. So she decided to open the door and go in, but her key wouldn't open the door. The door had been locked from the inside, and the key was still in the internal lock, so Debbie decided to try the back door. On her way round to the back, she passed the front of the garage,

and there was a garage door at the front of the house that was made entirely of glass. Debbie looked through the glass door and saw Charlie Brandt's body hanging from the ceiling. Terrified, she immediately called the police. But Charlie Brandt's death was just the beginning, because no one was prepared for what they found in that house. The first detective on the scene, Rob Hemmett, arrived and went into the garage. And just as Debbie had told him, there was Charlie hanging from the ceiling. He'd hanged himself with a sheet, and there was a ladder found near the body, indicating this was suicide. But when Hemmett and the other officers moved into the house, they found a scene that looked like something out of a slasher movie.

Terry's body was on the sofa in the living room. She had been stabbed seven times in the chest. And whilst it's horrendous to say, Terry seemed to have been the lucky one, considering what awaited the detectives upstairs. Michelle's body was in her bedroom she had been completely decapitated and her head had been placed next to her body both of her breasts had been removed her heart had been cut out of her chest her intestines had been torn

from her body and her left leg had been cut off and all of these parts of michelle lay around her body in bloody piles of gore and flesh. Can you even imagine? No. Walking in and seeing that. And what that must have smelled like as well. That's something that I think about a lot is that death must have a really specific smell. Do you remember when we met those undertakers? Yes. When we went to London True Crime Meetup, there was a group of, so it's just you're hanging out. We were doing the London True Crime Meetup. Hannah and I were there meeting you guys. It was great. Look over to the side, there's a stag party. Guess what? It was a stag party of all undertakers. It was insanity. Everyone who was in the True Crime Meetup ran over to speak to them when we found out. They were so baffled

by why we were so excited to meet them. One of them had like gone and caught Alexander McQueen's body. Yeah, yeah. He was talking about, he was like, oh, loads of famous people. You find MPs excited to meet them one of them had like gone and caught alexander mcqueen's body yeah yeah he was talking about he was like oh loads of famous people you find mps in gimp masks all sorts oh god and yeah they were like death the smell of a dead body is very very very specific and this not just the smell but it's the sight michelle's just been torn apart basically and her body is just scattered around this room so So the police officers, they search the house. They're looking for like any sign of a struggle, any sign of a break-in but there isn't anything and the house was locked from the inside. So considering the scene that had met them with two people having been brutally murdered and with one having killed himself, Rob Hemmett

quickly determined that Charlie Brandt had killed his wife and niece before committing suicide. But why? No one who knew him seemed to expect anything like this from Charlie. Lisa, Michelle's best friend, said that she just couldn't believe it, describing Charlie as, quote, maybe a bit eccentric, but just as very quiet and reserved. So this incident wasn't just shocking because of its brutality, but because everyone who had known the Brandts said that they always felt like Charlie and Terry had the perfect marriage. They were described as inseparable. And I completely get the confusion at this point in

the story because at this point in the story they're just a normal family doing normal family normal people things but hang on because it is not going to stay like that for very long. Friends of the couple described Charlie as well suited to Terry to Terry's carefree personality. And Melanie Fetcher, a close friend of Terry's, actually said that she had spent their entire marriage thinking, quote, If my husband could love me one third the amount that Charlie loved Terry, I'd be the luckiest woman in the whole world. I'm not quite sure I've ever read a sentence that has made me feel quite so sad as that sentence. Doesn't that just, that sounds so miserable. That makes me so sad. I get what she's saying, but it is also a very depressing statement.

Melanie, along with everyone else who knew them, said that they never suspected any problems in Terry's marriage. Probably because she was too busy idealising it over her own, it seems. But having said that, most people said that they had never seen charlie and terry argue though this is in contrast to what michelle told lisa the night that she was meant to come and hang out with them if you remember she told her not to come because they got drunk and had a fight it was going to be too awkward so she just leave them well alone but regardless everyone agreed that terry and charlie seemed to be a perfect match they'd even make each other's

lunches rather than their own because they thought that lunch tasted better when it was made by the one who loved you. I didn't feel sick at the dead body, but I did feel a bit sick about that. I don't want anyone else making my lunch. I know how I like my lunch. No, that's how you get poisoned, man. Either that's how you get poisoned or that's how you get seriously disappointed when you look at your lunch and it's not what you wanted. Oh, great. Tuna again. Yet despite all of this, despite making her lovely lunches with his own fair hands, Charlie stabbed his wife seven times and butchered their niece with no note and absolutely no explanation. So the police were understandably stumped.

Until a few days later, when Charlie's older sister, Angela, turned up at the police station saying, quote, there's something I need to tell you people. How accusatory. The thing is, the Brants had a dark family secret. They had kept buried for over three decades, but now it had come back to haunt them. Angela told a stunned Rob Hemmett exactly what had happened on horrifying night back in January 1973, when Angela had been 15 and Charlie had been just 13. The siblings lived with their parents and with their two younger sisters in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

At about 9pm on the 3rd of January, Angela and the family had been watching a show on their new colour TV. When it was finished, Angela went upstairs and climbed into bed. Unable to fall asleep, she picked up a book and began to read. Meanwhile, Angela and Charlie's pregnant mum, Ilsa, had run herself a bath. Their father, Herbert, stood in the bathroom next to his bathing wife, shaving. That was when Angela heard loud noises. She told Hemet that she thought there were firecrackers going off.

Then she heard her father yell, Charlie, don't, or Charlie, stop, and her mother was screaming and shouting for Angela to call the police. Angela heard the commotion, got out of bed and that was when Charlie came into her room holding a gun. He aimed the gun at Angela and pulled the trigger but all they heard was a click. The gun was out of bullets. So Charlie threw the gun on the floor and lunged at Angela. He managed to pin her down and began to strangle his sister. Angela told Hemet that this was when she noticed a glazed look in Charlie's eyes. She said he didn't even look like her brother.

But then suddenly the terrifying look disappeared and Charlie seemed to snap out of it, whatever it was. He let go of Angela and asked her, what am I doing? Angela told him that she thought he'd shot their dad and she remembers Charlie seeming terrified. He started to beg her, you're not going to leave me, are you?

Sobbing, she told Hemet that she promised him of course she wouldn't leave him, all the while thinking she couldn't get away from him fast enough. They walked downstairs and as soon as she thought she had a chance, Angela ran. This is directly from Angela's first interview with Hemet. I thought he was far enough away. I ran. This is directly from Angela's first interview with Hemet. I thought it was far enough away. I ran. Have you ever seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Yeah.

I saw it once in my life. I could never watch it again. You know the girl screaming? Yeah. The way she ran screaming? That was me. I was just a little girl. I was running through the snow in my bloody nightgown,

torn to screaming. I got to the first house right across the street. I did knock on the door. I turned the knob, and it was locked. And then I ran to the next house, and by the time I got to the next house, my brother had apparently come down the steps. He was outside.

And all my life, I've heard him screaming after me, Angie, you promised you wouldn't leave me. You promised you wouldn't leave me. But I didn't. That's completely terrifying. I can't imagine. But your brother as well. It's absolutely horrifying.

And when she's telling him the story, it gives me goosebumps. Like, that bit gives me goosebumps like that bit gives me goosebumps it's oh god i mean just what the fuck you will watch tv one night together go to bed suddenly there's shooting and your brother walks into your room with a gun aims it at your face and it's just luck that he's run out of bullets that you're not dead and then he totally flips back as well and he's acting totally normal and scared. Fucking hell, he's 13 years old. I think that's the thing that's so uncomfortable about this case is he just completely seems to turn into a different person.

It is absolutely horrifying. So what exactly had happened that night? Charlie had walked into his parents' bathroom, shot his father once in the back, and then shot his pregnant mother five times. Charlie and Angela's father survived the attack, but their mother died. At the hospital in Fort Wayne just after the incident, Herbert said that he had no idea why his son would do this.

At the time he shot his parents, Charlie Brandt had seemed like a totally normal kid. He did well in school and had never shown any signs of any underlying psychological issues. He had, apparently out of the blue, at the age of just 13, picked up a gun and gone on a shooting spree to annihilate his family. But despite the seriousness of his crime, the courts decided that they couldn't charge him with any criminal offence because of his age. Newspaper reports of the murder were super murky, there were very few details ever released about the case and the story circulated as like a freak crime carried out by a

quiet kid. And it was so bizarre because the family had been so close. Charlie is even described by most who knew him as a kid, as a mummy's boy. Dan Feigl, who was the lead detective on the case back in 71, found it odd that while Herbert, Charlie's father, acknowledged and admitted that Charlie had shot him and killed his wife, just kept saying, I don't know why my son did this. I have no idea why my son did this. And Feigl felt like he didn't really seem to want to find out why. Feigl also recalls now that Charlie was in total shock and that as he led him into custody, Charlie's eyes were completely dilated and he didn't even seem to be able to understand what he'd done. After the arrest, the police didn't

know what to do with their 13-year-old killer. The Indiana courts ordered that Charlie undergo three separate psychological evaluations and all of the psychiatrists who examined Charlie agreed that he was a complete enigma. Charlie didn't show the signs or symptoms of serious mental illness. The psychiatrist talked with Charlie about his friends, his family, his interests, trying to find some underlying problem, anything. But Charlie was totally ordinary. He did well in school. He didn't get into trouble. He said he loved his family. And the family said that he was a loving kid. So basically, they weren't able to diagnose Charlie with anything, even though they stated that there had to be something wrong with him.

They just had no clue what. They found no psychosis, no distorted thinking. So when they were asked why Charlie had turned violent, all they could say was, we don't know. And I do think there has to be... I don't think we can say that as a society we've nailed mental health. Like we don't know everything about mental health. So it's entirely possible that there is another disorder that Charlie is suffering from that we just don't know about.

We don't have a name for it. It's so rare that we're not able to categorize it. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Definitely. is not we're not able to categorize it doesn't mean it doesn't exist definitely and this was also back in 71 1971 when they're doing these evaluations on charlie as a 13 year old boy i i can totally get that they just weren't able to diagnose him with something even though clearly there is something wrong with him but it doesn't help because when you look at all of those evaluations there is no clear indication as to why he did this, which is what makes this case even more mysterious. So whatever had triggered this outburst,

13-year-old Charlie was too young to be held criminally responsible for his crimes. So he was never charged with murder and he was never brought to trial. But a grand jury investigated the incident and issued a dire warning, writing that such antisocial conduct could repeat itself in the future. So Charlie was placed in a psychiatric hospital. But after just a year in the hospital, Herbert got his son released. The records were sealed because Charlie was a minor and Herbert moved the family to Florida. Why is he getting his son out of psychiatric hospital? Just fucking leave him there, like for a bit, a bit longer than a year. Fucking killed your wife

and he shot you in the back. And also also i think it would be a different thing if they knew what was wrong with him and they put him on medication and they discharged him being like okay we've got a handle on this now if any of the warning signs start to happen you bring him back but it seems like his dad just marches up there and takes him out. And he's off. Just goes, grabs him, moves the family to Florida. And Herbert never spoke to Charlie about what took place. He never asked him, Hey, Charlie, why'd you shoot me? Why'd you kill your mother?

What were you thinking? Herbert just acted as if nothing had ever happened. Even Charlie's two baby sisters, who had been too young to remember what happened that night, were never told the truth about their mother's death. Isn't that insane? I think it's probably just easier to say that she fell down the stairs, to be honest. Yeah, I mean, I understand why. It's just, talk about family secrets. I mean, bloody hell. Yeah, this is a big one. This is the biggest skeleton I've ever seen. So remember that the police had no opportunity to find out about any of this, any of this huge

skeleton in the closet, because all of the records were sealed because Charlie was a minor. So they only find out about this when Angela walks in and tells them. So after hearing about Charlie's past, the police started an investigation. And their first stop, Charlie and Terry's house. And it was here that investigators made some important discoveries that will lead us to a further twist in this bloody story. Isn't it mental that, so obviously the police are finding all of this stuff out about his history

for the first time, but so are his younger sisters. Yeah, exactly. They only find out about this after this happens. That's horrible. That's horrifying. But so does everybody. Nobody knew. Nobody knew. None of Terry's family, none of their friends, no one knew that this had happened, apart from one person who we'll come on to. 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.

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From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So they go to the house and firstly the house was intensely clean and ordered and remember they were fleeing from Hurricane Ivan to go stay with Michelle for that weekend so even the boards that had been placed on the doors and windows to protect against the hurricane had been cut to fit the frames with perfect precision. I guess is what you would expect from an engineer because Charlie was a radar technician.

And I can vouch for this. My dad is an engineer and I can say that this is exactly how our house would look if a hurricane were ever to hit Hertfordshire. And I honestly think that reflects in a lot of Charlie's behaviour throughout this case. He's a man of intense precision. But it was in the couple's bedroom that the police started to get a bit freaked out. On the inside of their bedroom door was a poster of a female anatomical model. It's like a poster of a woman cut in half so you can see the bones and layers of muscles and organs and stuff.

It's what you have on your biology classroom wall at school. Not necessarily the best choice for bedroom decoration, though, I would say. I mean, if you're going to paint your bedroom, go for like a nice green or a blue, get some plants, some cushions, make it your own space where you can really unwind and relax. But posters of sliced up women

are probably best avoided unless you're a serial killer or in Terry's case, a far too chill spouse. I could probably pass it as well if you're like a biology teacher maybe or... Biology teacher, maybe like a med teacher maybe or a... Biology teacher. Maybe like a med student who needs to like memorize it. But he is not.

That's a much better example. He is a radar technician who's already got a job. He's like in his fucking 50s. Like he doesn't need to have that on his wall. And what the fuck is Terry doing letting him have that on his wall? Yeah. In your bedroom. I could maybe understand it if it was a bit more like, like it was in a really nice frame

and it wasn't literally just an A1 poster stuck to the back of the door. Do you know what I mean? That's what it is. Like if it was, if there was something artistic about it. It's not artistic. It's not like vintage or cool. He hasn't found this at like a flea market. It's like a surgical, like an anatomical layer by layer dissection of a woman.

It's gross. That's weird. That's weird. That is weird. I wouldn't be cool with that. No arguments from you. I wouldn't be cool with that. And it only gets worse. In the house, they also found Victoria's Secret's

women's underwear catalogues addressed to Charlie. A colleague of Charlie's later came forward and told the police that Charlie had an unhealthy attraction, not to Victoria's Secret models, but to his niece, saying that whenever he talked about her, he never called her Michelle, but instead he called her Victoria's secret. I don't even get the joke. I don't get the joke either, but I am reviled.

He's so gross. Ugh. I know. But she had no idea and after this all came out her parents were obviously like she would have been because she really liked her uncle

she really liked them. They were like she would have been absolutely disgusted if she'd known about any of this. Searches of Charlie's internet history revealed he was obsessed with websites focused on necrophilia violence against women

and torture porn. What a surprise. Snap. If there had been confused horror before, now, after all of these discoveries, it was all starting to make sense to the police. This isn't the mystery crime, break out of nowhere, out of the blue slashing that it was in the beginning.

Things are starting to fall into place now and it was starting to look more and more like a premeditated murder caused by Charlie's infatuation with his niece. The police surmised that he had fantasized about killing Michelle for a long time and on that trip he had decided to just do it. But why kill Terry? Was it because he couldn't afford to have his wife as a witness? Or, as most family annihilators egotistically rationalize, did he think to himself, oh, she won't want to carry on after this. I'm doing her a favor, helping her avoid the misery she'll no doubt have to live with if I don't kill her. And that is really,

really typical thinking of family annihilators. They are like, oh, I'm killing all these people because it's better for them that I just get rid of them because they can't possibly cope after they have to find out what I've done. Yeah. And they can't possibly cope after they have to find out what I've done. Yeah and they can't cope like I have to kill myself after this they're not going to be able to cope without me because our relationship was so perfect. But there were still questions niggling at Hemant. Yes Charlie had shot and killed his mother so he had form but the way he had killed and dismembered Michelle these weren't the actions of a first-time killer. Yes we know he wasn't a first-time killer because he killed his mum, but he just shot her. He didn't dismember her or anything. This isn't the behaviour of somebody who's dismembered somebody for the first time. And soon, another

startling detail was revealed to Hemet. This time, it was from Jim Graves. Jim had been married to Angela, so Charlie's sister, in the 80s, and therefore spent a lot of time with Charlie during this time. During their marriage, Angela had told Jim everything about how Charlie had shot their parents. Jim also recalled to him a conversation he and Charlie had one day after he and Angela had split up. We were having a few beers after fishing all day. I was just really despondent. Somehow, we started talking about revenge. Well, you know, when you get your feelings hurt and you just want to lash out. I believe he looked at me and said, well, if you really want to get revenge well you know when you get your feelings hurt and you just want to lash out i believe he looked at me and said well if you really want to get revenge you should

kill somebody and cut their heart out good jokes good chat isn't just one of those things that's like bad if someone says that to you be concerned like it's not a joke that's not something you joke about it's definitely not something you joke about like oh like get your revenge like put cling film on the toilet seat you don't like you're not cutting people's heads off and tearing their hearts out that's not joke material even if he was like kill him whoever's making you like whoever you want to get revenge against kill him ha ha ha you could still be like he's joking that's a joke no i'd be like he's joking but keep an eye on it but it's the bit where he's like you should kill him and cut their heart out that's very specific so specific you don't just

like that's someone who's thought about it yeah you don't just say that and then just start laughing like it's a joke but if somebody does tell you that and then start laughing laugh laugh really hard laugh so loud they don't notice you running away. Just ventriloquist dummy throwing your laugh at them. So they think that you're still there, but you're actually miles away. And to be fair to Jim, this had creeped him out at the time, but he did dismiss it. Don't do that. Just be aware. Keep an eye.

Especially because he also fucking knew what Charlie had done as a kid. Oh, of course. Oh, I just put that together in my head so yes he definitely should have done something because here's someone who shot their pregnant mum and they're talking about killing people and tearing their house out yeah maybe tell someone about that jim yeah i'm gonna say but then who is he gonna tell he split up with angela he just hangs out with Charlie still the motherfucking police but he does live with regret he does he is filled with regret hard not to be but not only because he ignored these important signs but because he ignored them so hard that when a new girlfriend asked him if he had any mates he could fix her friend Terry up with, he called Charlie. Nope. Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. You know your

friend has made jokes to you about ripping people's hearts out and your ex-wife has told you that he fucking shot their mum and dad when they were kids. This is not blind date material. What are you doing setting Terry up? He's basically just like a guy who's not got many single friends. He wants to impress his new girlfriend. He's like, yeah, your mate Terry. I've got a mate, Charlie. Yeah, Charlie. I'll call Charlie. But what must he think of Terry to be like, oh, she'll get on with Charlie, the mum killer who still fantasizes about ripping people's heads off. He just wants his new girlfriend to be impressed.

Yeah, I think you're right. You know, that he helped her mate out. But this is why when people are like, oh, you should just meet your future partner through friends because then you can know them oh fuck off look he's fucking setting her up with a bloody killer like a serious murderer at this point yeah exactly and also if you split up and you don't have separate groups of friends your friends have to choose who they're friends with after the divorce always date randoms always date randoms then if he turns out to be a killer you only have yourself and the internet to blame jim said that he never expected Terry and Charlie to fall in love, presumably because he knows that Charlie is a murderer.

But on August 29th, 1986, Charlie and Terry got married, with Jim as their best man. Jim insists that he told Charlie to tell Terry about his past, and Charlie told him that he had. And Jim believed him, because him because well it's pretty convenient for him to believe that and also when he had once asked Terry if they were going to have kids she told him considering everything she didn't think it was a good idea. Jim took her response to mean that she knew. I think he's clutching at straws there a bit. Exactly it literally could have meant any considering everything. That is confirmation bias in its most pure form.

But he seemed to be the only one because everyone in the family and all of their friends swore that Terry did not know what Charlie had done when he was 13. Her parents are adamant that she would never have married him if she'd known. And they blame Charlie's dad, Herbert, for not warning them. And I'm not totally sure if Terry knew or not, because the police found Terry's diaries, and they were pretty detailed. But generally, they were all super ordinary things that she'd write down.

She'd write things like, went fishing today, had a nice dinner with Charlie, the boat ran out of gas, buy steaks for dinner. But there were a few hints of oddness. There were a couple of times that Terry had written things like weird day. But there's nothing more specific.

And she never wrote down what actually happened to make her write down weird day. Terry also noted in her diaries times when Charlie was out late, even when he had been out all night. But again, she never added explanations for why or where he'd been. But regardless of who knew what when, Hemet was now convinced that Charlie was probably a serial killer. What he had done to Michelle's body was not a first-time kill and dismember. Hemmert was sure that it was just a case that Charlie's other

crimes hadn't come to light yet. Hemmert was positive that if he looked hard enough, he would find the evidence he needed to prove that Charlie was a serial killer. The only other real question he now had was how many other victims had there been over the 30 years between the murder of Charlie's mother and Terry and Michelle. So the police set to work and tried to match their unsolved murders with Brandt's travels in the United States and abroad. Because this was the other issue. Charlie Brandt travelled a lot, both for work and pleasure. Hundreds of

potential cases flooded in and the investigators had to painstakingly go through each one, trying to focus on those with specific similarities to Michelle's murder. I really don't think that we'll ever know how many murders Charlie is responsible for, but a couple of cases immediately jumped out to the task force. Firstly, it was the 1995 murder of Darlene Tola, a sex worker in Miami's Little Havana. Like Michelle Jones, Darlene had been decapitated and had her heart removed. Darlene's body was found along a highway

and aside from this connection, two other bits of evidence also seemed to point the finger at Brandt. It's so specific. The body was wrapped up in a blanket, then wrapped in plastic and tied almost like a package. And in that blanket, they found dog hairs. Police also found dog hairs in the back of Charlie Brandt's truck. Brandt's truck also gave them another clue. Brandt used the same highway regularly when traveling, and he kept

a rigorous record of his mileage, which showed an entry for 100 miles on the day of Darlene's murder. This is the driving distance between Big Pine Key and Miami. And I do feel like if you're driving around everywhere doing loads of murders, writing down your mileage does seem like a bit of an odd thing to do. But as you said earlier, I think it's an example of just how controlling he is like he wants to know every mile that's been driven in that car has been driven by him and the only way he can do that is by keeping a meticulous record of the mileage and for those of you screaming were the dog hairs the same apparently dna analysis of animal hair is difficult and expensive and it doesn't seem to have yielded much so So they couldn't definitively match Darlene's murder to Brandt,

but the circumstantial evidence sure seems to stack up. But a second murder, much close to home, fits Charlie even more convincingly. It was from 17 years before, in July 1989, and happened just four blocks from Charlie Brandt's house. Under a bridge of Big Pine Key, a local fisherman made a horrifying discovery. He reeled in the body of a woman. It was local woman 38-year-old Sherry Parisho, who lived on a houseboat about 100 yards offshore. Investigators now believed that it was also where she had been killed, because for years the boat had been locked away

in the police evidence yard. When they now went to retrieve it, in the wood you could see cut marks. It was as if the bottom of the boat had been used as a cutting table, because as with the other victims, Parisha had been decapitated and her heart had been cut out. And in the 17 years her murder had remained unsolved, all the police had had to go on was a sketch of a man spotted running across the road near the scene of the crime. That was until now. And the final nail in the coffin was when Charlie's former brother-in-law, Jim Graves, revealed something that Terry had told him just after the Parisho murder. He told Hemet that when Sherry had been found dead, and remembered that she was found just a few hundred meters from the house where Charlie and Terry lived, Terry had called him and said, well you know that someone was killed not far from my house. I'm thinking maybe I should call the sheriff.

When Jim asked her why, she replied, well, because of Charlie's past. How far do we trust Jim though here? This is definitely questionable because I don't know. She doesn't write any of this down anywhere. She doesn't tell anybody else. She's's casually being like I should call the police because because of Charlie's part like what so casual her diaries are weird too because like I feel if you're keeping a diary it's usually because you think no one else is going to read it so then being so mundane either means that she's might have just been a bit of a boring person or I don't know what else but it just seems so weird that if she did know and she keeps diaries which is not something that everyone does i know that's how i feel i feel like if she did know there would be something in there terry had then told him that one evening shortly before sherry had been found she had found charlie in the garage covered in blood

she had asked him what had happened and he had told her that he had just filleted a fish. There is not very much blood in a fish in my experience. Terry had decided to believe the fish story and didn't ask him any more questions and to be honest if your husband is in your garage covered in blood and he's definitely just killed someone yeah maybe don't ask him any questions maybe just run away. It's totally possible that she didn't want to believe that the man she had married was a murderer. But she was clearly troubled enough by this incident that she told Jim. Graves gave this statement under oath and it was enough to officially close the Perishow case. But there are still questions.

Like why is there no mention of the incident in Terry's diaries? Again, like we can say this is her husband, and according to everyone, she had an amazing connection with, but that has got to be one hell of a connection if you're willing to overlook the fact that he is a multiple murderer. So perhaps she just couldn't admit it to herself. Perhaps she didn't know. Perhaps she didn't believe it.

Perhaps she convinced herself that none of it was true, and she ignored the signs. And we do see that. You see that all the time with spouses. And while it's pretty easy to blame Terry, that none of it was true and she ignored the signs. And we do see that. You see that all the time with spouses. And while it's pretty easy to blame Terry, how could she accept such odd stories and not suspect him if he had been murdering women for their entire marriage?

But think about it. Charlie had fooled everyone, including psychiatric professionals, perhaps since childhood. And as we said, it's unlikely that we'll ever know the full extent of Charlie Brandt's crimes. But an FBI computer program flagged 26 unsolved murders, which match Brandt's travels and M.O. Oh, and the M.O. is so specific as well.

There's no question in my mind that the ones that have been linked to him since, he definitely did because it's such a specific thing to do to a body. The issue is, though, that they range about 30 years and many are just completely ice cold. And because some of them happened so long ago, there's hardly even any physical evidence left now. So, yeah, I don't think we're ever going to find out how many people Charlie Brandt really killed. But it wasn't just his mother, Michelle and Terry. There were definitely more victims. So yeah, that is the story of Charlie Brandt. Thank you very much for listening. We would love to, as ever, hear your thoughts on this case. It is a weird one. You know,

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people that have done so this week so we've got rihanna re-row serena marja zikovic kerry jameson kat bushy kayla b robert de castro gaz wood caroline mckendrick sue paris and ashley chapnick thank you all so much we really really appreciate it thank you so much for listening guys and we are going to be back but we'll be back in two weeks time because we just need a little bit of a break but only a baby one you won't even realize that we're gone it's gonna be fine bye 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. 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 mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. 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, 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, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+.

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