RedHanded - Episode 66 - Little Boy Pot Pie: The Depraved Mind of Nathaniel Bar-Jonah

Episode Date: October 18, 2018

Nathaniel Bar-Jonah was a terrifyingly single-minded man; his only focus in life was to hunt, rape, torture and kill children. His depravity became clear in early childhood, and due in part to a lack of consequences for his dangerous behaviour, things only escalated. Eventually Bar-Jonah was arrested and what police officers found in his house led to one of the most stomach churning investigations in US history. It appeared that Bar-Jonah had not only been eating his victims but also feeding them to his unsuspecting neighbours.    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. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. And is it week three or week four of Halloween? I've completely lost track. I feel like we've been doing it forever. Week three. Is it week three? Okay, good.

Just checking. We're not letting you off easy this week. This case is so twisted. I'm fully amazed that it hasn't been covered by every true crime show in the universe but oddly it hasn't and maybe it's been left alone because it's just too stomach churningly gross but not for us we've got right to the knackers of this one for you dear listeners as our Halloween saga continues fair warning a lot of kids have a lot of not very nice things happen to them in this one and there's definitely some vomit inducing description on the way. You have been warned.

We do spend quite a lot of time in Massachusetts this week so I asked my mate who lives in that neck of the woods if she'd heard of this upstanding specimen of humanity that we're covering today and she hadn't but she did give me some really interesting intel on people called mass holes which I thought was the most hilarious thing I've ever heard like what would you guess what would you guess that is terrible people from Massachusetts pretty much basically it but they're like aggressively from Massachusetts so I was like can you sum up what a mass hole is in one sentence and she literally was like I love Tom Brady I'm fucking driving here Yankees suck I feel like that's a pretty complete description.

I wonder if our dude today was a mass hole. I don't know, but I'm sure that people on the Facebook group will have some opinions on mass holes. So share your mass hole stories. I want to know. I'm really fascinated by this idea of being like an aggressively Massachusetts person. Anyway, moving on. This week's epic of abuse, kidnap,

murder, dismemberment and cannibalism all starts with a baby being born on the 15th of February in 1957. This baby was called David Paul Brown and he was born in Worcester, Massachusetts to a reasonably normal family. But by the time little David was in school, he was already freaking out every other kid in his class and all of his teachers as well. Because David Paul Brown would pick at his scabs and suck on the blood from the wound. I've got a confession. I was a tiny pervert. I really was. Like I have very clear memories of doing exactly that. But David took it to the extreme and he would repeat this process until his skin festered. So he's eating himself when he's like six or seven.

It's grim. Because up until the point that we say like his skin fested, I'm like, what are the teachers so concerned about? That to me strikes me as like absolutely normal childish behavior. No? Yeah, I loved picking scabs. It was like my favorite activity. I love picking scabs.

I mean, I wouldn't then like suck the wound till my skin fested. Oh, I feel like he must have been doing some other creepy shit. Oh yeah. He was a creepy kid, right? And his mother was called by the school multiple times about this kind of creepy behavior, but his behavior didn't seem to improve at all. In fact, it took a significant turn for the worse. And when David was at the tender age of seven years old in late july of 1964 he invited his five-year-old neighbor over to play but this isn't quite as innocent as it sounds david invited his five-year-old neighbor who was a little girl not to his house but to his basement that's an automatic no if someone's like do you want to come over to the

basement don't do that i know but at, are you just like, yeah, cool. Yeah, that's a fair point. And he's seven at this point when he's luring people into his basement. And it just gets better because, as I'm sure you can guess, this isn't going to be very good for his little five-year-old neighbour friend because David told this little girl that he had a Ouija board that could tell the future. I have two conflicting pieces of information about

Ouija boards. My favourite ever teacher at school told me never to do two things. Number one, play on the railway lines and number two, mess around with Ouija boards. So I've never ever done either. But I also know as a reasonably rational human being that Ouija boards are not the ancient tool of mystical communication with the other side that they are marketed to be. The first Ouija talking board was released in 1891 and it never claimed to be able to talk to the dead but actually answer questions in the same way a magic eight ball does. 1981 was bang in the middle of the American obsession with spiritualism so the Ouija talking board really took off. I'm fascinated with that whole period of American history. I'd really like to do an episode on the Fox sisters. I feel like I don't

know too much about, I mean a little bit about that time, but I do know Ouija boards. I have played with a fair few Ouija boards in my time. I was a spooky kid. I fucking loved that kind of shit. Lived for the thrill of a Ouija board. No, I remember like, oh, my best friend, when we were growing up, she lived opposite a church and we were like, there are ley lines in your gardens. There's got to be. And we'd sit in there and we'd do weird shit I remember one time with another group of friends we did a Ouija board and you know we all sat around telling stories before and one guy was like oh we did a Ouija board in my house and then my sister got pushed down the stairs when no one was home and we were like ah and I've talked about it before we used to go to

Clophill every opportunity we got run over touch that creepy church tell each other we were cursed and then come home and not sleep all night i was a seriously spooky kid i loved that kind of shit i loved it too i just never crossed the ouija board line nothing ever happened there was one time when everybody freaked out because they thought they heard somebody's name being whispered but it's just like group hysteria and we all freaked out and ran away but like nothing actually happened we'd go do it in like the woods on halloween nothing ever happened i'm still alive and i've grown out of it somewhat almost but it doesn't matter whether ouija boards work or not because david paul brown had no intention of

contacting the other side with his ouija board he managed to successfully lure this five-year-old girl into the basement beneath his parents house but it wasn't long before screams brought david paul brown's mum running david hadn't been predicting the future with his Ouija board at all. He had been attempting to strangle the little girl. It would seem that after his mother's intervention, this girl got away relatively unharmed. But little seven-year-old David Brown didn't receive much punishment either. By the time he was 13, David was straight back into the luring game. He tempted a six-year-old boy from his neighborhood to a hilltop just outside of town. Once they got to the secluded hill, David Brown raped the young boy. David is 13 at this point. This little boy is

seven years old and he rapes him. Do you know what? This is the only case I can think of where someone so young does such terrible things and just continues to do them throughout their whole life. Like you don't even really see that much of a progression from what he's doing. Like it's very obvious from when he's a tiny kid, he wants to strangle people and he wants to rape them. And he keeps doing that until he's, for his entire life, he keeps doing that it's crazy because we talk about this so much that there's the escalation you start off small they start with things like breaking and entering voyeurism peaking tom maybe a bit of burglary vandalism it escalates he goes straight to trying to strangle a girl when he's seven and then raping a boy when he's 13 that he's the exception to the rule there is no gradual progression with him it's just literally straight in there what's baffling is like i don't think there's that much known about David Brown's childhood and his upbringing in terms of the abuse side of things like that. We don't really know.

All we can say is that he has a mother that kind of tries to look the other way. He's seven. He strangles this five-year-old girl or tries to. And I understand that's completely out of the norm. That's not in fucking like what to expect when you're expecting like some children's like rearing manual is it like at seven they're gonna start trying to fucking strangle the neighbors we should write that though what to expect when you're expecting a serial killer oh my god can you imagine we'd make millions that's our million dollar idea oh my god i think people are freaked out enough about their kids being psychopaths and

serial killers these days. But, I mean, I think we would make millions. Chuck it on the list. Chuck it on the list. We've got such a long list going. About 12 different coffee books. So much in the works. But poor Mrs. Brown definitely didn't have that book.

And I guess you can say, like, obviously, what was she expected to do? But maybe a bit more than she did do? You're right. There isn't that much on his upbringing, but it just seems like he's not, he's just not punished for any of these things. Nothing happens. Absolutely. And like you said, David gets away again with this crime, the rape of this seven year old. And he doesn't stop there because why would you? We say time and time again, with serial offenders, most of them will not stop until they're stopped. And no one was stopping David. So whilst David was in his final year of high school, he decided that he

was going to start impersonating police officers. And so for the first time of many, David dressed up as a copper to gain the trust of young boys. Okay, he's in high school. How is he pulling off looking like a police officer? I don't know. I think he does it in varying degrees. Sometimes I think he does the full outfit. Sometimes he just wears a blue jacket and they're like, oh. And I guess also because he does go after very young victims because his target this time was an eight-year-old boy called Richard O'Connor. After convincing Richard that he was a police officer,

David managed to get him into his car after talking to him on his way to school. Like it's his textbook, predatory paedophile. That's exactly what he is. And once he got Richard into his car, Brown combined his two previous attacks and strangled the eight-year-old boy whilst raping him simultaneously. But hope was not lost for Richard O'Connor because a neighbour had seen and heard the whole thing. They'd seen the approach, the abduction and the assault itself. This neighbour called the police, who arrived just in time to rescue Richard O'Connor.

When Richard was found by the police, he was unconscious and only just alive. David Brown was arrested, tried, found guilty and sentenced to one year of probation. For strangulation and rape. So no prison time is given, and maybe this is because of his age, because he's only 17. Maybe it's the 70s, maybe juvenile detention centres were less of a thing then. I don't know.

But I would really hope that if you're being raped by someone and strangled by them and they are 10 years older than you they'd get a little bit more than one year's probation. This is the third example we've seen in the story that up until this point in his short life David could basically do whatever he wanted and nothing bad ever happened to him. Kids respond to consequence and for David Brown, for whatever reason, there never seemed to be any comeuppance. Before his very short probationary period was over

and just before Brown was due to graduate high school, he was bang up to his old tricks. David drove to Hartford, Connecticut, which is about 62 miles from Worcester, Massachusetts, where he impersonated a police officer again. This time he abducted a nine-year-old girl. He raped her after luring her into his car. But he pushed her out of the car fairly quickly because she started to vomit and convulse. It seems like he just panicked and threw her away. A witness to this assault reported David's number plate to the police.

However, probably due to this crime taking place over state lines, news of this child abduction, rape and arrest didn't make its way back to David's parole officer. So once again, unbelievably, nothing happened. In 1973, at age 15, Brown cut letters out of magazines and composed a note that he used to entice two young boys to a graveyard. He promised them $20 and a surprise. Don't go. If you see, well, essentially what is a ransom note, like cut out of newspapers, is there $20 and a surprise? Don't do it.

Nope. Don't do it. You don't need that surprise. You don't need it. And you don't need those $20. This little note that he writes did bring back some memories for me, going back to me being a rather creepy kid. When I was...

You were writing ransom notes and putting them in the local paper. Not ransom notes and not the local paper, but I definitely did pen such a letter at one point. What, luring people to a cemetery? No, no, no. Let me tell you the story, Hannah. So I was... Sorry.

Roughly the same age as Brown, so maybe 15, 16. I had these two friends and they were dating and I found out that she was being unfaithful to him. Oh, drama. I know, drama, right? And so I told my other friend and I was like, I can't tell him because then I'll be the one that's causing drama. So instead, I wrote a note by cutting out letters from a magazine saying that she was cheating on him. And I slipped it under the door cheating on him and I slipped it under the door of his house and I ran away you are the most unbelievable person I have ever met

I didn't know what else to do I can't believe that your first port of call was like yeah got a cut they can't possibly I can't write it with my own handwriting how preposterous I thought he'd know it was me. What happened? Was he really upset? Yeah, he was like, what the fuck? Like somebody left this note under my door. And I was like, that's weird. You should ask her about that. And I actually can't remember what happened. You've probably blanked it out because it was so embarrassing. Oh my God. That was quite a memory that resurfaced during this. But anyway, I wasn't trying to lure kids to a graveyard to give them

$20 on a quote unquote surprise. But the kids went, they actually went. But they did get freaked out when they got there. They quickly ran away from him and they reported the incident to the police. No charges, however, were pressed against Brown. The mother of the boys, the two boys that were lured there, felt that David needed psychiatric help, not the prison system. Everyone is very, like, quick to brush over his bizarre behavior. Aren't they? And, like, I think this woman, it's like a very noble, it's a very noble thought that, oh, he needs psychiatric help, like, me pressing charges isn't going to help him.

But he doesn't go and get psychiatric help. Like, no one does that. He doesn't get anything. So nothing happens. Because in May 1976, David Brown was released from his probation, his one-year probation for the previous rape, and he received a letter. And this is 100% true.

He received a letter congratulating him on his cooperation throughout his probationary period. So he's literally being rewarded for raping people. Yeah, because this is the his probationary period. So he's literally being rewarded for raping people. Yeah, because this is the same probationary period in which he raped a girl in broad daylight in front of a witness just 62 and a half miles away. And a probationary period during which he lured two young boys to a graveyard. Congratulations. Yeah.

You've been fantastic. It just doesn't stop. On the 23rd of September, the following year, 1977, David decided that he was over impersonating police officers and decided to up his game. David managed to convince two boys in their early teens that he was an FBI agent as they left a cinema in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. The boys got into his car and David drove them to a tent that he had pitched in a wooded area. Once there, David Brown handcuffed the boys. He put one of them in the boot of his car

and the other boy faced something totally unimaginable. At this stage in the game, David Brown weighed 375 pounds, which is 170 kilos or 26 and a half stone we'll put him on the instagram as usual so you can have a gander for yourself but he looks like he's just in serious need of some nutrients like he just looks so like sallow do you know what i mean like you just look at someone you're like you are your nourishment is not what it needs to be and to be honest i really feel like he's probably in the select group of people whose diet would actually benefit from going to prison. I'm not just being a bitch.

This is important because Brown attempted to suffocate the boy with his body weight. He goes on to do a lot of this. And I also read in some places that he even jumped on this kid's chest. I am not sure how true I think that is. And I know that we have doctors that listen. So, like, please write in the Facebook group so you can find out. Surely, if you are a 14-year-old teenage-ish boy and a 375-pound man jumps on your chest, that is going to break your ribcage. Surely.

Can a person survive after like a shattered ribcage? That's something I don't know. It doesn't sound very likely, but maybe I'm wrong. But whether David jumped on this poor kid or not, he certainly thought that he had suffocated him. To check that the boy was dead, David blew cigarette ash into his face. And when he made no move, Brown left him and drove off with the other boy still handcuffed in the boot of his car. But the boy who had been strangled and left for dead wasn't dead at all. And once David drove off, he ran and reported what had happened to the police.

The police quickly tracked Brown down and arrested him. The boy in the boot was found and quickly rescued. And this time, finally, he gets it. David Brown was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 18 to 22 years in prison, which seems, finally, pretty well deserved. But it's just not that simple. Brown was transferred to Bridgewater State Hospital for sexual predators. There, he told multiple psychiatrists on multiple occasions that he had always had intense sexual fantasies about murder, dissection, cannibalism, torture, and children. It was during this time in Bridgewater

that David Brown became tired of being called David Brown and decided to change his name. I have wanted to talk about Bridgewater Psychiatric Hospital for ages. I am horrified and just, no, just fascinated but horrified by Bridgewater. And Bridgewater in Massachusetts is easily one of the most infamous psychiatric hospitals in the world. And for anyone out there who watches American Horror Story, which I'm going to guess is a lot of our listenership, you probably know that Bridgewater was in fact the real life inspiration behind Briarcliff in season two. Really good season. Asylum was a great season. I think season two is the best season.

I'm between season two and Coven. Really? I really liked Coven. It's so extra. I just love it. It's so completely nuts. But Briarcliff is fucking terrifying. And I genuinely think the real life inspiration is almost more terrifying than Briarcliff. Oh, fully. Definitely. So basically Briarcliff, when it opened, it was a state hospital for the criminally insane a treatment center for sexually dangerous persons and like a center for alcoholics but what they started to do they just started to put other people in there too so people who had committed crimes but were clearly not criminally insane and yes it was a medium security prison as well but you're basically then putting

people like Albert DeSalvo's the Boston Strangler alongside people who had committed like fucking petty crimes there are stories in there about like one guy who was a 29 year old fruit vendor who was arrested for drunkenness he was sentenced to two years sent to Bridgewater and he died there an old man for drunkenness I can't remember people are going to be screaming this as they're lifting at home but there's a sociological study and i can't remember the name of it where they put sane people into psychiatric hospitals and they see how long it gets them it takes them to be certified sane and to be let out and it's forever because like queuing for lunch before lunch is served is like a normal thing on the outside world but if you're in a psychiatric hospital they'll they have

oral fixation that's why they're queuing so any pretty normal behavior on the outside're in a psychiatric hospital, they have oral fixation. That's why they're queuing. So any pretty normal behavior on the outside world in a psychiatric hospital has this extra thing assigned to it, which is a symptom of mental ill health. I'll find it. I'll post it on the Facebook group. It's fascinating. It's kind of like Cuckoo's Nest type territory. No, it's definitely it. It just feels like it's that kind of thing we talked about with the exorcisms when we were doing the Janet Moses case. Once you're in there, everything you say or everything you do will be because you're crazy. Why would they let you out? And the stories that I read, the more these people who weren't meant to be there made pleased that they shouldn't have been there, their meds were just upped. They were just given more tranquilizers and sedated. Like, this place was fucking hell on earth. There's no other way to describe it.

It's like when you walk through those doors, the world just forgot about you. People were just left there to rot. There was another case of a man who, in 1910, was sentenced again to two years for breaking and entering. He was still in there in 1967, so 57 years later, when filmmaker Frederick Wiseman went in there to make a documentary expose about the mistreatment of patients at Bridgewater. And I don't know if recommend is the right word. I'm not going to recommend this expose documentary film. I'm just going to say, if you haven't heard of it or seen it, it exists. It's called Titty Cut Follies, and that's a weird name, but it's basically the name of the annual talent show that the inmates used to do, which is just so fucking macabre in itself.

This film, it's truly, truly horrifying. And I honestly, I'll be totally honest, I couldn't watch the whole thing. And I've seen some shit in my time researching this podcast. And it was just way too much for me. It really, really upset me. But basically, it's kind of like the Lana Winters story in American Horror Story. Frederick Wiseman goes in there and he spends 29 days filming in Bridgewater. And the result is that this film is just a totally brutal look at the severe conditions

inside Bridgewater. The guards and the doctors just come across as incredibly cruel and sadistic. And one of the most harrowing things about the film is how the inmates are just naked the whole time they're all just naked the entire time and they're not just fine with it they're like covering themselves up like cupping themselves and it's just it's horrifying and they're always just being yelled at or harassed or bullied and herded around like cattle. And apparently the reason they were kept naked was because it was cheaper and easier in terms of security to keep them naked. I won't go into all of the horrible scenes because, well, I didn't see all of them because I didn't watch the whole thing

and also I just don't want to, but there is one that really stuck with me. There's a man who's being force-fed by a rather like nonchalant looking smoking doctor. So he's just got like a rubber tube in one hand and a cigarette in the other. And the doctor pushes this thick rubber tube down the patient's nose. And when he's told that there's no Vaseline or lubricant, he literally just goes like, well, get me some lard or some butter or something. And just uses that, pushes the tube down this patient's nose. And this is the bit that's truly horrifying. As he's

force-feeding the man, the ash from his cigarette is falling into the liquid that he's pumping into the man's nose. And he just carries on. And there are just these two dead-eyed guards holding the patient down. Oh my god. And this scene is so notorious because they run it in parallel

so it cuts back and forth between this scene and the scene in which the same man who's now clearly died because the force feeding didn't work is being embalmed so it's like between him being force-fed and him his body being embalmed and I think the point that Wiseman is trying to make here even though later on he does go to say that he regrets how he edited that scene I think the point he's trying to make is that the man was treated, and you can see he's treated infinitely better once he was dead than when he was alive. And it is so, so horrific. This film was banned.

I'm not surprised. I in no way want to watch it. It won loads of awards here in Europe, but it was banned in the States. And now it's obviously not banned. You can watch it. It's on YouTube. But please don't watch it and then say, well, you recommended it. I'm now traumatized.

I'm not recommending this. I'm just saying that this film exists have you seen that documentary about orphanages in Bulgaria oh my god yes I was it Russia definitely Bulgaria maybe I watched a different one I have never howled like that in my life basically like if you just type in orphanage Bulgaria and YouTube will come up and it's just these kids that are just left and they have no stimulation they all start rocking and you see the progression of this one particular girl who's like normal and talking and like wants cuddles and stuff. And then the journalist goes back a year later and she's like totally nonverbal rocking. And apparently rocking is something that human beings do when they have no stimulation. It's a normal response for a human being to rock when there's just nothing else going on in titty cup follies everyone is rocking because their their rooms are bare everything

is bad there's not even like a scrap of furniture in any of their rooms but the orphanage was one i mean that is supposed to be i think i watched it when i was living in korea my mate texted me she's are you coming out tonight i was like genuinely i can't move like i i'm just gonna cry it's like that really infamous case with the little girl Jeannie. Oh, God. As well. Yeah. We can't go into that right now, but it's absolutely horrifying.

Anyway, let's get back to David Brown, or soon to not be known as David Brown. Yeah, because he changes his name. And the reason he does this is very confusing. He claimed that he wanted to honour his Jewish lineage. Whether he had any or not, we're not sure. But also, more importantly, he wanted to know what it was like to face discrimination just for being Jewish. So he wanted to be like recognisably Jewish is basically why he changes his name. So he changed his name to the most Jewish collection of names he could possibly think of.

So he changes his name from David Paul Brown to Nathaniel Benjamin Levi Bar-Jonah, which some of you may be more familiar with because he is a pretty big hitter. He's just not covered that much. He's kind of like David Parker Ray. Yes. Yeah. We'll be calling him Nathaniel Bar-Jonah or Bar-Jonah for the rest of the show. So Nathaniel Bar-jona, as he is more commonly known, was released from Bridgewater in July of 1991, when Superior Court Judge Walter E. Steele decided that the state had failed to prove that he was dangerous. Barjona put his release down to the religious persuasion

of the psychiatrists who dealt with him at Bridgewater. He wrote in a letter to a newspaper, I've seen God take a hopeless situation like this when all avenues were closed. It seemed I'd never, ever be released. Yet, God told me I would and I believed him even though the evidence of my release was not there. Then totally out of left field, I got two, yes, two Christian psychiatrists who believed in me. And that was a miracle in itself to find two Christians in that profession in Massachusetts. The state had a lot of evidence on their side, yet the judge still sided with me.

For someone who is so concerned with being Jewish, why is he so into these Christian psychiatrists? That doesn't make sense. Yeah, I don't understand. I don't understand what he means by that. I don't think he understands what he means by that. I think he's just a rambler. Yeah, I would think so. But whatever it was, he was released. And armed with his new name, Nathaniel Barjona wasn't even on the outside for a month before he was back up to his old tricks.

He spotted a seven-year-old boy sitting in a car in Oxford, Massachusetts, where he was living. Barjona got in the car with the young boy, but ran off as soon as he realized that there were witnesses. The incident was reported to the local police, and they immediately recognized this description and pinned it as being David Paul Brown, the man that they had arrested and sent to prison 15 years before. And he was pretty easy to track down so the police just went and arrested him once again. Barjona told police that he had no ill intention towards the boy. He said that he'd only got into the car to shelter himself from the rain which even with my least skeptical hat on I still find very very very hard to believe. You don't just like oh it's raining let me get in

this stranger's car even you wouldn't do that. What really happened was that Barjona had got into that car, sat on the boy and attempted to smother him. Why is that his favourite thing to do? Loves it, loves sitting on people. Loves it, loves it, loves it. I don't know, it's such a bizarre... Isn't it? It's not a fetish, like a bizarre MO.

Like, what's his deal? Like, I don't... I guess we don't know enough about his childhood to comment on like where that could have come from but it does seem like a like they these things usually are about control yeah yeah you're literally like suffocating this person with just your physical yeah like i'm so big and you are so small let me crush you with my giant body especially because he goes after such young children yeah barjona also told police that he was waiting for the mother to return so that he could ask for a left home maybe this is a small town thing but i cannot think of a

universe in which i would come back to my car and find a 300 pound man sat on my child and be like yeah no problem i'll take you home what's your postcode but i think this also like speaks to how much like how long he's got away with things for so long because he literally thinks he can say anything and people will be like oh like fine because he's like he's been raping and strangling for years he's only got caught for one of them yeah i think that's the key point because as ludicrous as all this sounds no one's believing him the police aren't like oh yeah sure he's just thinking that he can get away with this by saying whatever he wants because really the only person in this equation at this point who knows all of the things he's done is him because they don't know about the girl in

Connecticut. They don't know about these things he's done over state lines. They only have the records of what he's done in Massachusetts. And this is the problem, this kind of over state lines, the jurisdiction issues, the fact that they don't know what he did in the other towns that he drove to and committed these crimes. It was like, what, 60 something miles away that he drove and committed these crimes. And it was completely untraceable to these police officers in Massachusetts. So I guess given all that, Barjona was let off again with probation and released from custody without bail. This two-year probation had a very important condition attached to it. Barjona could stay out of prison as long as he left Massachusetts for good and went to live with his mum in Great Falls, Montana.

That is outrageous. They just bump him off to another date and be like, never come back and you'll be fine. It's like, you're in exile now from Massachusetts. We don't have to deal with you anymore. Go somewhere else and be Montana's problem. Like, go rape the kids of Montana. Don't do it here. But Barjona, unsurprisingly, had a very, very little issue with this. And he moved in with his mum straight away. And he immediately fulfilled the stereotype of every late 30s man living with their mum and started collecting Star Wars figurines. He is 37 at this point. Let's just slot that in there. But I really think he's doing this to attract children and to have

something to talk about with them. He'd also organised yard sales, presumably selling his Star Wars stuff, and that attracted lots and lots of neighbourhood kids. The important thing is, despite all of his previous offences, Nathaniel Barjona was not put on any sex offenders list. There were ten sex offenders registered in Great Falls, Montana, but Barjona was not one of them. Barjona managed to stay out of trouble in Montana until December 1993, when a young boy he was babysitting accused him of molestation. Okay, why is he babysitting any child? Okay, fine, they don't know what he did, but also like, how is he your first choice as a

babysitter? There are no teenage girls around like i can't imagine that he comes across well in that process of selecting but this is the thing like he goes to loads of church groups and stuff like he actively tries to be around children because he's a pedophile but i think that could probably come across as a like oh he just likes hanging out with kids and is a good looker after of children maybe god that is horrifying isn't it but you hear about that all the time like uh sports coaches or i mean choir leaders like people who are around they find jobs that mean they can be around kids and we're not saying that if you have a job that you work around kids that you're a pedophile obviously not please. Please don't suspect everybody that is. But they do like those kind of jobs because it gives them what they want.

But anyway, he's like babysitting this kid. This kid accuses him of molestation. And then he's questioned by this detective with the best name ever, Bill Belushi. He's no joke either. He's got like 18 years on the force. Like he's a really good cop. He's a good cop. All the way through this, he's like a fucking hardcore proper detective is bill belushi so bill's questioning him and bar jonah stated

that the molestation accusations couldn't be true because get this if he had molested the eight-year-old boy then he would have killed him too maybe you want to just not talk and get a lawyer this is the thing he literally says that to a police detective who is investigating him for molestation. What? I don't know. Like he thinks he's completely untouchable or he's stupid. To be honest, he doesn't strike me as a particularly bright man. And combine that with thinking that he just can get away with everything because he has up until now, really. And so at this point, it's the eight-year-old boy's word against Barjona's which as bad as it sounds wasn't really enough to go on. But Barjona was prosecuted by the boy's family nonetheless. The case was dropped however when Barjona's lawyer

claimed that he had the right to a speedy trial and that was being violated. And we'll see a lot of this because Barjona and his legal team are just exceptionally good at getting off on a technicality. And the next part of the story has never really been proven to be Barjona's work, but let's have a look at the facts and we can let you make your own mind up.

I think this is one of the things that as a law enforcer must be so incredibly frustrating because when we go through this story, you'll see for yourselves, but I think that what has happened is very obvious they just can't prove it it must be so skin-tearingly frustrating because there's what you what is it there's the truth and then there's what you can prove and I think on this show I know we give the police when they do incompetent things a hard time but Bill Belushi in this works really hard. And I feel so much empathy for him because he tries so hard.

He follows up on every lead he can. I feel like his heart and soul is in this case. He really wants it to, he wants justice. If I was murdered, I would want Bill Belushi working my case because he follows up on every lead. And it's exactly what you said. The level of frustration and despair police officers like this must feel when it gets thrown out of court on a fucking technicality. I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine what that would do to you.

Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it.

Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses,

hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite 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.

When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get

your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. On the 10th of February 1996, 10-year-old Zachary Ramsey vanished on his way to school in Great Falls. Witnesses reported seeing Zachary Ramsey between 7.15 and 7.30 a.m. being almost run over by an off-white car and then being followed by an overweight man.

Witnesses also reported that Zachary was crying. Detective Bill Belushi, he's got this gut feeling that Zachary's disappearance was the work of Barjona, even though he wasn't on the sex offenders register. Barjona was not required to register in Montana as a sex offender, as all of his sex offences that were on record took place in Massachusetts. Megan's Law, which requires sex offenders to register with police authorities when they move to a new place, was still being

debated when Zachary Ramsey went missing. It wouldn't be made federal law until the 17th of May 1996. So just three months after Zachary went missing, Megan's law went nationwide. Had Megan's law been in place when Barjona moved to Great Falls, not only would he have had to register as a sex offender, he would have been labelled as a Tier 3 offender, which is as high risk as it gets. Guess who had an off-white Toyota Corolla, like the one that was seen near Zachary's abduction? Well, it was Barjona's mum. So Belushi went straight over to the house that Barjona shared with his mum and the off-white Toyota, convinced that Barjona had something to do with Zachary Ramsey's disappearance. But gut

feeling wasn't enough. Belushi didn't have a search warrant or apparent probable cause, so when he knocked on the door and no one answered, there was nothing more that he could do. Belushi was pretty certain that Barjona was inside a bit like when the window cleaners come around i don't have window cleaners now but my as a kid my mum had window cleaners and they would come around and you wouldn't have any money so you just have to sort of crawl along the floor and hope that they haven't seen you so it never happened to you so oh god i haven't got any money should pretend you're not here no so what they've already cleaned your window yeah but they come all the time and they're like when they catch you when you're in and then you have to pay them oh well i was living on a finsbury

park road like my bedroom looked onto another row of houses so you could like see into people's kitchens which was cool because it was like a like a soap opera because you felt like you knew the people because you just watched them all the time and i'm the creepy one well it gets worse I was doing my hair I went through when I was at university I went through this I was very into like the loose crimp so I'd spend a long time like crimping my hair in the mirror and I was getting ready to go out had my curtains open it was doing my hair topless like I just wasn't thinking about it and then I looked out the window and there were two blokes in the house opposite just watching through the window and I didn't know what to do so I just dropped to the floor. Oh yes we've all been there. But then I had to get ready to go out and I was like and then I

crawled along the floor and closed the curtains from the floor which is probably more embarrassing than just owning it I think because I'd already seen. I mean I think the whole thing is just just embarrassing from start to finish. Yeah it was embarrassing. Thanks for sharing that. I literally lived in fear that I'd like run into them in Lidl or something. Anyway, so Detective Belushi, despite the fact that there was just nothing tangible that he could follow up on, he did all that he could. So he left a business card that asked Barjona to call him. But obviously, he didn't do that.

But something Bill did manage to glean during his visit was that Barjona definitely had access to his mum's car the day that Zachary went missing. He was also seen in the area that Zachary went missing from and he was wearing a dark blue jacket. Police blue. As is quite often the case in child disappearances, it's usually the parents. Yeah.

If a child goes missing, if a child dies, whether it's an accident, on purpose, malicious, whatever, police must always first look at the parents. Yeah. If a child goes missing, if a child dies, whether it's an accident, on purpose, malicious, whatever, police must always first look at the parents. They are the prime suspect. So Belushi also had to hold Zachary's mum under quite close scrutiny. Zachary Ramsey's mother, Rachel Howard, had two other kids as well. Zachary's father was a staff sergeant in the Air Force and was away on duty when his son went missing. So Rachel was on her own then. She told the police that Zach was a really friendly kid and he would talk to anyone,

but he definitely knew not to get in strangers' cars. Rachel also told police that day, of all days, was the least likely for Zach to skip school because he was due to receive an award for a recent art project and he was really excited about it. So Zach's skiving school just didn't make sense. As well as Bill Belushi, FBI Special Agent James Wilson was also assigned to the case. And despite having both of these law enforcement agencies working on Zach's disappearance, no real headway was made for three years. So Barjona kept doing his thing, totally unapprehended, again.

But that's not to say that nothing was done to try and find Zachary Ramsey. The whole neighbourhood searched every corner of town, terrified for their own children and needing answers. Despite Belushi's best efforts, and his hunch that Barjona had been involved in Zach's disappearance, there really wasn't sufficient evidence to tie him to the case. Judges turned down his search warrant applications because remember, Bar-Jonah wasn't a registered sex offender in Montana. So on paper, to a judge, he was just a man whose mom had an off-white Toyota. One early lead seemed to be pretty promising though. A truck driver and convicted sex offender crossed the Montana-Canadian border

and told a customs agent that he had kidnapped Zachary Ramsey the day that he went missing. Seems such a weird thing to bring up at Border Patrol, doesn't it? But we see this all the time. Like, I don't understand why people do it, but people love confessing to crimes that they didn't commit. Kind of feels like the first person he sees in a uniform, he tells. It's just so bizarre. Like, I don't know what it is. I mean, maybe he's done something else.

This is like a way to atone for another crime that he knows he'll never be convicted of and making some bizarre confession to a crime that he didn't commit. I don't know. But the one thing we do know is that people do confess all the time to crimes that they don't commit. And the police have to figure out who's telling the truth and who's not. And by this point, Zach had been missing for weeks. It was a super high profile case. And suddenly you have this guy who's confessing to it at the border. But his picture,

the story had been everywhere. It'd been all over the news. Like the information that this trucker had, he could have just picked up from literally any newspaper. Yeah. But the police obviously have to take it seriously. The truck driver was detained and his rig was seized and a thorough search of it was conducted, but nothing was found. Samples of the carpet were sent off for testing, but there was nothing to suggest at all that Zachary had ever been in the rig. And that was because he never had been. Detective Belushi discovered that this truck driver and his rig had been in Missoula, 150 miles away from Great Falls the day Zach went missing. And yeah, like we said it, so it's definitely not him. This guy is just a total

dead end and a classic bizarre confessing Tom. So after this lead went cold, Belushi was desperate to connect the case to Barjona. He knew that Barjona worked in the areas around Zach's home and school, and that he attended the same church that the Ramsey family did. But still, this wasn't enough for a search warrant. But finally, a break came. On the morning of the 13th of December 1999, another officer in Great Falls, Detective Robert Burton, saw Barjona walking near a primary school on his way to work.

Given Bar-Jonah's history for kidnapping kids, Burton thought that near a primary school was probably not the place he should be. So he called a patrol unit for backup. These police officers are so fucking on it. They're so on it. Yes, they are. Officer Brunk and Badgley that literally sound like Bodger and Badger. Like it sounds like such fake names. Yeah. Brunk and Badgley that literally sound like Bodger and Badger. Like it sounds like such fake names. Yeah. Brunk and Badgley. I feel like they're, they present a TV, a children's TV show about mashed potatoes. Like I really just feel like.

Absolutely. They're wasted in the police force. They should be on telly pursuing their true mashed potato calling. Officer Brunk sounds like an elephant and Officer Badgley sounds like a badger. Yeah, yeah. Oh my God, that's so true. That's our children's book, Crime, Fighting, Elephant and Badger. I'm right there with you. Write a children's book about.

Yeah, we've patented that right now. So don't you dare steal it, you thieves. We are kind of stealing it from these two police officers whose names they actually are. But. Oh, it's fine. I'll write to them. I'll write a really nice, polite letter. That'd be a great book.

May I immortalise you as animals, please? Teach kids about law enforcement and... Yeah, like McGruff, the crime dog. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think Smokey the Bear was my favourite. Was it Smokey? The fire safety bear. Yeah, Smokey the Bear, yeah.

But we've taken the piss out of these officers enough because they were on the scene in minutes. And when they turned on their patrol car spotlight onto Barjona, they saw that he was again wearing a police uniform blue jacket. When he was asked to take his hands out of his pockets, Barjona refused. Twice. Brunk then asked Barjona if he had anything in his pockets, to which he responded that he was carrying a stun

gun. It's so early in the morning that it's not even light yet, and this guy is carrying a stun gun to a primary school. So Brunk and Badgley, after Barjona's refusing to take his hands out of his pockets, they conducted a pat-down search of him and found that he was actually carrying two cans of pepper spray, a toy gun, and a fake police badge. So he's definitely planning on telling some children he's a policeman. That's exactly what he's doing. He's doing exactly the same thing that he's done time and time again. Badgley contacted his shift commander who instructed him to release Barjona pending further investigation. What? I know, I know. He doesn't get away with it for long because the next day Barjona is charged with impersonation of a police officer and carrying a concealed weapon.

And weirdly, this incident was the break that the case needed. On the 15th of December 1999, Belushi's application for a warrant to search Barjona's house was finally granted. By this point, Barjona was no longer living with his mum. He had moved to his own apartment in a different area of town. On the affidavit for the search warrant, Belushi wrote that he expected to find a stun gun, real and replica police badges, police uniforms and restraints including handcuffs. But what he would find in the apartment was so much worse. He was right about the police uniforms, the fake guns and the badges. They also found a hat that had security enforcement written on it. There were disposable cameras, numerous photos and negatives and two albums that contained cut out photos of children and a pulley attached to the ceiling in the kitchen on which a rope

could be hung. They had no idea at this point how important this pulley would become. The police also found documents on how to tie a variety of knots and an article entitled Autoerotic Asphyxia. Next week, we will, after we did the Sharon Patka episode, which there's a lot of autoerotic asphyxiation chat in there,

we received an email from one of our lovely listeners who gave us some really interesting information about how strangulation actually works. And apparently there are two ways of doing it. Anyway, we're going to do a bit of a Patreon special talking about that and we'll be dropping that probably sometime next week. So we'll inform you on the social medias, but definitely check that out

because it's really interesting. And after this search, Barjona was arrested and charged with impersonation of a public servant and carrying a concealed weapon. Two days later, Belushi was granted a second search warrant to see if any additional pictures of children were hidden in Barjona's home. They found a bulletin board containing numerous pictures of children, undeveloped film on disposable cameras, 38 boxes of miscellaneous newspaper clippings, and a handwritten list of 53 names. Zachary Ramsey's name was on that list. According to Cascade County District Attorney Brant Light, there are a list of children that you can just turn page after page after page. He had notebooks where there's pictures of children cut out of annual school books and newspapers with their names underneath,

just like collecting baseball cards. The search revealed that at least 3,500 photographs of children were being kept in Barjona's apartment. When they developed the film on the disposable cameras, they found photos of Barjona in various states of undress with three young boys. And as if that wasn't bad enough, they also found loads and loads of letters written by Barjona. They described such culinary delights as little boy stew, little boy pot pie, and lunch served on the patio with roasted child. That one's not as poetic. That one's not as jazzy.

No, it's not, is it? So they basically found cannibalistic recipes. They'd stumbled on a cannibal cookbook, is what they'd done. And the police also seized a large piece of plywood, which had a large smear across it. The plywood had been repeatedly scrubbed with bleach, and it had been struck numerous times with a sharp object. Like a butcher's block. Exactly like that. They also found a meat grinder that had human hair inside it oh my god that's the worst bit i literally i can picture it that's the worst bit for me is that i can see it in my brain forever if i even find my own hair in my food i struggle

to eat the rest of my meal that really just makes me so sick it gets worse the police went on to search barjona's previous residence and made even more horrifying discoveries. When they dug up his garage, they sifted through nearly two tons of dirt in which they discovered 21 fragments of human bone. These fragments were eventually determined to belong to a boy between eight and 13, but they categorically did not belong to Zachary Ramsey. Crime scene investigators sprayed the garage with luminol and revealed the word Tita, so T-I-T-A, had once been written on the floor. This was tentatively linked to James Tita,

so T-E-T-A, a 15-year-old boy who had been found raped and strangled in Ringe. Ringe. That's such a horrible name for a place. Isn't it? It's gross. Ringe, New Hampshire, 1973. Ringe is a 35 hour drive from Great Falls. That's fucking far. It's literally the other side of the country. 35 hour drive. That is so far. So it does seem like a tenuous link, but it's not impossible. It's not impossible, but I don't think it's true. Like I think they're clutching at straws. Like it would be different if it was spelled correctly or like Tita could mean anything. No, it could. It's just because we know that Barjona understands jurisdiction lines. He

understands the kind of state separation. So he does have form for driving to other states and committing crimes. But 35 hours is a very, very long way to do this. Yeah, I don't understand why he would drive to New Hampshire when he knows he can drive to the next state over and it would be the same deal. Except, except I've just had a thought. New Hampshire's next to Massachusetts. And he used to live there. So maybe he'd gone back to Massachusetts for something and then popped down to New Hampshire and then gone back to Montana. Maybe. That's very true. I actually think that that makes incredible sense then.

Yeah. I take my scoffing back. But anyway. I unscoff. They couldn't really link this to anything. And when detectives attempted to examine the house sewer pipes, they were told that they had been totally replaced by the new owner as the old ones were getting way too clogged up. So there's two ways you can take that. You can take that as they were just bad pipes, maybe it was an old house, or maybe he was just stuffing human remains down the toilet.

Yeah. You don't want to be pouring fat and oil down your pipes. They will get clogged up. And I think same with human remains. So the police interviewed witnesses who claimed that Barjona had held barbecues or cookouts during the time that Zachary Ramsey had disappeared. And at these barbecues and cookouts, he had served spaghetti with meat sauce, meat pies, casseroles, and what he claimed to be deer burgers. I don't know why all of that just made me feel so revulsed. Just repulsed? Revulsed? I think it just, I just have like a picture of just so much grease in my head. Like that's what it is. And people reported that these deer burgers had tasted a bit funny. But Barjona had said that it was just from deers that he had shot and slaughtered himself. But Barjona didn't have a

hunting license and no one had ever seen him deer stalking do i think it's beyond him to go hunting without a license like no obviously breaking the law doesn't faze him at all but like it's an interesting detail that like he didn't have a hunting rifle didn't have a hunting license he was hunting big again i don't think he's hunting i don't think he was hunting deer barjona was the kind of man that was obsessed with a single pursuit. He was incredibly single-minded. The only thing he was interested in was torturing, raping and killing children. Yeah, you can't lure a deer into your car by telling it you're a policeman. Bar-Jonah's not the kind of man to have a hobby, deer hunting. He's just not that person.

He's too busy collecting Star Wars for the rest of his life. But again, that was, we think, to serve a greater purpose of luring children. Yeah, yeah. And also, quite a lot was made of the fact that after Zachary Ramsey's disappearance, Bar Jonah didn't buy any groceries for nearly a month. But I think he was probably more of just a convenience and takeaway food kind of guy anyway.

As good a story detailer is, I don't think that this is proof that he was eating Zachary's remains. And that's like how it's presented there. Like, oh, like he was just eating him for a month because he never, there's nothing in his financial records about him going to a grocery store.

And I'm like, well, he could have paid in cash. There's like a lot of other things he can do. Like just because he didn't have it on his bank statement that he went to the supermarket, that doesn't mean he was eating this kid's remains absolutely and we don't have proof that he was eating zach or any of these children but they did find those recipe books here's the thing i think it's pretty likely that he was eating them because there is no other part of his fantasies that he hasn't acted out yeah he is a man that is not constrained by any concerns about anything.

Fully hedonistic. And there's an interview with him that you can look on YouTube where he claims to have never had any interest in cannibalism, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like you can literally Google these recipes and they'll come up. To be honest, like as hideous as it is, I think he probably was eating them. And I don't think he's beyond feeding them to his neighbours either. Can we prove it? No. No, I agree because this is a man from the age of seven has been acting out depraved things. You know, we saw no escalation with him. It was straight in.

Age seven, he starts trying to strangle kids. By this age, I just feel like he needs to kick it up to the next level. And what is the ultimate thing apart from eating and feeding your victims to other people? There's also speculation that Barjona distributed his child burgers at Hardy's fast food restaurant that he worked in. But anyone showing up to their own work with their own burgers is going to get sacked. Like that's a ridiculous thing. Like he's not just showing up with burgers in his bag. But if he snuck them into the kitchen,

chucked them on the fryer. Maybe, how's anyone going to know? Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. And according to police interviews with those who knew Barjona, he allegedly talked about Zach Ramsey's disappearance a lot. He told people there was no way Zachary's body would ever be found because he would have been chopped up and hidden in various different places. Witnesses also alleged that they saw a bag filled with dirty child-sized clothes and bloody gloves outside Barjona's apartment. How they can have known this is pretty shady to me because like did they go through the bag? Did they measure the clothes? I find that such a weird detail for them to come forward and say. You would just say there was a bag of clothes. How would you be able to discern that they were children's clothes unless you went through the bag which seems like a weird thing to do. And why would you go through a bag of bloody soiled clothes?

That honestly is the hardest thing about this case, is like separating the facts from like neighborhood gossipy fiction. And there's a lot of it. Because another thing that I've been totally unable to confirm, like I've seen this written in a couple of places, but I couldn't find us like a rock solid source. But apparently, Bar Jonah told zach's mum rachel howard that he had hunted killed butchered and wrapped the meat of her son how when or why he told her that i don't know okay say he did it's either because it's true and he's just like yeah fuck it or it's not true and he's a satan he just gets off on hurting people unsurprisingly whatever, whatever the truth was, Great Falls was totally consumed by the case and the police department were under more and more pressure to solve it.

So they brought in police sergeant John Cameron, who had years of experience specializing in sexual abuse cases. When he had a look at the list of 53 names written in Barjona's handwriting, he determined that two of the names belonged to the children who lived just above Barjona. Literally just above him. Living their lives totally ignorant of the names belonged to the children who lived just above Barjona. Literally just above him. Living their lives totally ignorant of the fact that they were on a paedophiles and quite possibly cannibalistic murderers list. FBI agent Wilson interviewed the two boys who were living upstairs. The elder of the two boys, 14 at the time of the interview, confirmed that Barjona had sexually abused him, his brother and his cousin. The boys

also confirmed what the pulley in the kitchen was for. Bar-Jonah would restrain the boys with rope and hang them from the pulley in the kitchen. And there's something about it being in the kitchen which just makes it so much worse. Police suspected after a series of interviews with Bar-Jonah that he had been choosing his victims at the Christian fellowship meetings he had been attending despite being so concerned with being perceived as Jewish. Again it's like we talked about earlier this kind of situation you put yourself into there you come across like a good person like a good religious person somebody to be trusted around people's kids it just makes it perfect hunting ground and that's exactly how Barjona used it. And on the 5th of July 2000

Barjona was charged with three counts of sexual assault, one count of aggravated kidnapping and one count of assault with a weapon. He pled not guilty to all of these charges. Sergeant John Cameron and the rest of the investigative team were concerned that Barjona's criminal activity may have spread over into Canada, which shares a border with Montana. Cameron said, we can put him crossing the border several times and we're working that angle. Alberta and Saskatchewan are two places I think we're able to place him in sometime in the mid-90s. But they never found enough over the border to connect Barjona to any child disappearances, so the lead was dropped. Barjona and his legal team, headed by Gregory Jackson, did anything they could to derail the trial.

They submitted motions to have evidence thrown out and they made multiple requests to have the venue changed. But their attempts were in vain because the trial got underway on the 20th of February 2002. The trial only lasted a week and the main defence was that the police and the FBI had coerced testimony from the three boys that Barjona was accused of abusing. When the eldest boy took to the stand, Gregory Jackson revealed that the boy had actually gone to visit Barjona when he was in Cascade County Jail. The teen testified that he had also written to Barjona while he was in prison. He wrote, Nathan, you treated me really nice. You never harmed me in any way. I really miss you, big guy. You were like the dad I never had. Yeah, he's telling that he's protecting them. Absolutely. This is not unusual behavior for an abuse victim to protect their abuser like this or to even feel there was a relationship there or that it wasn't really

abuse. This poor child is going to be so confused about what really happened. The prosecution team though led by Brant Light submitted as evidence the thousands and thousands of photos that had been taken from Barjona's apartment which included several photos of the alleged victims. One of the younger boys told the jury about sexual sleepovers that all three of the boys took part in at Barjona's house. On the 25th of February 2002, Nathaniel Barjona was found guilty on two counts of sexual assault, felony assault and kidnapping. The jury, however, couldn't reach a verdict on the third count of sexual assault. Barjona was finally classified as a Tier 3 sex offender, and he was sentenced to 100 years for the sexual assault convictions, and a further 20 years for felony assault.

As the court judged Barjona to be beyond any form of rehabilitation, he was not given any possibility for parole. But what about little Zachary Ramsey? His name was on the list, and his body had never been found. In a bizarre twist, Rachel Howard, Zach's mum, despite Barjona telling her that he had hunted and eaten her son, is convinced still that Barjona had absolutely nothing to do with her son's disappearance. And this is because Rachel Howard was convinced that her son was still alive and living in Italy. She had seen some footage of a military base in Italy that showed a young boy that she believed to be her Zachary. Although the FBI had tried to tell Rachel

that the boy in the footage was not him, she had the information confirmed by her psychic, so she could not be swayed. Rachel Howard told police and the FBI that she was willing to testify in court, saying Barjona had nothing to do with Zach's disappearance. And because of this, Barjona was never accused of the kidnapping and killing of Zachary Ramsey. Rachel's testimony made it impossible. Brant Light said that there was no way he would be able to sway a jury with the boy's mother in the stand, saying Barjona had nothing to do with it. But Barjona was sentenced to 120

consecutive years. So additional charges for Zach Ramsey wouldn't have that much difference. But it's about justice, really. You want someone to be held accountable for what happened to him. And it's closure for Rachel Howard. Hope is such a dangerous thing, especially when it's not her son that's alive. I understand that she wants to believe that her son is still out there somewhere alive, but I don't know, I think this is such a sad part of the story. As heavy as 120 consecutive years sounds, Barjona would actually only serve two years of it, because on the 14th of April 2008,

he was found dead from a heart attack in his prison cell at six minutes past seven in the morning. And if you would like to read more about this case, there is a book by John C. Epsi called Eat the Evidence, A Journey Through the Dark Burrows of a Pedophilic Cannibal's Mind. And you can buy this book used in paperback on Amazon for £530.85. Why this book is the most expensive book in the world, I have absolutely no idea, but it is. Literally go and check it. It is 530 pounds. That's so bizarre. Maybe that's why there's not enough covered about this case because the book is so expensive. Yeah, I genuinely think that's what it is. I read the little blurb right up and it's composed after hours of interviews and

pages and pages of court fictions. I'm like, yeah, fine. Like every other true crime book. Like, why is this book 530 pounds? That's very bizarre. No idea. But that is also the very bizarre case of Nathaniel Barjona and part three of Red Handed's Halloween extravaganza. And the next two weeks are going to be very exciting because they're storytelling time. Yeah. I'll be telling Hannah, she'll be telling me. So I can't tell you, you know,

what type of cases are coming up next week because Hannah has no idea what I'm doing. I have no idea what she's doing. No, well, at the moment, Hannah has no idea what Hannah's doing. Just think of something. Just don't pick the same ones as me because I already know what I'm doing.

Yeah, all right. Goody two shoes. Jesus Christ. But no, that'll be something really exciting we're going to do for the next two weeks. So make sure you tune in next week. And apart from that, as ever, you can come follow us on all the social medias

at Red Handed The Pod. You can also go get yourself some lovely Red Handed merch if you would like to on spreadshirt.com slash redhanded. And you can also, if you'd like to go that one step further, help support the show for even just a dollar a month on patreon.com slash red handed and you can also if you'd like to go that one step further help support the show for even just a dollar a month on patreon.com slash red handed also i've had three people ask me this week how patreon works so maybe we should do a little rundown oh that's true if you go to patreon.com forward slash red handed it there's a little picture of mine and saruti the top half of

our faces and then it says become a patron if you click that you can pick how much money you would like to pledge to us per month you're under no obligation to do it when forever you can cancel it wherever you want but that money comes directly to us and we reinvest it in the show and we just completely appreciate it like you don't have to do it at all we just love the fact that you guys listen but if you want to like literally on there you can give a dollar you can give two dollars you can give five whatever you can afford and whatever you think we sort of deserve for doing it and you get the show a day early depending on how much money you pledge you get like limited edition stuff that's not available on the merch shop we're also going to start doing loads more patreon only pieces of content because we really want to say thank you to you guys for doing that

um so yeah watch this space go sign up if you'd like to we really super appreciate it and here are some people that have done so we've got marlena marlena edel zedburn ifa casey charlotte i'm an matt danielle bellucci christy fife roni la lindsey smith highlands joanna west big thank you to joanna west jill stacy natalie kidson lisette shields emin richards lisa macrin colas vinka sorenson pat broddle which brodler which pat brodler which jamie jones becky loft house kelly wally jeff and lee hamill rachel reed maya walker and danielle vela and And I also think the one you said earlier was Kirstie Fife, not Christy. Just in case. Oh, did I say Christy?

Sorry, Kirstie. Just in case Kirstie's listening. Thanks, Kirstie. Sorry, Kirstie. Yeah, absolutely. So, thanks guys and we will be back next week with a real Halloween special. Do you know what? I'm really scared because now we're under duvets. I actually feel quite apprehensive that I can't see what's in my room when we're recording duvets i actually feel quite apprehensive that

i can't see what's in my room when we're recording and i also watched hereditary last week so i'm just i'm like very honest is that the first time you've seen hereditary yeah i was really behind the times on that one i liked it up until the last 10 minutes and then i hated it i was like what the fuck did you do to this film i just i felt like it was all like suspense suspense suspense really good stuff really good stuff and then just fucking loads of stuff that didn't make sense no i i know everybody's raving about it but i really just didn't get it i didn't get it i like i really enjoyed it until the last bit yeah it was like so intense there was i went to go see it in the cinema when it came out and you know which scene i'm talking about when that scene happened I was like shit this is

gonna be the best fucking film ever and then it just was like kind of downhill and I was like you've lost me you know what film I did watch today which is a which is an old one but I can definitely recommend for some Halloween scares Eden Lake oh I think I've seen that it's really good film it's fucking terrifying watch Eden Lake a really good film. It's fucking terrifying. Watch Eden Lake if you haven't seen it. It's absolutely terrifying. There you go. There's my film recommendation for the week. You should do a spin-off podcast where you just talk about horror films.

Oh, I don't know. I get a lot of hate for the films I like. No, you don't. I don't care. But Eden Lake is great. I'm sure somebody's going to tell me it's a terrible film. It's not. It's great.

Go watch it. Fill your time with that until we see you next week. We'll see you next week for Duvet Dungeon Podcast Horror Fest. Yeah, that. All right. Bye. Bye. So get this.

The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh, fancy. She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah? 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.

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 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, 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 Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.