Small Town Murder - #103 - It's Always The Quiet Ones in Bonaparte, Iowa

Episode Date: January 24, 2019

This week, in Bonaparte, Iowa, a beloved, and affluent family is suddenly murdered in the night, leaving the entire town going crazy, and locking their doors. The killer ends up being the last person who had reason to do it, and the excuses are as weak as they get. Fights over inheritances mix with fights over being kicked out of a mediocre apartment due to drug paraphernalia. This is the quintessential small town murder!!Along the way, we find out yard sales are considered a "festival" in some places, that you can only help your kids so much, and that no matter how bad your eye sight is, you know if a member of your immediate family is killing you!!Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman New episodes every Thursday! Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com & use our email: [e-mail] Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports! Follow us on... twitter.com/@murdersmall facebook.com/smalltownpod instagram.com/smalltownmurder Also, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Bonaparte, Iowa, a well-respected affluent family is wiped out in the middle of the night. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder.

Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrogallo. I'm here with my very sick co-host. Very sickly Jimmy Wissman. Yes, indeed. Jimmy is dying, but we are going to keep him alive with a story of horrific murder. Fuck yeah. So let's do this. If he can get through this, we all can.

Let's do it. If this doesn't work, I hope they crash a plane into some mountains on my way to Seattle. Maybe. And then you can get out of this misery. We'll never have to deal with this ever again. That would be bad because you're in bad shape. This is horrible. Guys, thank you so much for hanging out with us.

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And while you're at it, if you're going, what's Crime and Sports? It's our other podcast. Listen to it. I don't know what you're doing. It came first. It birthed Small Town Murder. It's true.

And you do not, if you're like, oh, it's sports. I like you guys true and you do not if you're like oh it's sports i don't like you guys and you guys are fine but i don't like sports you don't have to like sports it's really not about sports at all it's just happened to be it's about idiots it's about it's about people like this show yeah that happen to play sports they just happen to play sports and that's how we group them into a genre same with here it's a small town you know i don't really like small towns i'm kind of a city person. It doesn't matter. You like murder stories, don't you? So shut up and listen to crime and sports, please. Please.

With that all said, we do have to do the disclaimer. I have to get that over with. This is a comedy podcast. Okay? All the story's real. All the facts, everything's real. We don't make things up for jokes. We're afraid so, exactly. Unfortunately, everything's real. We wish we made this up for jokes because we'd be, exactly. Unfortunately, everything is real.

We wish we made this up for jokes, because we'd be very creative people. We'd be the most brilliant people. But we don't. This is all real stuff. And you might say, what's so funny about murder? Lots of shit. Like everything around it. That's the thing.

And we do make jokes, though. But we make small towns, bumbling police forces, people who murder poorly and can't do it right and have a poor dismount and everything else. So there's a lot to make fun of there. If that sounds good to you, awesome. We are going to have the most fun. Please stick around. Please stick around.

It's a good time. It's just jokes. But we do. This is the thing. It's jokes. But we try not to, and we definitely don't make fun of the victim or the victim's family. That's how we do this. So that's it.

That's it. We keep kind of focusing on the murderer and people who deserve it. So we do that because we're assholes, but we're not scumbags. Yahtzee. That's how this works. Yes, sir. And we do all that. We have a good time.

So join us, and you're already here. Wonderful. But if you think true crime and comedy should never go together, you should probably take off now. If you never want to joke, take a hike. Yeah, sorry. Go on. It's a bad first date. Sorry, we're mismatched. It's alright.

It's okay. That's fine. But the rest of you, you're in the car. We're on the way to the liquor store. And you never know. If somebody accidentally sprays the little woman behind the counter's brains all over the Marlboros and the plastic vodka bottles. You're just as responsible now. You're involved. So no bitching afterwards.

Let's do this. Shout it from the rooftops and the cubicles or don't get written up. Don't get written up. If you're in a conservative office, go into a bathroom and quietly, quietly mumble it into a balled up heap of toilet paper. Say it into your elbow like you just dabbed. That's it. Say, shut up and give me murder.

Let's do it, baby. Let's go on a trip, Jimmy. Fantastic. What do you say? Let's do this. We're coming from North Carolina last week. It was a depressing time. Wow.

It was a depressing story. Those kids, that was very depressing. I really felt that all week about them. That's a depressing story. Those two kids, that was very depressing. I really felt that all week about them. That was terrible. It was for that long, that poor kid. And then when they got robbed afterwards, it's like, oh, my God, I can't get a worse story for six days straight. It's terrible.

It's awful. So shitty. I do. We feel terrible about that. And the area, too, is a very depressed, very like, you know, everybody involved was very poor. They were burning shingles and tires for heat and shit like that it was a it was tough times for romantic time for romantic time start

a fire uh use the old shingles that's oh there's a good year when it gets to put a good year on there throw that good year over there that's gonna it's better than a candle yeah it's fuck man very romantic back for those steel belts oh jesus Jesus Christ. So this week, a little bit different. We're going to Iowa. Okay. We're going to Bonaparte, Iowa, like Napoleon Bonaparte. Same spelling. This is in, it's in far southeast Iowa.

Okay. It's way down in the southeast corner, Iowa. It's very close to the Missouri and the Illinois borders. It's right there. You can go either way pretty quickly. There's an E on the end of this word? Yeah, Bonaparte. Got it.

Like the dictator, I guess. I was going to say dictator, leader. I don't know how you want to call it. Yeah, sort of. I mean, he's kind of a fucking idiot, if you think about it. Yeah, a little guy. I mean, he did have an empire. You have to have something to have an empire.

I have no empire. Taken over pretty easily, though, wasn't it? Well, sort of. But he did a lot of fighting, and then he just started fucking up a lot let's not get on we have enough to talk about right so uh this this particular bone apart uh is two and a half hours to des moines iowa very exciting you can get over there three and a half or three hours 15 minutes to st louis it's over there and two hours and 20 minutes to norwalk iowa which which is episode 40 of Small Town Murder, our last Iowa episode. It's taken us a while to get back to Iowa, and I have a couple lined up for Iowa in the

pretty near future, too. So it's like we're going to have feast and famine with Iowa over here. So Iowa's an interesting state. We're going to have fun with it. A lot of corn. The murderous feast and famine? Feast and famine on the murder here, or the murder stories, anyway, that we're distributing. It's in Van Buren County, named after Martin Van Buren.

And zip code 52620, area code 319. It is 0.37 square miles. So it's a very small town in a rural area in the corner of Iowa. Motto here, and this is the most honest motto I've heard of a town honestly, because normally they're promising more than they can deliver. It's the greatest place on earth and it's

shitbag Missouri. Yeah, something like that. This very honest, I feel like that's what they're going for. They're going to go, you know what? This is where honest people are. Motto, where dreams go to die. So, you know, that's good. I think they're going for they're gonna go you know what this is where honest people are get it uh motto uh where dreams go to die so you know that's good i think they're being it makes me feel better yeah it makes me feel better if i'm if i'm going there no town motto at all no town motto wow there's when you find out how many people here you're gonna go oh that's why they we're lucky

they pitched in for a website 0.037 or 0.37 0.37 so it's a third of a mile. Third of a square mile. That's tiny. It's a tiny town. That's like seven houses. Pretty much. Well, they cram them in there, but it's a lot outside of that. All around it is rural areas. That's the town proper.

And then there's the rural areas of like incorporated with a property we're going to talk about this week is on 445 acres. Holy shit. It's super rural right here it is middle of nowhere iowa i mean it would be amazing yeah it's it's the way you hear the life but we'll talk about this first uh van buren county was formed in 1836 it was a part of the wisconsin territory at that point and uh it was split off from des moines county which i guess you know des moines that's where they got that from named for martin vanuren, who was a president, obviously. It became a part of the Iowa Territory later on when the Iowa Territory was organized in 1838.

It was originally named Meeks Mills in the Wisconsin Territory. It was... I like that. Meeks Mills, yeah. And it's for a couple of... It's the rapper. Well, it's a couple of brothers here. Pl plural rappers not many yeah many of the meeks and like i was just superimposed photoshopped it's a weird picture to picture in your mind real

quickly martin van buren doesn't have a lot of shit named after him in this no he's got a seinfeld episode okay i mean that's good street here and boys not a good uh that's not a good string everybody knows he's the eighth president ofeld episode. Okay. I mean, that's good. He's got Street here in Phoenix. That's not a good stream. Everybody knows he's the eighth president of the United States based only on the Seinfeld episode. I only know that he is. I don't know what number he is. I just know that he is a president, and it's because he's. I know that because I remember seeing. I was thumbing through the pages when I was a kid.

He's an ugly man. That's what struck a chord with me. He looks like an ugly old lady. He is fucking hideous. He's a hideous man, Martin Van Buren. And mean, too. Bald on top and so much on the sides and back. And he was a dick, too.

He was a dick. He was known as a dick. You can tell by his face. Yeah, you can tell. Big bulbous nose. That's the look he was trying to project right there. You see George Washington, he looks, and he was a badass George Washington, but he looks He's also a piece of shit.

He looks, well, yeah, but I mean, he was like a tough badass guy and, you know, a mean guy who would, you know, he was a would you know he was a you know he could he could do war right you know what i'm saying and in his picture though he looks pretty nice he's like hey i'm gonna present myself like a decent guy i know i'm a badass whereas martin vimburin's like i'll eat your children's kidneys and you're like this is weird the only war he's playing though is like the card game because he is so fat and dumpy yeah i don't know how he won i mean he won the presidency simply by his face. They're like, we can't not vote for him.

Shit, they didn't even know what he looked like back then. You think so? Fuck no. They'd just be, no. Yeah. Back then, there was very little information disseminated. They saw the van and they were like, oh, he is royalty. Yeah.

That's, ooh, look at him. Man, ooh. He's got a van in his name. He's got two names. Look at that. So the mills here, the river, there's a big river. The Des Moines River is here. The town is founded on that.

And that was a big part of the development, obviously. We always see water breeds towns. That's how towns come about. The river mill complex was owned by the Meek brothers. Got it. So they called it Meek's Mills. And that drew businesses and residents. And they had a

woolen mill there and uh yeah so it was it was known internationally for the quality of the wool it produced oh it was known as very good wool right as uh as uh joe montana said in the money pit about uh shelly long she's good wool so this this is amazing i love it happened to her what has she i don't know that i ever understood why she stopped being in movies um she is known as a total asshole that nobody likes yeah she's known as a complete pain in the ass diva nobody likes her she's like a chevy chase basically oh fantastic minus the talent yeah if you put chevy chase medium talent medium talent that is bill murray and if you don't know the story bill the medium talent. Medium talent. That is Bill Murray. And if you don't know the story, Bill Murray attacked Chevy Chase when Chevy Chase hosted

an SNL episode when Bill Murray was a cast member. And as they were being pulled apart, Bill Murray pointed at his face and just said, medium talent, which is phenomenal. And I said immediately, it would be the biggest compliment of my life if Bill Murray called me a medium talent. That'd be amazing. I'd be like, wow. Well, if you're good and I'm medium, that's fuck. I'm getting way too much credit.

But if you think you're the greatest thing in the world because you did Fletch and the Vacation movies and Caddyshack and all those others. Those were fine. They're great movies. And then the rest of it. But the ego is inflated. Oh, yeah. You had an ego before that. Billray just brings him down with chevy chase medium talent with that accent bill chevy chase was a rich kid you know grew up on the upper east side that's what it was

crane toilet okay yeah yeah that's his uh it's his dad okay yeah yeah fucking jerk and then bill murray had like nine brothers and you know, he was not there. There came from completely different backgrounds to Chicago. Yeah, he's a good, good, funny guy. So I love when these small towns fight. This is my favorite thing ever when they like, you know, attack each other and like burn down a town hall over records and shit like that. And we need to steal the town records. They had something called the Honey War here. OK, in Van Buren County.

something called the honey war here oh okay in van buren county uh this was uh when missouri and wisconsin the territories their border came into dispute and missouri tried to collect taxes from residents uh in this area and the residents uh the residents said that they weren't allowed to tax them they already paid wisconsin exactly so it was basically like they're like they were uh like a business and like in little italy in 1917 there was conflicting they were right on the border of two mob territories he's like you're gonna pay unless you want your windows broken and he's like i already paid this fucking guy like that's not my problem i'm paying the luchases jesus christ no this is terrible the gap no watch the difference is it's wisconsin versus uh yeah missouri well i'm not as scared of them as i am

uh john gotti no i'd be scared of these residents though as we'll talk about in a second well tax agents uh from missouri tried to collect taxes in what's now van buren county and davis county and the iowa residents carrying this is amazing this is where this came from literally carrying pitchforks yes a bunch of farmers with fucking pitchforks and torches literally an angry mob from a cartoon chased away the tax collectors awesome because if a bunch of farmers are coming at you with pitchforks and torches you run you run it's my favorite scene in uh over other where art though when the little oh man walking up the street yeah and they're like is this so someone sells for me he's like who are you and then the little boy's got a fucking rifle yeah

and they're like we're here to see i'm your dad he's cousin he's like i nicked the census man they're like that's a good boy that's exactly right so it's a it's literally a scene of an angry mob of pitchfork wielding farmers and farmers. Fantastic. In overalls. Murder pants abound. This shit is crazy. Chased away the tax collectors. And then the tax collectors chopped down three honeybee trees to collect the honey for partial payment. Uh-oh. This is what we're talking about.

This will do? We'll take their honey. So that's some... They don't do that now. This will do for now. If you owe money, nobody comes over and looks in your fridge and is like, what do you got there? What do you got? Cream cheese? What do you got, a half pound of ham?

I'll take that. I like sandwiches. Cheese is expensive. Here's a fucking pound of it. What do you got, goat cheese? That's really expensive. So this Missouri governor, Lilburn Boggs, sent 11 mounted members of the 14th division of the missouri state militia under major david wilcock uh to the disputed uh border to protect the tax collectors from these people so this has

turned into like a military standoff here and for you know a militia standoff back then uh so but this general didn't wasn't going to kill people uh over this he basically said you guys need to figure this out like to the governors and congress and everybody they said i don't know we're not we're not going to fucking kill a bunch of farmers because they didn't pay you taxes and we brought peanut butter and bread yeah honey sandwiches you don't like how much honey their trees produce like sorry we're not doing this here so uh an iowa mob ended up capturing uh the sheriff of clark county missouri and incarcerated him in the jail in Muscatine, Iowa. Incarcerated the sheriff?

The sheriff of Clark County, Missouri, for trying to protect tax collectors. They kidnapped this guy or arrested him is the way they put it, captured him. The Iowa militia was also the Iowa territory governor tried to get them to stop and everything like that. The authorization for a total payment of $46 to the Missouri militia was for seven days active service, by the way, that's how much money. That's what they made a week? That's what these guys made a week here.

46 bucks. Absolutely. So then the sheriff of Van Buren County was arrested and he was jailed and he Jesus Christ and he's jailed by Missourians. Yeah. And the Missouri people were charged with stealing honey from bee trees. That's that. They charged them with a crime from the honey thing. It's very punitive back and forth. It's honey theft and each governor sent troops back and forth and nobody would fight over it yeah uh

it's pretty interesting though but according to one of the descriptions from back in the day uh quote in the ranks were to be found men are men armed with blunderbusses yep what the fuck is that that's that big gun uh okay it's like a a pirate gun like an elmer fudd gun yeah oh cool with like a mushroom tip yeah like a phonograph speaker coming out of the time okay yeah nice music and shit oh yeah daffy duck will tie one of those bitches right up and you can't shoot it then it explodes and your face turns black super messed up uh men armed with blunderbusses flintlocks and quaint old ancestral swords that had probably adorned the walls for many generations. They took the swords off the wall.

They didn't care. Whatever they could get. They didn't give a shit. One private carried a plow coulter over his shoulder by means of a log chain, and another had an old-fashioned sausage stuffer for a weapon, while a third shouldered a sheet iron sword about six feet long. So this is the mob they put together. Just a bunch of ragged farmers with whatever they pulled off the walls

in their house and out of their sheds. None of them have a potato gun. To fuck you up. I'm scared of that, though. A sausage stuffer. Those people are scary. Yeah, they mean business. I just need a weapon whatever i have will do it's not like i don't have a good gun well i'm not going it's like i'll get a piece of what's on my wall shit i'll grab that my granddaddy gave me that sword wow i'll just grab some metal off the ground and try

to slice somebody with it fucking great yeah man so they surveyed lots in 1841 and that's when they changed the name of the town to bonaparte another town site was called napoleon across the river uh which is then they never developed it though they just called that's going to be napoleon and this is going to be bonaparte on the other side of the river william meek one of the brothers was a big admirer of napoleon and he was the one that named everything here. So, yeah, the first dam was constructed in the river there for use of the mills around there. In 1846, they had a huge stonemasonry lock and a dam for the whole deal. And that's when they really thought that things were going to go well. And then the entire town flooded in 1851 as these Midwestern towns just constantly flood.

flooded in 1851 as these midwestern towns just constantly flood yeah uh and then all these projects fell through because of these floods and uh monies and money and supplies were transferred to railroad companies so they could build railroads so they could get places but uh they took it away from the water shit but anyway the railroad was good obviously then they could manufacture shit and take things away uh bonaparte continued to grow through the 1800s they had a population of almost a thousand people near the turn of the century so outstanding not too bad and then june 3rd 1903 the biggest flood ever known in the history of the des moines river occurred after a week of rain this is perfect it's 1903 every time i swear to god between 1900 and 1915 90 of america

was either flooded out or burned to the ground i swear to god it's always a fire right or a flood uh the dam they built in 1872 was completely washed away and then in 1905 there was another severe flood uh when 16 inches of rain fell in three hours. Holy shit. That doesn't even seem possible. That seems like sheets. That would have to be just water pouring solid water, not even drops of water. That's fucking crazy. But the railroad bridge and the wagon bridge were both washed out.

So that also destroyed dams and 14 buildings on Main Street. And also they had a huge fire that year, too, later on. It flooded and burned. As soon as it dries out. This is a small-town murder, you know, whatever it's called, for the double. This is perfect. This is a trifecta. This is a daily double.

I was going to say the daily double of this. Now, after that, within a five-year period, the population dropped from 969 people to 643 people. So, I mean, once half the town's messed up, people just left at that point, unless they had a lot of stake in land or something like that. From that point on, it never grew again. Really? It pretty much stopped its growth. It just started dwindling from there on out? From 1905 on, pretty much.

Yeah. The manufacturing and agricultural industries weren't that you know powerful anymore um so it's it's not terrific uh in 1986 bonaparte's downtown businesses 1986 this is uh everything started disappearing it was total like typical 80s small town towns dying john cougar mellencamp song it's just everything that's happening right here. I'm an idiot, so I just saw David Blaine making them disappear. People woke up and they're like, where'd that building go? Hey, we had buildings yesterday.

Hey, y'all, that was the movie theater yesterday. I'm not crazy, right? No, no, it was. There ain't even no rubble left. It's just gone. It's not even a footprint. It ain't even foundations gone. That thing It's just gone. Not even a footprint. Ain't even foundations gone. That thing had a basement.

That one theater was downstairs. It must be 30 feet deep, and it's just dirt. I don't know how they did that shit. No, this was just boarded up, Main Street boarded up. People were just leaving. People are leaving. Things are poor. It's not going well, basically.

So they ended up, rich people in town and things like that. They tried to develop it back. People wanted it to restore the things they had left, the downtown buildings that had historic architecture and things like that. They were trying to help things stay open. But it's been not great there. Like we said, in 1900 they had, or 1910 they had 597 people. They were trying to help things stay open, but it's been not great there. Like we said, in 1900, or 1910, they had 597 people.

That was 1910. Now, right now, they have 419 people. My Christ. So it has just stayed. It's over. Since 1940, they've never had an increase in a census of people. It's been negative, negative, negative every census since 1940. Incredible. Which is fucking bonkers.

Is there any other town like that in America? I mean, yeah, little ones in the Midwest like this. Yeah, this is crazy. We'll cover them. We'll get there. We'll find them. People in this town, it's 419, down 10% since 1990. So they're fleeing.

Median age is 34.7, which is about three years younger than the norm. Male population is almost 52%. So it's backwards of what it usually is with male and female. The ages here, zero to nine-year-olds, kids, are twice as high as the norm. And 25 to 34-year-olds is a high demographic. And then everything else is low. So it's weird. Everything else is under.

It's weird, yeah. Married population is actually under the norm. It's about 49%, but it's pretty close. Widowed's a little bit high. There's a few old people. Divorce rate's twice as high. You've got a lot of little kids and a lot of people 25 to 34. So you're going to have divorces with people that are 26 years old that have three kids and that's gonna cause fights sometimes and that's that's

what happens here uh single with no children very few of those though 3.7 percent not a party time not a party town here a lot of single with children though people almost a third of the people are single with children so uh, yeah. Race of this town. Wow. 99.25% white. Yeah. That's Iowa. That's Iowa.

0.0% black. 0.0% Asian. What? 0.0% Native American. 0.0% Hispanic. The other 0.75% is two or more races. So they have like eight people who are like part something, but also white. But insanely white.

But also super white. So it's basically 100% white. It's 100% white. And on the stat here, it says 100% non-Hispanic. Jesus Christ, which sounds like an ad for a Nazi rally. 100% non-Hispanic. Jesus Christ. Religion in this this town it's actually lower it's usually 50 50 here is 39.6 are religious so it's younger crowd is going to be less religious

normally uh methodist is the the popular religion here it's about 15 15 methodist everything else is uh pretty low uh 0.0 Jewish yeah not farming much corn here and uh 0.0 Muslim uh not surprising uh it's a pretty conservative town also uh Van Buren County itself is uh because they don't have the exact voting for this town because it's so small yeah but uh the county is 23.7 voted Democrat in the the last election 71 percent republican so it's it's pretty conservative here i would say and the last five elections have gone republican in the county presidential elections unemployment rate here is low it's about 4.3 percent normal it's about 5.2 but the money is not good yeah so they're, but working for not a lot of money. Normally, it's about $54,000 in the country, the median household income.

Here it is $36,000. So that's kind of low. That's tough. 55% of the people make under $40,000 a year. That's a lot of people that make under $40,000 a year. Too much. Most of the jobs, 35% of the jobs are manufacturing. It's usually 10%. A lot of retail trade

also, and healthcare is the rest of it. Otherwise, not a whole lot of jobs in this area. Retail. Oh, okay. Got it. Retail or trade. Retail, trade. Yeah, just stores. Just stores and shit. Overall, cost of living here, 100 being average par normal. Here it is 82.

And healthcare is extremely high it's a 123 a couple of things are high but housing is low housing is 47 out of 100 median home cost here 87 900 so it's cheap to live so you don't make a lot of money but it's it's pretty cheap to live uh most of the houses are i mean we're talking a 60 65 of the houses are worth less than 60 000 so it's yeah you buy three houses there for what you can buy a three bedroom here no let's find three of them you know what we can do we can find out because we have for you the bonaparte iowa real estate report your average two-bedroom rental here uh this goes for 780 dollars so uh that seems high for like what's about 1200 is the average but

i found three bedroom two bath 900 square foot house. It's pretty decent on the inside. It's a nice yard and things like that. $76,500. So, you know, reasonably priced. I found another house here. Four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, 3,300 square feet. Lots of room and everything. It needs updating.

I mean, it looks like someone decorated it in 1991 in iowa so you need to do something to it but 94 100 bucks it's a big house for that deal and wait till you hear this one eight bedroom two bath which is weird uh 4300 square feet it needs work there's a lot of wallpaper here that is not good. It's steam. It hasn't been decorated since 1983. It looks like is when they like did the kitchen and all that kind of shit. One hundred and nineteen thousand one hundred fourteen dollars, though. So for a forty three hundred square foot house, the Brady Bunch house, it's well, that's smaller.

That's half the size of that. The Brady Bunch. Yeah, it's twenty five. Well, that's small. But compared to this one, it's sold for 90 000 in uh january of 2018 wow this big house if you bought it then you got 30 grand equity you got something you're crushing it you're crushing babe uh but things to do are very important here they have the bone apart fall festival that is all they do here uh it's part of the scenic drive festival and uh they have fall city city-wide yard sales

are part of the festival part of your festival is yard sales no are you out of your fucking mind that's not a festival it's a flea market clean your basement out and sell your shit in your lawn and that's a festival no that's do that shit on a random saturday and let's have some fun if you left it out there and went inside it just looked like you're all white trash that's do that shit on a random Saturday. Let's have some fun. If you left it out there and went inside, it just looked like you're all white trash. That's all it is here. Inflatables fun for the kids. I don't know what that means. Bouncy houses, I guess.

Just put bounce house on their vendors. Jukebox, jukebox, jukebox, vittles to food wagon. Jukebox vittles. That's the name of it with corn dogs funnel cakes etc who's eating at that fucking thing people from iowa vittles these people yeah it's called vittles get the fuck away i don't want it uh crime rate in this town what we're interested in damn it uh property crime here is about 20 high yeah it's a little high uh for for a small town like this violent crime murder rape robbery

and of course assault the mount rushmore of of crime uh is 25 percent high it's pretty high here for a small town but that could be last year two extra things happen when they also know who did it that's the thing when you're dealing with less than 500 people in the town any stats we give you are i mean it's hard to get an accurate reading on what it is because it's there's not enough of a group to even focus on it's you can't pinpoint shit here but welcome to the small town of chinook where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper in this new thriller available exclusively on wondery plus religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community.

Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership

to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan

and Star Wars Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife. Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you The Official Jinx Podcast. We'll be revisiting all six episodes of Part 1 and watching along with Part 2

as it airs on Max, starting April 21st. Bye-bye. The Official Jinx Podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about a murder that happened in this town. This is interesting here. Let's talk about a family first.

Let's talk about a nice family. Why don't we? Let's talk about first Michael and Sandra Bentler. They're a couple. They're married. They're married for years. They have a nice family. They live in Iowa.

They're very white, as you might imagine. 0.0%. Anything else here? But they're very successful. They have a nice business. They own their own business. They have a very successful lumber yard and a grain elevator business, which I got to admit, I'm a little jealous here. Because since I was a little boy, just a little boy,

you know, I'd sit in my bed in New York at night and I would watch like a Yankee game and other kids were dreaming about being Don Mattingly. They were dreaming about being, you know, Lawrence Taylor, things like that. I sat there and I said, you know what I want? I just wish I had my own grain elevator business because, you know, I see all this grain everywhere and I'm like, where's it going? Someone needs to put it on a different floor from where it is now somebody's got to get it to the top of that silo and i need to be the guy to do it i think because i don't think anyone else could do it like me and uh and it never came true i'll be honest with you i ended up doing this and this is fine this is i mean it's it's good it's a living and it's you know i'm just okay it's sort

of a passion and everything get to hang out with you and it would have been a nice nice sales pitch though by the time you figure out how to pronounce my name, I'll have all that grain elevated. Top floor, baby. But I look at this, though, and I'm like, you know, I think about it now, and I'm like, this would be so much better if we did this show, but in the background, faintly, outside, you'd hear a grain elevator rising to the top floor. I feel like I'd feel more fulfilled. Anybody complained about it, but that's my fucking grain elevator i got a business to run listen here people be like oh

okay that sounds important i guess i don't know because no one knows what that is and why grain elevator it's amazing uh so 1987 they're so successful we'll talk about their family in a moment here but in 87 they're so successful they have talk about their family in a moment here but in 87 they're so successful they have they they have 445 acres of property that's their that's their property and that's a lot of property by the way 445 acres that's a neighborhood that's just a gated community oh a huge one too that just goes on forever i mean those are like third like a big gated community there's like you a quarter acre lots and shit. Think about that.

So 445, it's like 1,600 houses in a gated community. That's a lot. That's a huge area. Plop that house right in the center of all that shit. That's what they do. Run out a fucking trot line and a fence. You know, they build a 4,000 square foot home here. A 4,000 square foot home that overlookss the des moines river it's on a bluff and everything it's up on a hill and i mean it's they're not fucking around this is this is as

good as they could do it's a five bedroom three bathroom two car garage and pool and hot tub and all the amenities you could want if you're a successful 1987 person i'm sure coke mirrors everywhere sure just you know in you know, in the dresser so you could really chop it up well. Let's get that little plastic case on. We have no proof any of these people did drugs. They seem like very upstanding people that were not doing hard drugs at all.

But, I mean, it's a big, beautiful house. Everybody says it's like a Norman Rockwell painting. It's like this is, you know, middle America dream of like this big house on your property and your own business and all this type of shit, you know middle america dream of like this big house on your property and your own business and all this type of shit you know uh nice though and they've updated it over the years too they kept it going they put in stainless steel and granite they're very much into the house uh basically they're they they he built it michael oversaw the building of the house

and the planning of the house and was all about details and wanted his family and sandra too wanted their family to have a nice house and uh so they really really go go off on this goddamn house uh they have four kids uh here now uh michael has or i'm sorry uh yeah michael has other children from a previous marriage he has other children from a previous marriage. He has a child from a previous marriage. So he has more than four? He has more than four. He has a son from a previous marriage. But I'm so sorry.

Sandra has a son from a previous... Did I say Michael? Yeah. I'm sitting here going... I'm picturing a woman and saying Michael. Sandra, the mother, she has a son from a previous marriage. She has five kids. She has five kids.

But then there's four kids total in the house that live here. Got it. Firstborn is the oldest named Sean with a W, with an H and a W, not the scene variety. So Sean is the oldest. And then they have three daughters after that. Yeah. All daughters for the rest. They have Sheena, Shelby, and Shane are the daughters.

So, yeah, they enjoy all of the names start with sh got it they're all they're all that spelling so yeah my grandparents did that shit with k's yeah it's a neither of them are named k and they just named my mom kelly and then from then on out everybody got a k kathy with a k oh well yeah karen and kenny it's actually karen it's karen and they call her kathy no no there's karen and kathy with a k oh well yeah karen and kenny is that's katherine it's actually karen it's karen and they call her kathy no no there's karen and kathy her name is karen and kathy just straight kathy straight up kathy okay bang with a k bang take kathy deal with that shit kathy in that ass motherfucker enjoy that for the rest of your life take that kathy that's brutal jesus sorry anybody out there named kathy yeah you must be very sad that's what jimmy's

saying my uncle got kenny oh no kenneth it's actually kenneth everybody else has like i mean i guess karen's a real name yeah well yeah you're jimmy yeah well my mom's kelly with a fucking e kelly with an e i e no just an e k-e-l-l-e that's brutal man did they run out of ink or something right now the kelly forgot how to smell my pen died fuck it that says e the people figure it out they know that's kelly uh you two they know we mean kelly never mind shit i like it i give your grandparents the panhandle accent i don't know why that is well because they named their kid kelly with a fucking e and nothing else hot piece of ass martha that's why martha man she's a hot piece that's a hot piece. That's a crime and sports reference. Listen to crime and sports and you'll understand

why Martha's a hot piece of ass, as we would say. That's Jimmy's grandmother. It's a long story, honestly. It's not as weird as it sounds. It really isn't. So, yeah, this whole beautiful home.

He's got four kids. It's a picturesque environment for what people what people want uh the the bentler family is doing fine uh sean uh i'm sorry jesus christ yes sean yeah the older one all these names i'm like i was gonna say shane and then i'm like no sean and shane's a girl okay so we have to know the girl sheen's a girl. Sheena's a girl. And Shelby is also a girl. Got it. So Shane, the oldest one. Shane. God damn it.

God damn it. Sean. Sean's the son. This is what happens, Michael. Yeah. This is what happens when we do this. Stop doing this. So Sean, the son, the oldest child, he grows up, went to Harmony High School in Bonaparte.

Grew up in Bonaparte. Never has any trouble. The son, he's a nice kid. Everybody says he's a nice kid. He ran track in high school. He was in his senior class, or his class in high school, 40 kids. Wow. 40.

That's awesome. 40. You can stand out there. Dude, the school probably has 150 people in it. Can you imagine going there? I might have a chance of being valedictorian there. You might have a chance of being the quarterback on the football team there jimmy there's 40 kids in the whole class 150 kids there you this is awesome i went to a high school with like you know 2,500

kids there's a lot of 2,000 kids there's a lot of kids that's about seems to limit the stuff into one building before we'll riot before we don't want to get any more of that, any more than that together. Don't take over this place. They could burn this place to the ground and overrun us, basically. It's like a jail. It's the same thing. It's overcrowding limits. We can only control this many of them on one property.

They had 30 kids in a class. Oh, God, yeah. 34, 32. Oh, shit, yeah. I think my biggest class had 36 in a class. That's a lot of fucking kids my biggest class i had 36 in a class i remember a lot of fucking kids that's a lot to to hurt too many i remember kids like we didn't have enough chairs in certain classes and kids would sit on the heaters on the side of the class like by the windows yeah i was like this is not okay just like ledges where there was like cubby things

yeah i wonder why most of us aren't going to be successful. Weird, right? That's strange. Isn't this odd? Strange thing. And then they go to- They're doing great. And to map out your high school career, go see a person that doesn't know you and knows fuck about you. Or give two shits about you. Or care about you. Right.

If there's 40 kids in your class, the guy does know you. He's probably had dinner at your house. He probably knows you well. He was probably there when you were born. I feel like this is crazy. It was 400 people. He almost fucked your mom this close this close you probably might have he probably took her to some harvest dance back in the 12th grade or something he felt her up a little bit but you know it didn't work out you know there's there's conflicting stories about how far it went

you know what i'm saying there was a Ferris wheel involved and a funnel cake. It's very creepy. Now, every Fourth of July, they don't even make eye contact. Nope. It's very weird. Whatever the fuck they do with the festival there, the Bonaparte Festival, they attended yard sales. He doesn't come by buying anything at their yard sale. No, definitely not.

It's just bitter memories. That's all he'd be buying at that yard sale. But the parents here, Michael and Sandra Bent bentler were well respected uh both of them were always at all their children's activities if they had a you know a concert or something like that they were there a track meet both parents were there cheering being good parents they supported their kids they took care of their kids uh you know they did they did a good job uh raising their kids basically uh they tried anyway anyway they did their best now Sean bentler in 2002 he get moves out gets his own place he's about 19 years old at

this point he gets his own place he gets a moves in with a with another guy he moves in with another guy his roommates obviously it's what people do they move into the trace apartments in Quincy, Iowa in the summer of 2002. And Sean attends John Wood Community College. Fuck yeah. So, you know,

he's going to live a 19-year-old lifestyle. He's going to live in an apartment with two other dudes and go to community college. No shame in that. Try to get some chicks, drink beer at night,

you know, be a jerk off, whatever. You know, who the hell knows what he's doing. College records show that sean dropped out uh before in november of his first semester what so he lasted two months yeah two to three months is best september yeah that's that's it and he's gone so didn't even make it the first semester of community college is a little too much for him uh it's a little much but but maybe I understand why, because it's right around this time that

Sean has a daughter with a woman named, a woman, a kid at that point, Christ, they're both 19 years old or something, named Kasha Pickard. Yeah. So he has a daughter named Chloe at that point. So now he's got a responsibility. So maybe no time for community college. That's basically 19 years old. Jesus.

Yeah. His whole his whole plan went right out the window. He had a plan. Yeah. He had a plan. He grew up watching like Spring Break on MTV. He's the right age for that. And he sat there and he's like, I'm going to do that someday.

And not maybe not in Iowa. But my first step is get my own apartment. I'll fly down to Miami one day. I could do it. Yeah. You know, I'll just save up some cash. You know, me and my guys over here. Head out to San Diego.

There's going to be so many chicks there. It's going to be awesome and rocking. And then next thing you know, you're still in a rural Iowa apartment complex paying child support to a woman named Kasha. Like the breakfast cereal. Like another Seinfeld reference. kasha like the uh like the food like the yeah like uh another seinfeld reference but i just picture jerry stiller offering george the kasha with the fork it's so funny so anyway so they have a daughter named chloe now uh uh he ends up he lives in the trace apartments for a while we'll find out what happened there and then he moves into sean moves into an apartment uh a different apartment in

quincy also in quincy iowa out of trace out of out of the trace apartments into a different apartment in may of 2003 so not quite a year he lives in at the trace apartments here and uh he lives there for a couple of months with a guy named Nathan Allen there. Now, it turns out, and he moves in in May of 2003. By August, Sean Bettler is asked to leave by Allen. What? He's asked to leave by August because he wasn't paying rent. So that's a reason to evict somebody.

He's like, you know, we're supposed to be roommates, and I'm paying the rent. Also, he found a weed pipe in the apartment, which I mean, loosen the fuck up, dude. It's 2003. He's got a weed pipe. He's got a weed pipe. This smells like marijuana. Holy shit. He's got a weed pipe.

In 2004? Jesus. Relax, man. Jesus Christ. Good Christ. And the guy even says, didn't he didn't smoke pot in the apartment but he did have paraphernalia that's one of the reasons i had to make him leave he never smoked it up there in his room what he did on his own time was his business yeah so why are you throwing life while he didn't pay rent also you say paraphernalia i already know that you're

a fucking nerd yeah it's yeah just say pipe yeah he had a bowl up in his room damn it he packed it up at night no but uh what he did on his own time was his business. But I feel like that would have been the case if he paid rent. Right. That's the problem. It's more of like you don't pay rent and you seem to smoke weed, but you don't pay rent, though. Right. You don't have money for rent, but you have money for this shit.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So it's one of those things. So, yeah, he ends up asking him to leave. But he didn't say he was a piece of shit or anything. He just said he was bad at paying rent. It was a problem. While he lived there, while Sean lived in this apartment, he was employed at Home Depot at the time.

So he worked at Home Depot, which for a 20-year-old guy, it's not a bad job. It's stable. You know, they pay decent wages, actually, always. Decent hourly wage. And they always have benefits. So if you're a young father who's 20 years old and have nothing to offer the world in terms of skills or education, it's not a bad job to get. And it's Iowa, too. Everybody's needing whatever you've got there.

Plus, rural Iowa, your options are kind of limited. It's not a full plethora of a smorgasbord of employment to choose from. At least you're working with the one with the cool NASCAR. That's cool, yeah. It's the orange one, man. Tony Stewart wins. Oh, baby. And he had a girlfriend at this time also.

So, I mean, he's got a job, an apartment, and a girlfriend. So, for a few months there, it looks like on the up and up. Promising as fuck. He's doing fine. I mean, i'm sure his parents are like jesus christ we wish he'd be doing better uh wish he would you know be in college and not have impregnated somebody or maybe but whatever they'll take this he's doing okay uh the roommate alan said quote he had that job but he called in sick a lot

bentler also worked at lowe's for about four months the competitor i don't know if i don't think it was at the same time uh but i mean he went from back to back like well i do have a home depot experience and they were like do you now well top of the pile with that application he's the tony stewart race he's he's got a i bet he's got orange boxer shorts on we should give him the job i feel like he knows what he's doing orange boxer shorts on. We should give him the job, I feel like. He knows what he's doing. You went from 2003 Tony Stewart race car over to Lowe's. Was that Jimmy Johnson then?

It may have been. I don't know. I have no fucking idea about that. Shortly thereafter, 2003, because Tony Stewart fucking whatever. You can say what you want. He fucking killed the guy. Yeah. That I know about.

The dude jumped out of the car to go fight him and Tony Stewart ran him over. Ran him over, which if you did that in the street, what would happen? So then right after that, the Lowe's team started winning.

Maybe it's all Sean's luck. Oh, Sean. Sean brought Team Lowe's to the winner's circle. You know what? I think he brought the Home Depot spirit there is what it is.

He brought the spirit. He walked into that job interview cocky. Yeah. You know, he did too. He sat down. He's like, crossed his legs. He's like, I already know how to make a key. And they were like, oh, never mind.

Okay. When can you start? He's like, that's what I thought. And he just walked out. I have ripped a two by four. Yeah. Yeah. Can you hire me?

He walked out and they're like, well, we'll let you know. He's like, well, I'll talk to you soon then. And he just left. And they watch him walk out that little door, the one that slides open on its own. Yeah. Because at Home Depot, I think you got to push them open. Are they? In Iowa.

Oh, in Iowa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In Iowa, you got to push the door. Yeah. But in Lowe's, the door opens by itself. And as soon as they close, he's like, Bill, come here. That boy. That boy.

He knows it. He knows how to rip two by fours. Oh, we're going to have to. And I don't want to i don't want to inflate your ego about what you're gonna have the new employee makes keys he knows knows it what first day in and out up and down day one knows we put him on the key cutter he's whipping up keys like nobody's business boy day one day one put him on the quick set ain't even got to train him boy we got the same damn system as as home depot do we. Put him on the quicksand. Ain't even got to train him, boy. We got the same damn system as Home Depot do.

We just put him on there. Boom. Day one, baby. Done. You know how. Cletus is terrible at that shit. He makes fucked up ass keys. People come in and complain and say they can't get into goddamn houses.

They keep coming back. Come on now. We're bringing this guy in here. So, yeah. Now, while working at Lowe's in Quincy, worked there for about four months. A fellow employee there described him as quiet. Sean Bentler, he said, quote, he was always very well-dressed when he came to work. You're the kind of guy. So, yeah, he's quiet and well-dressed.

Good for you. Stay in the corner. It's the end of my life. Mind your own goddamn business. Sounds like a good guy. I got paraphernalia. Can you come outside with me? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, his one friend here, Gratz is his last name. He says that at this point, Sean Bentler moved to Mount Pleasant, Iowa. This is in 2003, and this is to work for his father. So now Sean is going to work for his father, Michael's business. Elevating that grain. He's elevating some grain. Raising the roof. This is the lumber business is what he's doing here.

And they said that Sean made good money this time. He would help him. I guess they said he would help him with whatever shit they did for houses. Because he was like a builder to his dad. He did lumber and he would actually cut the lumber and build houses with it. And he's the boss's son. So he can get a better rate than everybody else. That's the thing.

Great money. Yeah, so he was helping his dad with that. He was learning the ropes, basically, of how to be the main guy of a construction slash lumber slash grain elevating outfit. You keep elevating like that, you're going to own this, boy. Son, let me tell you something. You're a natural. It's in your genetics to raise grain up an elevator, because I thought I was good at it but uh you could you could be better is what i'm saying you could be

like the peyton to my archie right so uh don't cry boy do you like eli better you like either come on so he's good too it's all right he was good at one point for about five minutes for about a five minute period in a super bowl Twice. Twice. He picked good times to do it. So he ended up, this lasted from 2003 into early 2005. This is this job here. For some reason, he leaves the job with his dad. We're not sure why. His friend said he made good money at that point,

and he was doing well, and comes back and ends up moving back to Quincy in early 2005 and living with this Gratz guy and another guy in an apartment. And at this point, also, he had a bunch of traffic violations and all that sort of shit. You know, he was kind of being a jerk off a little bit here and there. Yeah, yeah. He's 20. At this point, he's like 22. Right.

But he's got issues that 22-year-old kids have. He's a community college dropout. Yeah. What do we expect? Yeah. He's trying to do that. He's doing his best. And his friend, the roommate, Gratz, here, he says that he doesn't have any idea why

Sean moved back to Quincy. He said he doesn't understand it. I guess, uh, at this point, his father had like expanded his business. He had several lumber businesses and he had a whole, he had an empire. His dad was doing really well.

Uh, his friend said that Sean didn't seem to have any of the, he wasn't motivated like his dad and he didn't have any of the business savvy like his dad. He was just kind of the, the pool, the genetic pool thinned a bit in that end is one of those things i mean he's a 22 year old who smokes weed give him a little bit that's the thing you give him time but also it's a lot of times it's just the way it is i mean to have that

sort of thing and have all these businesses you have to have a certain drive that pushes you to go do things every day and really break your balls and not everybody has that and it's just the way it is and a lot of times too if you're raised kind of you know in a nice environment and have everything easy for you archie manning does have three sons yeah it's there you go does not play in the nfl i think he's a coach i think he's small though that's why no he's i think he's bigger than the other two he's just a fucking giant problem jesus christ he should be embarrassed he did really well in in some business but it's because he should be embarrassed if he's a manning and he hasn't.

No, embarrassed. Embarrassed. I don't even want to hear it. He is their Sean. So he is. He's their Sean. So his friend here, the Gratz guy, his roommate said, quote, I do know that he felt he had a lot to measure up against when it came to his family.

So he did feel pressure from his family as just to live up to what they expect. And, you know, they're they do well. And he wants to be like that also. May of 2006, Sean is arrested in Quincy for possession of drug paraphernalia. He had it was a weed pipe. He had a damn pipe. He had a pipe. So this pipe has gotten him in way too much trouble.

Yeah. He really needs to just learn how to roll a fucking joint or a blunt or something or like that shit out the window get rid of it when it's done and yeah smoke it down and then toss it don't even keep the roaches put it on some water and eat it yeah that's do your thing man because uh this pipe is getting you you're having problems here but he's trying to he's trying to make it last i mean that's what he's got to parse it out a little bit so i understand where he's coming from we've all been there we've all been there. We've all been there. Plus, you know, this is also 2006.

This is before, you know, places had dispensaries and shit like that. If he runs out, he's in the middle of Iowa. He can scrape the ball. That's true. You know, he's going to smoke some resin. Hey, you know what? You can be mildly stoned and have a headache for an hour. It's better than nothing, I guess, if you're in the middle of Iowa and you work at Lowe's.

Better than sober in Iowa. So he's arrested for that in May. And then September 19th, he has a court date and he misses the court appearance. So he blows off a court appearance for the charge, which that you can't do. No. Can't do that. At this point, or around this time, after May of 2006, around the time of the weed, the big bowl bust that he had. That cop must have been proud of himself.

I got it, everybody, calling it in on the radio. It's a big one. He's a trafficker. He slightly looks Cuban. I think he might be a Colombian or some sort of South American or something. There is damn near a gram in this. It's the mother load he's it's a half a burnt bowl it's no the whole top is now he didn't even burn it a little at a

time so he could get a green hit every time he just burns the whole top he's an impatient asshole but it's just i hate when people do that is the torch too oh you son of a bitch he just destroyed it all now now it's all gonna taste like ashtray i know it is he messed it all up all. Now it's all going to taste like ashtray. I know it is. He messed it all up. So anyway, it's at this point he's selling used cars. Oh, no. So he's moved on to selling used cars, which it's odd that he goes from like, I feel it's almost like he worked at like Lowe's and Home Depot, which are, you know, take this, move it over there, help this guy take this shit to the car.

Then he went to work with his dad and he wasn't like, you know, on the lumber team or anything. He was like in the office. So I feel like he got it in his head. Like, I can't, I'm not doing like labor anymore. I'd rather, no, I'm done with it. I'd rather put a collar on. Yeah. And I've been, I've been wearing a very nice Oxford for the past few months.

I got a whole, I got a bunch of khakis now. Like, what am I supposed to do? No, I got a bunch of khakis now. Like, what am I supposed to do? I can't wear those to Lowe's. No. I got a whole bunch of khakis. Like, I'm not doing this. They're real nice ones, too. These aren't even dockers.

Not even. No, no. They're nice. These are nice. I didn't go to fucking JCPenney on this. I went to Macy's. It's a totally different deal. There was a fucking lady with a measure and everything.

Oh, I got measured. Yeah. She knows. My dick's in. Right around. Right to my ankle. That's it. She knows the got measured. Yeah, she knows. My dick's in. Right around. Right to my ankle. That's it. She knows the width of my taint.

Right. So... See my welt. Jesus Christ. He's selling... He sold used cars at Schottenkirk and Neal Coleman in Quincy.

I don't know. How many people do they need to buy a dealership? Schottenkirk and Neal Coleman. Apparently two. Schottenkirk and Neal Coleman are two people they need to buy a dealership. Shot and Kirk and Neil Coleman is apparently two. Shot and Kirk and Neil Coleman are two people they need to sell cars. There's only one Shot and Kirk in that town, but there's a few Colemans. You've got to specify.

Which Coleman? It's Neil. You know Neil. No, Shot and Kirk and Neil Coleman are two just separate used car dealerships. Oh, okay. Neil Coleman has one. Then Shot and Kirk has his own. Got it. He's got his own business over there.

He's fired from both jobs at this point. I can relate. He's not doing well. Yeah, as a 22-year-old, he's just not doing a great job making his way. He's fired from every job I've ever had. It happens. Yeah. It's fine.

You're on thin ice here. You know what I mean? It could happen. No, I'm just kidding. No. We're going to fire each other. I fully expect it. This job, the job that I work, I got fired from it, too.

The normal job. I get fired from everything. Yeah, your day job. You got it back, though. But that was temporarily fired. Whatever. It was for some. Yeah.

That's what happens. Who knows about tomorrow? Who knows? That's what I mean. Jesus Christ. This is nice because we can't be fired from this. This is true. We do this.

So you can't fire us. We'll still keep making it. I'll do it. I don't care if no one listens. I'll show up. I'll do it on spite punch this fucking clock on fucking spite i'll make this show and put it out with you me and you will do this shit on spite and put it out if people don't want it i don't care you don't like it well here it is again that's right yes what it's thursday again it's like but here it comes oh bend over and open up bitches because here it

comes small town murder right up the old poop because here it comes. Small town murder. Right up the old poop chute. Here it comes, guys. Let's get it on. Anyway, he told, while he was trying to plea for his job with Neil Coleman, you know, Neil's a taskmaster. When Neil fires you, you stay fired. That's actually the town motto of Bonaparte. When Neil Coleman fires you, you stay fired. That's actually the town motto of Bonaparte. When Neil Coleman fires you, you stay fired.

He tells old Neil here that his father died of a heart attack. So that's why he's been so loopy. Oh, my God. He goes, my dad's dead. He had a heart attack. And they go, we don't care. You're fired. And his dad is not dead of a heart attack.

Michael is fine. He has not had a heart attack. Thank God. He. Michael is fine. He has not had a heart attack. Thank God. He's 100% fine. He used that as an excuse of why he was a shitty employee. His dad's dead. My dad died, so my head hasn't been in the game, and I don't show up sometimes, and I smell like weed most of the time.

Sounds like he showed up to plead for his job high as fuck. Probably. Oh, I'm sure he did. Well, you got it when you plead for a job. What are you going to go in there sober? You got to be like, listen, man, I don't know. You got to be kind of chill about it. It takes them taking a stand and standing on their ground.

It makes it a little easier to digest when you've got a head full of weed. That's probably. I would think so. The no is going to be easier. Why he was fired here. Apparently, he was fired in late September at work. fired here uh apparently uh he was fired in late september uh at work they just told him you have to go home now because a fellow neil coleman employee saw sean drinking in a bar while he was uh supposed to uh uh i guess he was supposed to be working too but that wasn't that wasn't the

problem that wasn't the issue uh apparently this employee offered condolences about his dad yeah because apparently they were like listen you got to straighten up and he's like look my dad just died and they were like oh shit we're sorry that's understandable just you know pull it together and we totally understand it whatever so he goes out to a bar and he's drinking and uh another employee comes sees him and he's like holy shit dude sorry about your dad and sean replied quote i was never that close to him anyway. Oh, my God. So that's all he said. Now, meanwhile, that's a lie.

And his dad's not even dead. You just worked for your dad like four months ago, bro. That's the thing. Yeah. He lies. He has some lying that he does to just last 22 year olds do 23 year olds. But he's trying to make himself sound better than he is. Like the Gratz guy, the roommate said that sean liked his job selling cars actually

because he was good at talking to people and shit like that but he also said that sean would lie about about how that he was doing well he would lie and say he was doing well when he wasn't yeah he would say uh quote uh almost every day he would come home and say i sold a car today but then i'd ask him for rent money or help or for help with the bills. And he'd say it all went to child support. So he. Yeah. How much do you make on a car, man? You need to start selling these a little higher.

I mean, they're used cars, but still, you think you'd make something here. It's your commission. Apparently, the Michael and Sandra, the parents would come to Quincy once in a while to visit. They bring him food or they take him shopping for food. Like they literally go there, pick him up, take him to the store, and he'd come home with a couple of shirts and a bunch of groceries. They'd take him shopping like, hey, let's drop in and do a— Let's go wipe Sean's ass.

Yeah, that's a great way to put it. That's pathetic. Let's go start Sean's orange and then we'll fucking get back here. So, yeah, that's basically what he would do. would do bring him a bunch of cuties and start them all just you they could leave them in the fridge like that so you can have them later wow uh yeah so apparently they they said they take him shopping uh in early september the the michael and sandra met uh sean at a at a park reservoir park in quincy. Sean and the Gratz guy and some other people were there playing tennis, apparently. And the parents came to see him and visit and everything.

And everything was nice. Gratz said, quote, they brought him a cooler of pulled pork and turkey. Jesus. Jesus Christ. His parents were nice people. They would have helped him at the drop of a hat. They brought him a cooler of pulled pork and turkey. Get to eating, boy.

That's schools in two days. That sounds awesome. How would you like to be out doing something and have people just come to where you are with coolers full of pulled pork and turkey? Doesn't that sound awesome? I want that life. That sounds pretty nice. Jesus Christ, that sounds great.

And you get to be high all the time. You're super stoned being brought brown surprise pulled pork. That sounds great. He's a sultan, James. He's living like a fucking sultan. He is. He's living like Uday and Kuse Hussein in their heyday. So you live in a palace, damn it.

Apparently, though, the roommate here, Gratz, he said that Sean was uncomfortable living off his parents. roommate here grats he said that sean was uncomfortable uh living off his parents he said they said he sean kind of tried to distance himself from them a little bit because it made him uncomfortable that he everything he did on his own he fucked up he always needed their help he always had to go to them and he thinks maybe that's why he left working for his dad like that from why my parents have never done shit for me so now it's pretty nice i i feel i feel zero beholdenness to either of them because i'm like you're lucky i'm alive you fucking let me wander like a fucking like i was feral are you kidding me i bought a house when i was lucky i'm here and uh the like the fourth month i was in it i had an abscess in my throat oh god i woke up in

the middle of the night because it fell over and I couldn't breathe. It fell over. Jesus Christ. You've told me about that. That's awful. So then I went to the doctor, had it cut out or whatever. And then my mother picked me up. And then the numbness wore off while I'm in line waiting on my prescription. Then I'm 23 standing there with my mother.

And I just started bawling like a bitch. I couldn't take it. I was like, this is what I'm reduced to. I'm an adult and bought a house. I can't take care of myself. I need my fucking mother standing here. And I'm reduced to. I'm an adult and bought a house. Yeah. I can't take care of myself. I need my fucking mother standing here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm in pain.

And I just cried. But you still, you had other things together. I feel like he had all of that. Plus, then he'd say, can you buy me some pulled pork and turkey also? Because you probably had pulled pork at home. I could have if I wanted. If you want. Whatever food you wanted, you could have had.

Whereas, it's just everything with him. It's not just emotional support. That's like a tough moment you are in brutal and you're young too so you don't know am i gonna like such a failure i'm like i can do everything in life except take care of this disgusting body well it happens i we still feel like that i still feel like that i still feel like i'm sick today so what's going on i haven't learned my lesson calling your mom on the way home? Crying into her ear. Yeah, definitely. Mom, I got a fever.

What the fuck am I supposed to do? What do you want from me? Can I get you a Cadillac? Because that's what I do. Well, now she'll give me some old people remedy and be like, put some garlic cloves in water and microwave it. Yeah, and take Airborne. Thanks.

Garlic? What are you talking about? It's called garlic tea. It's good for you. I read it on yeah my blood pressure is fine calm the fuck down dr oz told me thanks i'm good i don't need him i give my mom a jewish new york accent that's perfect i love that western woman what are you doing over here jimmy she's one of those ugly upstate new york

accents oh yeah it's a good one. The nasally ones. It's damn near Buffalo. It's really bad. Ooh, yikes. It's ugly. Ooh, man. So pleasant. So the roommate said about Sean, quote, he didn't want to look bad in the eyes of his

parents. He wasn't the type of person to ask for help. So he was trying to make his way on his own, but he just, you know, he's got 23-year-old problems, and he's got a kid to fucking deal with, to take care of, and he's got child support, and he's trying to pay rent. Normal. All of this is super normal so far. Ten years. This is almost like check back in ten years.

If this is still happening when he's 33, he's a problem. He should be 33 and look back on this and be like, I can't believe that was me one day. I was a mess when I was younger. Everybody was. You were in line crying with your mom. It all happens, man. It all happens. Now, October of 2006, I guess it's at this point he starts to get to know his younger daughter because he had a baby.

He had another child with a different woman, a woman named Lexi Leslie. Why would you name your kid? That's probably Alexis. She probably was Lexi. But Lexi Leslie. woman a woman named lexi leslie why would you name your kid that's probably alexis and she probably likes you but lexi leslie uh she he has a baby with her uh named uh avali a v a l e y okay i don't know what that is avali whatever that has a has a daughter there so he's got a one-year-old daughter in october of 2000 avali avali maybe i don't know white people with their stupid fucking kid names that's a weird one that's a tough one i hope that was like a family name or something like maybe that might have been like

her grandmother's name i'm hoping or we never know avery leslie maybe she just got like a lisp and tried to say avery and the doctor put an l sure we'll put that there you go don't worry about this sure well kelly it happens it happens so so he's been so this whole time now he's had a second kid so he's had these jobs at these selling cars and he can't make a go time now, he's had a second kid. So he's had these jobs selling cars, and he can't make a go of it. And he's got child support for two kids to deal with. And apparently, he wasn't the best dad to his one-year-old here in the beginning. But he was trying to become a better father. He was seeing his daughter more often, and he was trying to pay child support. He was paying whatever he could trying to he was seeing his daughter more often and he was

trying to pay child support he was paying whatever he could and he was making an effort uh i guess they broke up lexi and sean broke up when she was two months pregnant uh but and he wasn't really around much at all and then the last few months he's been trying to get his shit together here in may of 1980 near anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott?

From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Erin and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart.

And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing.

This mother f***er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes,

you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts.

I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like a liar.

Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. She also said that he tried to keep up with his payments when he was employed and she would get payments pretty much whenever he could. So he wasn't just like disappearing for three months and not giving her anything. If money didn't show up, it's because he didn't have it. And he would be like, I know I you 600 well i have 400 i'll just

give you can i give you 400 and i'll give you another 200 another time when i get it when i get it he was you know like people do they scrape scrape shit together uh so the mother of his other daughter uh at this point the caution uh kasha pickard she said that he has not seen his four year old girl chloe at that point in a long long time so he had completely stopped seeing her um she she went and got married and all that and and everything and because he stopped paying child support too uh and everything she ended his uh every other weekend visits a while ago and he never really like pursued it so he just kind of shirked away from that.

That is crazy. Yeah. So apparently he was trying with the one-year-old as of September. And who knows if he was going to try, if he's maybe going to try to get in good graces with the other one here in a while here. So October 13th, 2006. So it's late at night here on the 13th. six so it's late at night here on the 13th and uh sean uh is at uh his house in quincy where his roommate uh his roommate sees him uh late night 11 30 ish you know there's a little discrepancy on what time but 11 30 as she sees him hanging out at the house in quincy uh bone

aparts in about an hour north of quincy okay Okay. That's the way it works. Quincy's south there. Now, what ends up happening here is at 3.38 a.m. Yeah. So between the time he was seen by his roommate there at about 11.30-ish. Four hours later. About four-ish hours later, about 3.38 a.m. On October the 14th, that morning, a 911 call is made from the landline at Mike and Sandra Bettler's house. Okay.

Now, the recording of this 911 call establishes that the person on the phone that called identifies themselves as Shane Bettler, one of the daughters, and tells the operator that her mother told her to call 911. And she says, quote, my brother's going's gonna do something i don't know what my mom's yelling at him saying sean saying sean don't and you can hear a woman's voice in the background yelling please don't please sean don't and then there's a loud popping sound and then seconds later shane the girl on the phone screams sean no and then the line goes dead. Oh, Jesus.

So this is about this is like, you know, in a movie you would have it like that. And it'd be like, oh, it's it's horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. It's the Dr. Dre song at the very beginning. Yeah. But she says a name. That's terrifying. But yeah, Sean, no.

And then the line goes dead. That's all you hear. So yeah, Sean, no, and then the line goes dead. That's all you hear. The 911 operator that was speaking to, while one 911 operator was speaking to Shane, a second call came into the system. After the call from Shane ended, the 911 operator attempted to switch over to the call, but there was no call on the other line. So this is a small town with

one 911 operator working in the middle of the night apparently or very few yeah and literally their call came in tried to switch over and the call was gone so we assume this was coming from somewhere else in the house yeah we can only assume uh that that happened but we'll never know the operator called the number of the unanswered call and got uh shelby bentler's voicemail so it was the other daughter that tried to call from the cell phone the number was a cell phone it was registered to sandra bentler because you know she's mom pays the bill exactly she's a teenager uh the 911 operator then called the bentler house and got no answer so call back the the initial one uh that that she called from so finally 3 3 55 a.., police arrive at the Bettler home,

because when you hear no screaming and lines going dead and then nobody's answering calls, you send the cops to the goddamn house. 17 minutes, though. That's a long time. That's a long time. Well, you figure it took two to get shit together, and it's a rural place, 445 acres,

so it's not right in town. Right, but it's... That place 445 acres so i guess it's not right in town right but it's i mean it's you figure too long you figure in this town there's probably not a lot of cops and at that time of day maybe one cop or you probably had to had to wake a guy up yeah and he had to fucking go cop in his car and take off out there i mean who knows yeah exactly who the fuck is this page of me at 5 46 at 3 48 and 3 38 in the morning crack of dawn so um uh the house the the police get there and they enter the house based on you know the suspicion that somebody might be injured in the house they they go into the house the house is searched and uh um uh they find some things here uh first they find michael Michael, the father, is found in the doorway to the master bedroom.

He is dead. He has no clothes on. He's face down in the doorway between the master bedroom and the hallway. Horrible. He has a gunshot wound to the lower leg. He has a gunshot wound to the lower leg, facial wounds consistent with being struck with a gun in the head, like being beaten with a gun. And finally, a fatal gunshot wound through the eye. Good fuck.

Like Godfather, Mo Green style. Through the eye, two drops of blood were found on his back, which is an interesting thing we'll talk about uh because they they uh they test the dna and they find that the dna of those drops of blood are from sandra bentler and we'll talk about this but uh all around michael is evidence of a struggle between the face uh the face injuries there are there's an overturned table. There's like a doll, like a fancy doll that was up that's like knocked on the ground. And, you know, it looks like that sort of thing here. And also bedding was draped over the footboard of the bed. Like somebody might have like gotten up and jumped out of bed and threw the covers off or something like that. Somebody sleeps nude.

Exactly. Somebody sleeps nude and he jumped off and you know jump over the footboard or something like that to get out of the bed that's one reason to sleep in boxers yeah you don't want to be found like that absolutely just put a pair of boxers on they're not that uncomfortable my sister's dad got interviewed by the police while he was ass naked because he saw at two o'clock in the morning he caught a meth head stealing a weed whacker so he went out he was naked he sleeps naked so he ran out the house and tackled the man in the fucking yard that's terrible you know what if my dick's swinging around that's your weed whacker at that point if you absolutely i tell you everybody

out there if you want to steal anything from me do it when you know i'm naked because it's all yours at that point i'm not going after you and go well i'm not in any condition to stop this from happening hilarious um so she called the police he showed up they showed up while he was pummeling this man ass naked and they had to interview him while his dicks out that's amazing cops had showed up where was live pd then yeah that would have been amazing just all blurred out the whole time jesus christ so from michael that's a sad end for mich here. The body of Sandra Bentler is found slumped over a chair at the opposite end of the hallway from Michael Bentler near the top of the

stairs, which lead downstairs to the main floor of the of the house here. She had a gunshot wound to the right cheek with the bullet exiting out her left jaw. And that wasn't the fatal one. Obviously, that one just hurt real bad, I'm sure. Also sustained a fatal gunshot wound to the head. Samples of blood were found and DNA tested around there, and they found that it was her blood around there. And then also drops on a pair of Michael Bettler's underwear located on the floor of the master bedroom near a nightstand was also belonged to her.

And several areas of blood on the large doll they found laying and partially over. That was like laying kind of on top of one of the legs of Michael Butler. Everything fell over when he fell over. So it took him down. So he had a bunch of blood and some of her blood was on there too. So it seems like she got shot possibly in the mouth, that mouth shot, and walked around and tried to get out of there

and was headed toward the stairs when she got shot in the head. Damn it. And then that was that. So she was trying to get, it seems like they were both in bed, probably shot, I'm assuming because her blood was on his back,

shot Michael first, and then she went over him and dripped blood on him when she was trying to get away from there. And then he shot her in the head is all I can imagine here. So, yeah, this is pretty fucked up here. I think I just saw it happen in my fucking head. Absolutely. He just shot her in bed. Yeah.

Is there blood on the bed? There's blood all over the place because i see him shooting her in the head and or in the bed in the jaw and the dad jumping up and he's shooting just yeah he's hitting his dad right and then to beating him and then shooting him in the face yeah and then she gets i see it i feel like i feel like the dad came up over the footboard at him and he shot him and when someone's coming at you it's hard to shoot so he shot him in the leg just fired a shot off and then hit him in the face and then ended up. Because when you're awoken naked, you're not in your best fighting state, I would assume.

You're just flailing, babe. You're flailing. Everything is. Yeah. Oh, man. Blood on a white phone, like an iPhone headset, iPhone earbuds, were found on a wicker table in the hallway. Blood on a piece of plastic in the mid hallway area, smears of blood on the doorway to Shane's bedroom.

Also to Shane Bentler's bedroom is also there. Speaking of Shane, Shane was was found laying back, was laying down in her closet with the closet doors open her closet open. Her closet behind, it was behind the door to her bedroom. So like you open the door and the closet was behind it. So she was hiding. She tried to apparently go hide in the bedroom.

She died of a gunshot wound to the head. She also sustained a wound to the right side of her face, which was from a gunshot into the telephone handset she was holding to her ear. Jesus. So the gunshot went into the head.

So he shot her in the phone while she said no, while she's on the phone with 911. He shot her in the phone. He's a good shot, this fucking guy. This is ridiculous. This is disgustingly good. We see this all the time.

Most of the time, there's multiple shots. He's dancing with it. This is like a fucking hitman this is like a colombian uh uh you know hit squad came to the house and took everybody out like an iowa hillbilly's been shooting his whole life yeah or that yeah that's what i mean so uh i'm on 445 acres um so yeah that's that's terrible uh then uh that was when she was talking obviously uh the wound left an imprint of the phone on the side of her face. Wow.

On the side of her face. God, that's fucking horrible. Also sustained a gunshot wound to the right hand as a defense thing. So, I mean, this poor girl was cowering in a closet. It's fucking horrible. Shelby Bentler was also found laying on her back in her closet with the closet door open. The closet was in the corner of her bedroom opposite to where the doorway was located. It was a different type of thing.

The door to her bedroom was it was it was you could see it from where Shelby Bentler's body was found. So he might have been able to see her in the closet. It was like right, a clear shot from her bedroom there that led down the stairs. So this is all, you can see the mother's there next to the stairs is the one girl's bedroom. You can see into the other one, which is next to the master. You guys can see the layout, I think, from this here. Tried to at least make it sound, you know, understandable here. So, yeah, she was found there. Tried to at least make it sound understandable here.

So, yeah, she was found there. There's a gunshot wound to the head. Also evidence that she raised her right hand in a defensive posture while sustaining wounds prior to the fatal shot. The bullet went through her right arm and was found in her chest. Another bullet. So, you know, she was doing the same thing. These are girls these are tough girls they're they're well it's their brother they're like what are you doing it's not even like it's a stranger where you would be like this person's gonna kill me i'm gonna fucking ball up in a ball and just whatever this is your brother so you're

like why are you like you're you're thinking it to the last second that this isn't gonna happen why is my brother shooting me this is fucking crazy they would have never thought that was going to happen um sheena butler uh was found damn it all of them all of them every single one of them sheena butler was found uh safe at a friend's house nope uh in her bed uh laying dead in her bed uh in the bedroom her bay her bedrooms in the basement she's got there's like a game. Nope, she didn't even know what was going on. She was asleep in the basement. And that was accessible to the main floor by a residence, or to the residence by a stairway that was separate.

There's two separate stairways. There's a game room in the basement that has a stairway leading to that, and then there's a separate stairway leading to her bedroom in the basement. So you have to know where you're going. There's no direct access from the game room to the bedroom. There's separate areas totally. Sheena suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head. She's also shot in the left arm.

The bedroom where she was found used to be Sean's bedroom when he lived there. And Sean's, what they end up finding when they go in, they find all of these people. That's five, three young ladies and two adults here, the parents. They also find Sean's cell phone at the house. He left it. Left his cell phone. It's found placed on a round wicker table in the hallway of the upper level where all this is going on. Several items were on the wicker table, and the location of the cell phone gave the police an appearance

that it had been intentionally placed there rather than accidentally dropped on it. Because I guess where everything was, you would have to have put it. It was right in its own space, like where nothing else was, where it would have been impossible to just drop and have it land in the one place where nothing is. It's one of those like it wasn't an accident. Now, on the phone, they find a call had been placed from his phone to a friend of his at twelve oh nine a.m. on the 14th there. That's what they do. That's what they find out.

um so uh at this point the uh the law enforcement here contact the quincy law enforcement and uh ask that sean uh bentler be placed under surveillance uh there about quincy is in illinois by the way quincy is not in iowa i don't know why i said fucking iowa illinois ohio i will say them backwards and it drives me crazy i do it all the time all the time yeah iowa and ohio i have to bite my tongue every time to not say ohio every time i say iowa this episode it's just so illinois is a whole other eye that i fucked up so it doesn't matter where it is because it didn't take place there so they go to quincy they asked to cross state lines and and get this jurisdiction yeah they have to say look we have a family slaughter. I'm sure you've heard about it.

Maybe keep an eye on this guy for us for a minute here. So October 14th, the next morning, 8 a.m., Keith Gratz, who's his roommate, who we talked to a bunch, Gratz stopped by the house in Quincy that Bentler lives and said that Sean was asleep on the couch. He was just passed out on the couch he was just passed out on the couch and that's about it he he

at this point Bentler apparently used to borrow his roommates cars without asking all the time and they suspect

that's called the well they didn't care I guess the car that they assume he borrowed is a 91 Ford Festiva that is not

theft with four mismatched tires that is a 91 Ford Festiva. That is not theft. With four mismatched tires. That is a gift to steal that thing. If someone takes it, you go, oh. Thank God. That's like if you left, like, you know when they have the mass garbage pickups and you can leave an old couch out in front of your house and they'll just pick it up? If someone takes that, you don't care. You left it out to be taken.

That's that car, pretty much. It's all bulk trash pickup. It is a shitbox. 91 Ford Festiva, the bulk trash pickup of the road. That's why it didn't work well. So apparently this guy now claims that his roommate's car had a quarter of a tank of gas missing. Had a quarter of a tank. And that's how broke all these kids are.

They can tell when there's a quarter of a tank of gas missing out of a 91 ford festiva that's a long way that's like cross country driving there yeah yeah they got good mileage those things that's why they made them otherwise drop a gas to get from there to florida otherwise they were worthless that's all it was you didn't even need gas i think you pour sprite in the tank and it would fucking run for a while cheese for the hamster that's all uh so yeah he he said uh uh now this gratz guy he says that he was hanging out there uh he grew up with sean bentler and bonaparte a mile away you know knows the family grew up with him the whole deal he said he's just hanging out and when he's hanging out he gets a phone call from his mother gratz does saying that the bentler family had been killed and that she

saw on the news and that Sean, they were looking for Sean because he's the main suspect. And Gratz is sitting there looking over at him on the couch going, well, he looks fine to me. He's doing that. So Gratz said, quote, I was sort of freaking out. So he wakes Sean up. Don't do that, bro. Yeah.

No, he wakes Sean up. Yeah. And he says, quote, I asked Sean when the last no he wakes shawn up yeah and he says quote i asked shawn when the last time he talked to his family was and he'd said it had been the day before i told him to call them but he said he'd left his cell phone in his mother's car okay uh so gratz gave his cell phone to to shawn and was like you can use my phone call him up your whole family didn't tell him but he's like i think you need to call your family here uh so bentler dialed the number uh that he said was his mother's and no one answered uh gratz said that uh sean acted super calmly and didn't indicate anything was wrong he was just like i don't

know she didn't answer he said quote nothing out of the ordinary just like everything was fine uh so gratz gratz at this point leaves the house he calls his boss to tell him he wasn't coming in that day. And he went back to Iowa to be with his family. This was like they knew they knew these people. It was kind of a weird thing that small town. This is what I mean about small town murder. If a family gets my butchered a mile from me, I won't hear about it. Number one.

And if I do, I'll be like, oh, shit, whatever. I won't even think twice about it. But a small town with 400 acre lots, you a family gets butchered a mile away. It's all everybody's talking about. That's the talk of the town. That could be them. That's why we do this show because that's why I find it interesting. In a city of three million, it can't be me.

Yeah, it's like that. What are the odds? Fuck it, I'm fine. It doesn't matter. I'll take my chances. Yeah. So later on also they talked to Gratz to get his story of when he saw Bentler and all that.

He grew up with this. Gratz had a lot of insight because he grew up with Sean and graduated with him from Harmony High School, which only 38 other people besides those two did. So, I mean, he's close to him, and he lived with him up until a few weeks before that. And he saw him there. Gratz says, quote, Sean was a good friend, but he was a bad roommate. He was lazy and he was terrible about paying bills, especially rent. Yeah, that's his main quote on the worst brother and son.

I would say brother and son is going to be at the top of his poor list. And then also a bad car salesman. Yeah, he's not good at working at Lowe's, probably. He's not good at that. Bad at making keys. He knows how to do it. Quote, knows how to make keys, but he's not real strong at that. Gratz also said Bentler had trouble keeping jobs.

He was behind on all his bills and child support from the two different mothers. He said that Bentler would ask for help with bills and to pay rent for the house when he lived with him. Bentler would go to Iowa and come back with items like jewelry and bags of quarters. After this all happened, Gratz said he suspected that Bentler was taking it all from his parents safe.

He was just going in and being like, they don't care about a bag of quarters. Bags of quarters just change. People have those big water things for a change. He'd just get a bag of change out of it and bring it. There's thousands of dollars in a big thing like that. He also said, Gratz said, quote, Sean was a pawn shop freak. He was always selling his stuff.

Then not long before this happened, he went up there to Iowa and came back with a big bag of quarters to pay his bills. Paying his bills and fucking quarters? Paying his bills and quarters. Wow. Which is not great. Yeah, so that's selling shit at pawn shops and showing up with quarters. Pawn shops and coin stars are his thing. Yeah, that's crazy.

So October 14th, after he was on the couch and the guy told him to call his family and all that, about 10 a.m., Sean leaves the residence, leaves his house on his motorcycle. He's got a motorcycle. Of course he does. And about 1020 a.m., he's stopped by Quincy police for driving without a valid license. And he has an outstanding arrest warrant for the court appearance he missed for getting caught with the weed pipe. He's taken into custody. Now, at this point, the officers do not tell him about the murder of his family. They don't say anything.

But they know. They know everything, and they know that they were watching him, and they know why they're pulling him over. They knew that he doesn't have a valid license. They were like, we know we can pick him up on this. And he missed his court appearance. You're on his plate. You can see he's got a warrant. You pick him up. So they pick him up for that.

And they don't mention anything else. They just make it seem like a routine traffic stop. Hey, you don't have a license, guy. Oh, you missed your court appearance. You're coming to jail. Got it. So they take him in. He's arrested there about 10, 20, like we said.

He spends the afternoon at the Quincy Police Department being interviewed by investigators there. Iowa law enforcement officers go to Quincy to interview him, other people, people from Bonaparte, state investigators. After he's interviewed here, he's searched and given jail attire and all that. They're holding on to him because they will talk about it in a second. But they give him bail because all he's booked on is the motorcycle stuff. That's it. The license and the court appearance. So they give him bail and all that sort of thing.

But they know he doesn't have any money. Right. So during the investigation or interrogation, does the court take bags of quarters? Can I bring in quarters? Is that all right? Because I also got a bracelet that I found. If y'all could run me down to the pawn shop, I've got a brand new chainsaw. I could hook it right up. No problem.

I stole this weed whacker from a naked guy. I don't know. He was naked, but I'm faster. I had my shoes on, and I just got through the gravel a lot faster. Naked stepdad callback. It was Sean. Or whatever it was. It was Sean all the time.

So while they're interrogating him, he denies any knowledge of anything. No injury. He doesn't even know they're hurt or dead. I don't know what you're talking about. He said that his mother came to visit with him in Quincy the night before at about 10 30 said the mother came to see him she stayed about 20 minutes he sat there in her chevy tahoe talking to her and he said he accidentally left his cell phone in her car that he just put it on the seat and then got out went in and that's why it was at their house because she took it home in the car and brought it in the house got it so that's why i was that's why the phone was there stupid clearly duh um so i smoke weed you guys i

forget shit sometimes i forget things like phones in a car so you do that too and you don't smoke shit you forgot it in an uber so uh they seized all his clothes and all that kind of shit uh and this is important they seize his clothes and, and they place it in four paper bags, staple them shut, evidence style and all that shit. You know, whatever. It's taken care of there. Now, 9.30 p.m., these bags were given to the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, a guy named, an agent named Rick John, who could have just been john rick doesn't matter either

way he said uh about 10 20 p.m he placed him in the back seat of a car driven by another agent daryl simmons to be taken to the sheriff's office in van buren county now his his bet he needs one thousand dollars to get out of jail uh on his on his deal on his traffic violations but he can't get the money of course not he even tried to call Gratz for the money. What? The roommate. Gratz said, quote, he just wanted out of there, basically.

He wanted me to bail him out and call people for him. He was sort of freaking out. You could tell it in his voice. He wanted to get out before his bond jumped to one million or two million, and I guess so. Gratz said that he was uncomfortable talking to him and didn't offer any help. Gratz said, quote, I think he knew that I knew that he was a suspect in the murders.

Yeah, I think so. As soon as you say no, he doesn't trust you anymore. Yeah. Yeah. That's the end of the day. That's the end of your relationship with that. That's it. They asked.

They tried to get Gratz to say that it was like about drugs, like any drug money, which was like, you know, they're taking that angle. You a weed pipe relax calm down uh gratz said quote this whole thing has nothing to do with drugs sean didn't have the money to be into drugs that bad he was always broke he was too broke to be into drugs that's one of those things uh uh the gratz said quote i've been through the best of times and the worst of times with sean but nobody saw this coming nobody you know the guy for 22 years and then this happens so everybody's like what the what the fuck he was a nice kid he ran track what's going on here uh october 15th charges are formally filed uh accusing sean bentler of the of five counts of first degree murder uh that's a lot yeah arrest warrants are issued and served

on him obviously uh he waives extradition and they take him from the Quincy jail to Iowa and he is transported to the Van Buren County Jail. His other his old roommate, Nathan Allen, said, quote, It just blows my mind. I've never even seen him mad before. He's never even yelled or raised his voice. This is just so weird. He said he just mainly kept to himself. He rarely talked about his family and uh he hadn't been back to iowa really that summer he just wouldn't have

thought even that he talked to his family recently never mind killed them all uh another woman here hannah flesner uh she was uh uh she lived next to uh bentler at the trace apartments and she said that he was a very friendly young guy never never caused any trouble, never gave her any weird vibes, or she was never afraid of him. She said, quote, I didn't know him really well, but he seemed like a really nice kid. She said that she saw him with a young daughter sometimes and never was like, like I said, never looked at him twice as a threat or anything like that, just thought he was a nice guy. Another one. Another woman. This is the whole town reaction here.

Everybody from town. Peggy Troutman from Bonaparte, Iowa. Peggy. Old Peggy. Old Peggy Troutman. Who runs the Bonaparte Mercantile Grocery Store. Of course she does. Old Peggy.

Peggy from the grocery store. She said, quote, I knew him when he was in school here and he was a nice kid. I didn't know him after he left. Why even get that quote from her? Yeah, why even talk to that woman? That's a guy. That's a Peggy quote. Well, that's someone who was told, you get seven reactions.

I don't give a fuck. And they were like, all I could get was Peggy Trautman saying I didn't know him since he was fucking 17. What am I supposed to do with that? She's down at the mercantile, though. You print it. People know Peggy. They believe her. Peggy's got clout in this town. She at the mercantile, though. You print it. People know Peggy. They believe her.

Peggy's got clout in this town. She's a business owner. Run it. God damn it. So the evidence in this town, in this whole case here, the ballistic report shows that the murder weapon was a.22 caliber long rifle. They found that, actually. They ended up finding the murder weapon the next day after searching.

It was discovered in a ditch along the gravel road not far from where the entrance to the residence intersects with the county road. They have a gravel road from the county road leading to their driveway. It's like their own road, whatever. You see that in those rural places. 22 long rifle, 10 shots, killed five fucking people. That's crazy, whatever. You see that in those rural places. 22 long rifle, 10 shots killed five fucking people. That's crazy, man. That is amazing. There is evidence to suggest that the gun was owned by Michael Bentler,

but they tried to trace back the history of the gun ownership, and they couldn't figure out exactly where this gun came from. They could never figure it out. The bullets were covered from the scene and from the bodies of the victims and the shell casings recovered from the scene all matched the style and type of bullets that were found new in new cartons of bullets from unlocked drawers at the base of a locked gun cabinet in the game room. That's the game room, the separate game room from the one bedroom. Why do you think I tell you these things? Jesus Christ christ so she wouldn't have known he was there exactly so uh they found one live round of the same bullet and type on the floor a short distance from the gun cabinet no bullet carton was found that was either empty or partially empty so it's a bunch of new things so it might have been if they had a half of one in there

and the loose bullets or they never found the carton they came out of. But they did find like he dropped one bullet along the way. They found one out there as he was exactly.

Which you have, maybe it was dark. If it's a semi-automatic one, those things are a fucking nightmare. Plus, if it's the middle of the night and you're about to kill all your family, you might not be the most

steady handed at that point. Yeah, exactly. The top portion of the gun cabinet had glass doors which were locked figures uh figurines and other ornamental items were located on a shelf immediately blocking the ability to open the gun cabinet so you can see that shelf glass case behind it you'd have to clear the shelf off to open it uh dust on the shelf holding the figurines and other items suggested they had not recently been moved to gain access to the locked portion of the cabinet numerous long guns were stored in the locked cabinet so he didn't look for the rifle so he wanted that handgun no it was yeah 22 long rifles what they shot him what he should use

i've got a pistol yeah okay okay okay yeah well it would make more sense for the hitting part because it'd be harder to struggle with a rifle than it would with a handgun you can swing it a little easier i got a handgun then again with a rifle you can jab it you can butt it so that might be i got a 22 long rifle that is heavy as fuck it's heavier than any gun i own and and i've got big caliber weapons weird it's so heavy's... Anyway, so an empty gun case was found in an unlock cabinet, in the unlock cabinet, the area underneath or behind the steps that goes to the basement game room. No evidence would support that... They have no evidence to say that that weapon was removed from that gun case, but there was an empty gun case.

It's possible, but they don't know. Other cased long guns were found in the same unlock cabinet so maybe maybe not one of those things so uh when they discovered uh what they did was in the morning of the 14th cops discovered what appeared to be fresh tire tracks in the north lane where it intersects with the gravel country road they did photographic comparisons of those tracks with the tracks they developed from a newer rear tire on the ford festiva that he borrowed that shows the tire tracks from the lane were made by the same size model same tread design a 63 pontiac tempest no i'm just kidding he stole my car to kill his family to do that uh also, the manufacturer's mold, it had, basically, the car had mismatched tires.

So it was really easy to tell their tire tracks because how many other cars have three different tires on it in that pattern? None. So it's a signature at that point. It's like that guy in Texas. I think it was Texas. He was a serial killer and he went into a movie and they knew Bobby Lee. God damn it. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. And into a movie, and they knew Bobby Lee. God damn.

I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. And they checked the car, and they're like, here they are. Three different tires on this fucking thing. That's the one. This is definitely the guy. That's the shit right there. So, yeah.

They're saying travel time between Quincy, Illinois, and the entrance to the residence during daylight travel conditions, not exceeding the speed limit, just everything normal, is from an hour and 19 minutes to an hour and 34 minutes, depending on lights and traffic or whatever, plus a two to four minute drive down the lane to the house. It's a big drive. It's a long drive. So that's what they're saying. So that's the time window that we have for him to get back.

Plenty of time for all this shit to go down. Now, October 16th, the agent John, Rick John there, discovered that the detective, the Simmons that he gave that evidence to, still had possession of the bags containing the personal effects because the investigation had kept him away from the sheriff's office because he's out in the field the whole time. So this Rick John took the paper bags of evidence back and delivered them to the Van Buren County Sheriff's Department.

He was like, I'm going there anyway. I'll take the shit in. So on October 18th, the bags containing the evidence were placed into the evidence closet of the Iowa jail. The only key to the locked evidence closet was in Richard Rohn's possession, who's another agent. So one key, only way to go there. Later on, this agent, Rohn, entered the evidence closet and opened the paper bags.

He saw what he thought might be blood on the socks worn by Bentler at the time of his arrest. They were reinvestigating. He contacted the county attorney who advised Ron to obtain a search warrant before any other further search of the items. Now, an application for the search warrant was drafted on October 24th. It sought to search items in the bag as property, relevant,

and material as evidence in a criminal prosecution, obviously here. Now, the affidavit in support of everything here was the 911 calls. There's a lot. There's plenty of evidence. DNA, blood, hair, fibers, trace evidence, all sorts of shit here.

Fucking ballistics. It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. They said there's no water in the residence. Basically, his house, by the way, that he lived in in Quincy had no running water. What? I guess they got their water shut off. Jesus.

So they were saying how he had no water to be able to clean any of the shit up on him afterwards. So they think that there's trace evidence would have been a big deal. Now, testing of the socks in the evidence bag determined that the stains on the socks worn by Bentler had blood matching the DNA of Sandra Bentler. So that's not great for him. Bentler filed a motion to suppress the clothing and any evidence derived from the clothing contending, among other things, that the initial seizure by Iowa law enforcement agents was unreasonable and without probable cause and therefore illegal. He also contended that the search warrant on October 25th was constitutionally defective. Now, the district court, they had a hearing about this.

The district court concluded, although Agent Ron might have been within his legal authority to examine the contents of the paper bags in issuance of the search warrant, the court need not decide that issue. The search warrant was obtained lawfully, approved by a judge, whose analysis of the probable cause for issuance of the search warrant was exclusive of any knowledge of the examination of the clothing. So basically, they said it doesn't fucking matter. It says the legality of the search warrant is not tainted under the Fourth Amendment by Agent Ron having previously examined the clothing. They said they ended up giving him the warrant.

They basically said it was in good faith. He was getting the warrant anyway. It was in good faith yeah uh you know he was getting the warrant anyway it was in their possession right wasn't like he went to someone's house broke in looked around and then went outside and said i saw some shit can i get a warrant for it he had it in their possession it's not a training day moment no and they would have given him the warrant without any questions asked anyway well he didn't need much to get that there's blood on this shit yeah we we got probable cause we think there's blood on a murder suspect's clothes that we arrested him in. So they would say, yeah, of course, test that.

No problem. That's never a judge in the world that's going to say no to that. So they ended up having a funeral, obviously. A funeral. This funeral. No, they had it all together. One big one. One of them was cremated.

I assume one of the two adults had that in their will to be cremated. They had all the rest had big copper caskets. Jesus. Nice, very, very nice, fancy, elaborate. The funeral organizer said there was about 2,000 people attended the wake held at the high school. The town grew four times its size. This is literally everyone from the area.

This is a small town funeral as much this is like the most prototypical small town murder like literally everyone from the town came and rounding everything they said the uh the funeral procession snaked its way from the school uh all the way to the cemetery basically there was one non-stop procession wasn't even a procession it was just a line uh they stepped out it was it was crazy uh greg bentler said of his brother quote he was about family friends and this community so people liked him you know business owner well known well liked so we go to trial yeah obviously uh five counts of first degree murder they play a videotape the interview with him while he's being

interrogated at the murder trial never good never good it always looks worse to see someone because you can always it's like that it's that what's that effect it's the russian filmmaker do it did it uh where the guy have you ever seen this as a russian actor and uh they show him it's the same exact shot of his face but they show him looking at like a bowl of soup and looking at something sad and then looking at a woman on a couch seductively. And he has the same look on his face, but what they intercut it with is what you project on his face. When they're showing the soup, they say he looks hungry. When they show the sad thing, they say he looks sad. When they show the woman, they say he looks lusty.

So it's the exact same shot. They just intercut it with different shots. That's it's it's an effect i can't remember the name it's a russian director so uh it's that sort of thing i feel like whatever you're feeling you can project onto onto his look in the video so that's a powerful tool and uh they played it this video showed him weeping loudly upon being told that his parents and three sisters had been killed, which that's normal behavior. He said, quote, they're all dead. Oh, God. Oh, God.

There's no way. There's just no way. I just talked to my mom yesterday. They're not dead, is what he said. So then he appeared to calm down. He said, I can't. And then they were asking him. They were talking to him about it.

He said, I can't figure out why you guys need to talk to me. I can't think of anything I have done in the last couple of years, which is an odd thing. So they end up reading him his rights because they're going to talk to him. And he's a suspect, so they have to do that. They ask him a bunch of questions about his background and family. They tell him, quote, some really bad things happened at your parents last night, and the entire family is dead. And he said after that quote it's not true i would never hurt my family i have no reason to hurt them uh and then he said then

they were talking to him more and he screamed he got up and screamed out i did not kill them i did not kill them which is i guess normal i've got an igloo full of fucking pulled pork and turkey i have pulled pork right i have pulled pork so. So he's yelling at the investigators. They asked him why Shane, his sister, told the dispatcher that he was at the house and he screamed, I don't know. He was really having a fucking meltdown in the interrogation room.

He continued sobbing on tape for minutes after they left the room. He still sobbed in the room for a while because I think he knows he's fucking caught. Physical evidence here. DNA analyst for the Department of Criminal Investigation of Iowa testified that the white ankle socks he was wearing contained small drops of blood of his mother's. All that sort of thing they claimed that uh defense attorneys claimed that that sandra uh did his laundry and that the blood could have been transferred that way for pete's sake that's what she's well way to hear these

excuses uh all but the the uh the expert here the criminal investigation expert halverson is his name he shows the judge that the two visible blood spots he tested uh and said quote some sort of impact had to have happened to make the blood stain break up that way it's a spatter thing so it's not a it doesn't get like wiped off of her thumb or cuticle right you know was was she was folding socks drops on a sock exactly so uh he matched several blood samples with dna profiles of the five victims uh none of the samples were matched to sean however samples in the master bedroom matched the dna of mike and sandra obviously other blood samples were taken of everybody else everything

matches everybody that's killed right uh but he didn't he didn't get injured he wasn't leaking blood he wasn't leaking blood anywhere yeah he got all he he was the on the offense here so uh they also said that uh uh they can't determine whether sheena butler uh who was shot in her basement was killed first or last among the five victims but the evidence shows that sean butler went upstairs where the other bedrooms are located uh there they said Bentler obviously struggled with his father. They said after examining everything, it lines up perfectly. He hit him with the butt of the.22 caliber rifle.

Oh, it was a rifle. It was a rifle that was connected to the murders and then shot him in the leg and head before shooting the others, just like we said. He said, quote, Mike was the biggest threat they struggled and sean bentler won we hear sandra scream the gunshots then we hear shane on the

phone the creaking of the closet door gunshots before the line goes dead we know shelby was next because of the clicking sound her 9-1-1 call made at 3 39 a.m this is horrifying yeah this is hard we literally he had killed his father she called 9-1-1 the mother was already shot she fucking runs out there we hear her get shot and she says no she drops and then we hear him stalk in to kill this poor girl on the phone this is a nightmare the fucking nightmare and then the bass drop and then the w that's all that's missing so uh the uh investigator also said the murderer had to be someone that knew the layout of the of the residence because it's a unique design it's a custom build like i said and uh he would have to know where the light switches were because there's light switches there you wouldn't know what's what

which is true. I moved into my house, which isn't some custom crazy thing. And six months later, I still don't know what fucking light switches you want. You're not in a two bedroom apartment. I can't find shit.

I don't know which one turns my ceiling fan on. That's what I mean. That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm trying to find a lamp. How do I turn this on with a light switch? Which plug does this light switch work?

I have no idea. Every day I wake up to turn my light on and I turn my fan on. Every day. Every day. Every goddamn day. I know up to turn my light on and I turn my fan on every day. Every day. Every goddamn day. I know which one it is.

Why do I keep hitting that? God damn it. Yeah. So although they also testified that that there were not lights on in the residence when the police arrived. Okay. The prosecutors contend they could have turned lights on and off when they flee the scene, fled the scene. So they wouldn't look like there was lights on and off when they fled the scene so they wouldn't look like there was lights on in the house, which makes sense.

And they said, well, how do you know that? The prosecutor, while talking to the investigator, said, well, how do you know we probably turned the lights on? And they said, how do we know that? From the accuracy of the shots. Yeah. They were able to see. They were shot in the head.

Someone would have to know their way around the property to the house, first of all, because it's a huge house and a huge property you wouldn't even know where to go and and then they'd also have to know uh their way to the house how to get to the upper bedrooms because the house has a weird layout i read all about it i didn't want to tell you talk about it for 20 minutes but it's a really weird layout there's like a mud room that you could that has no lock on it that you can enter but then there's a special key to enter this. It's a unique layout. It's a custom build.

It's awesome as shit. It sounded great. So he said they were shot in the head. They'd have to know the property, obviously. Someone had to know where the lights were located to turn them on and off. He said that Bentler turned off the lights after shooting Shelby, fled the scene and panicked

because he saw a phone in Shane's hand when he shot her, causing him to throw the rifle into a ditch less than two miles from the residence. Makes sense. The investigator said, quote, he panicked. He saw the phone and he knew it had to be the police. Well, obviously, if you're shooting this girl's parents

and she's on the phone at four in the morning, it's probably not the one of her friends. It's definitely not her friends. I would say not. Also, you'll know when I'm doing when i asked me to the prom oh hold on my mother's being murdered it's 3 30 in the morning no not happening thank you so much for waking me up for this shit gee you will know when i'm doing well because i will have a fucking mudroom that sounds amazing yeah that sounds good a mudroom i like that lucky people shit uh so he took uh they said quote so he took the back road if he took the main driveway he uh he

might be met by a deputy and arrested and he had to get rid of that gun fast otherwise he could have thrown it into the river said he would have gone to the river which makes sense uh also they have lexi leslie testify all right the mother of his youngest daughter she told uh she said that uh that a week before his family was slain here, that he told her, quote, this was just in conversation, quote, he wouldn't have any money troubles after his parents died. So he said, like, well, once my parents die, then I'll inherit a bunch of money. I won't have any money problems anymore. Which people say that shit, who aren't planning on murdering anyone or whatever. One day they're going to die and I'm going to have a bunch of money.

Yeah, that's what it is. So eventually, and I think a lot of these kids think this way. It's like, well, I only have to fuck around and have trouble paying rent until my parents croak. Also, small town kids like this, they go, he killed his parents. You know, let me think about things. One time he said that when his parents are dead, he's going to be fine. Well, this was apparently a week before his parents were killed. So this is a little closer on the deal here.

It's a little too early. Yeah, she said that Bentler spoke when they talked. She said that he said that he had a lack of a job at that point and that she told him he had to start paying for care of the daughter and he needs to get his shit together. And that's when, quote, he said that when his parents were dead, he wouldn't have to worry about money anymore. That's how that worked.

Now, the defense, the prosecution's case is pretty set. The defense lawyers here try to show that they don't get it. Sean got along great with his family. He couldn't. They said he couldn't have traveled from his home in Quincy, Illinois, to the family home and back in enough time to kill them. Said no way in the world he could have done that, which he was seen at midnight the latest. They were killed at 338. So that's three and a half hours where it takes an hour to get there.

Hour 20, hour 30, tops. 6 a.m. And then he was seen like 8 o'clock the next morning. That's about right. He left by 345. He got a seven-hour window? He could have gone back and forth twice in both those windows. Literally, he could have gone back and forth.

He could have murdered him twice. Yeah, he could have murdered him twice. He could have gone back and forth twice. There's plenty of time to murder. Yeah, because it didn't take long for the killings to take place, as we know. So, yeah, he said they used his roommate. They said they saw him hours before the slaying. And they had a big thing with his roommate saying, I saw him at like 1130.

And his roommate had been out that night drinking. And he was like, yeah, I was drunk, but I wasn't like fucking, I knew where I was and what time it was and shit. I was just tipsy. And they were like, so it could have been a different time. And he was like, yeah, maybe it was 10 after 12. I don't know. Sometime in that window. But they were like, he doesn't even know what time he saw him.

It could have been three o'clock in the morning. They don't know. He was hammered. So, you know, he was like, no. So his roommate said, quote, there was an adequate window. Or I'm sorry. The prosecutor said there was an adequate window of time to commit the crimes and return to Quincy before he was seen by his roommate. Defense attorneys.

They tried repeatedly before the trial to prevent the admission of the 911 tape into evidence obviously sure that sounds bad yeah a scared uh you know teenage girl crying for her life while her parents are murdered in front of her and then being murdered saying your name right that's a problem that's a fucking problem right there i'm sorry uh they claimed that some of shane's statements are hearsay since she was relaying what she was told by her mother because she she said, my mother said that, you know, my mother's yelling at him and told me to call because he's going to do something. Then also, though, she was, no, she saw that. Also, I mean, naming all your kids' SH names could be backfiring right now because she could have been saying Sheena. She could have said all the other ones.

Well, the balls on this one one how they try to do this by the way the judge denied those motions and allowed the tapes and obviously the defense submits sandra butler's records from her optometrist in an attempt to prove that she had poor eyesight and may have misidentified her killer no so a stranger broke into her home and she thought it was her son oh my god a mother doesn't misidentify a mother could be blind she would know that it wasn't her son if it wasn't her son that period balls that's some fucking balls uh he also sean bentler because he testifies we'll talk about that also testifies that his mother could not see clearly beyond 12 inches without her glasses or contacts. Wow.

Jesus Christ. I take my glasses off when we record constantly and I can I can't see shit. If your son was murdering you, you would know. And you're not even my son. No, that's what I mean. If your son was murdering, you'd be like, my son is murdering me. I've known you for like seven years. I've known my son a little bit longer. yeah a little bit not much not much so uh

so they put bentler on the stand sean here uh it's the final defense witness uh he spoke softly some very little emotion like they told him be very calm look meek look like you couldn't possibly slaughter an entire family in the night uh he reminisced about holding his baby sisters when they were born and about his bond with his mother and how his bond with his mother only grew deeper when he became a parent because then he realized the sacrifices she made for him and gave him a deeper appreciation of his mother. Oh, God, he's such a good guy. He said, quote, she was so happy to be a grandma.

He spoke proudly of his father. He said, quote, first and foremost happy to be a grandma. He spoke proudly of his father. He said, quote, first and foremost, he was a provider for everybody. He put everybody else's needs first. No matter what he did, he was the best at it. And he also said that his father often gave him money or paid for anything that he needed for whatever school or whatever he needed. He said, quote, I didn't have a habit of asking for a lot, but if there was something that needed to be taken care of and I didn't have the money, my dad would always take care of it. So just loves him.

He said he loved his three sisters. He said that Sheena was more of a tomboy. She liked to hunt and fish. And Shelby was more of a girly girl. And his youngest sister, Shane, was very smart and just really good in school and a nice kid. And they're just the greatest kids. And he's just so proud to be a member of this family.

Yeah. During the cross-examination, though, they tried to, you know, hey, you're not such a nice guy. He admitted that he stole his mother's jewelry and pawned a bunch of it at the pawn shop. He stole money and gas tanks from his parents and shit like that. He denied speaking negatively about his parents.

However, the prosecution called a rebuttal witness, a guy named Cornell Williams, and he said that Bentler had plenty to say about his father and none of it was ever good. bentler had plenty to say about his father and never none of it was ever good this guy worked with him at shottenkirk chevy there boy and uh worked with him for several months until he was fired but he continued to socialize with him and he said this williams guy said quote he didn't like his father at all he'd say his father would be dead soon and that he would eventually inherit his money that's what he told him uh uh another they got Travis Holder, who was one of his roommates in one of Sean's roommates in Quincy. He was called to the stand in rebuttal, and he testified that he was with Bentler when Bentler took about $150 in change from his parents' safe, which was unlocked, and some of his mother's jewelry. So he saw him do it, and he knows he did it. Closing arguments for both sides.

Basically, the prosecution just reiterated 9-1-1 tape. Pretty obvious here. Thanks. Have a good one, everybody. See you all for lunch later. I mean, you've got to walk away pretty confident if you're the prosecutor in this one here. Hold your arm up like Jordan after hitting a solid two. That's right.

He should have delivered it all with his eyes closed. Delivered the closing argument with his eyes closed. Now, the defense said that the, he asked the defense, first of all, asked the judge to dismiss the case because the prosecutors have failed to meet their burden of proof by showing that he had the means, motive,

and opportunity to commit the murders, which he obviously had all of those. Judge denied the motion, but they also made the same argument in closing here. They said that the attorney general who was doing the closing, Scott Brown, he said the 911 call and all that was enough evidence right there without anything else. They said, quote, identity is the issue. This is the defense attorney. Quote, identity is the issue this is the defense attorney quote identity

is the issue how do we know it was sean butler shane butler identifies him three times on that 911 tape and then the prosecutor said sandra identifies him when you hear her say sean don't uh and then uh he said quote we could have done this case in one day with just a 911 call done that's what he tells the process the jury now uh testimony here uh the judge basically what he does now sean bentler waives his right to a jury trial uh that's what he did in the beginning judge to do it just the judge is going to decide and a lot of times when emotion is involved yeah that's what people do because judges generally aren't emotional all right uh but you also can't bullshit them as much that's a good point that's the other thing they're going

to go on based on evidence where you can you couldn't get a judge to not convict OJ or shit like that. Or you probably, well, you might, but I was going to say you couldn't get a judge to convict Brendan Dassey, but you might be able to. They might have thrown that fucking confession out. But it's one of those things, though.

You figure, okay, this is an emotional thing. I don't want to put this in the hands of a bunch of Iowans here. They're going to be pissed off. though you figure okay this is an emotional thing i don't want to put this in the hands of uh a bunch of iowans here they're gonna they're gonna be pissed off so he lets district judge michael mullins uh you know to preside over this his brother absolutely chris mullen yeah so he's good from three well you got him in the corner nothing nothing but money raining down threes so the judge said that it would quote take some time for him to render a ruling since Iowa law requires he submit a complete written ruling rather than just announce a verdict in open court.

He has to have the whole thing written. He said he would give attorneys, the media and family members two to three days of notice of when the verdict is going to be. So he'll let, he'll let you know 48 hours ahead of time. Now the verdict, he says a mother and sister would almost certainly not mistake their son and brother as the murderer

and that's the reason why he says your mistaken identity line is complete bullshit finds him guilty of five counts of first degree murder which is rough. Sentencing comes around. The judge asked Shane directly if he knew of any legal reason. Sean. Sean. Did I say Shane? Damn it, Sean. Yeah, Shane's definitely not being sentenced. Sean, if he knew any reason to delay his sentencing, Sean just shook his head and whispered no.

Now, other people, they had victim impact statements oh boy uh yeah who are the victims the family michael's his grandmother pauline pauline pauline bentler's michael's mother your grandma's about to talk to you she said quote even though he looks innocent he is a lying cold-blooded killer sean how could you do this? What happened to the nice, polite person you used to be? That's the most grandmotherly way to fucking, to testify against your grandson was that right there. What happened to the nice, polite person you used to be? There will be no DQ stalking stuffer for you. Not at all.

Julia Mendez, who's Sandra Bentler's mother, urged the family not to hate Sean, though. She said, quote, I want to go on with my life. I can't hate Sean. I love Sean so much. So that's awfully nice. She said, that's the way I feel. I want my kids to feel the same way. I don't want them to feel hateful.

It's going to be hard, though. Michael's sister, who's Sean's aunt, she was very angry uh she said sean i don't know what happened to make you so evil uh so uh the judge agreed yeah and uh he says this is a good one here you sir may fuck off uh five life sentences yeah consecutive holy not concurrent he is sticking around that is so parole doesn't matter because he's got about fucking, I don't know, 200 or so years to do before he's up for it. So he's got a lot. That's it.

He's fucked. Yeah, he is done. Oh, also, Judge Mullins offers, orders Sean to pay nearly $800,000 in restitution and damages and rejected the defense's bid for a new trial again. No, thanks, guys. You're good. There was tons of family there, extended family. It was a big family.

Michael Bentler's brother said, quote, Unfortunately, evil found its way into this place, and unfortunately to our family. We're all still in shock. It's the whole situation. It just doesn't seem real. I just smelled Dateline salivating breath. Oh, God damn it. Evil entered the family.

Evil. That's what we'll call it. Evil found its way into this place, into this idyllic Iowa town. They show cornfield stalks swaying slightly in the wind. Did evil find its way into an Iowa town? And unfortunately, into our family. And they show a family photo with a cut in the middle of it. It breaks it apart with fire jesus christ uh sean bentler's attorney delivers a written uh comment

from uh sean uh in it he thanks family members who visited him for several months he still insists his innocence and demands an appeal in a statement given by his lawyers, he says, quote, the circumstantial evidence against me was very weak. Circumstantial evidence against me was very... Are you out of your goddamn mind? First of all, there's blood on your socks from your mom. That's too much. That's physical evidence.

That's over already. Right there, it's over. And then the rest of it is just silly. It's too much. Literally, your mother said your mother said no sean please don't on 9-1-1 and your sister said it right into the god right into the phone as you shot through it you dickweed ridiculous uh so the town reaction to this everybody freaks out obviously uh um yeah so they said uh uh one of the the family members here said quote so actually hearing the judge say guilty doesn't make any of this any easier. I don't feel better. I think it's a no win situation.

A whole family got wiped out in the process, and now a son has basically lost his life. So, yeah, I would say so. Everyone in town wanted shit to go back to normal, and they were happy they found a killer. And it wasn't like some drifter who was going to kill more people this was like oh he killed his family okay that makes me feel better because it does when you hear that when you hear a bunch of people were killed and then you hear oh it was somebody they knew well it makes everyone feel better yeah you breathe a sigh of relief it's not just random okay family beef oh i see they had problems yeah that makes sense it's everybody no uh now he appeals based on pretty much solely on the

chain of evidence thing and the evidence bags with the drops of blood on the sock because their whole game is the only physical evidence you have are those two drops of blood on that sock so if we can get that thrown out then it's all circumstantial and we can go from there and try to chip away at it okay but first they have to get that evidence thrown out they have to say that that chain of command was broken and that something could have been tampered with before the search warrant which it could just as easily be tampered with after the search warrant so you're trusting a process still holding it exactly it doesn't matter uh but they say based on the fact that the same exact reason the district court ruled that way uh the fact that

they would have 100 given the warrant no questions asked it's fine so uh his appeal gets denied and that's literally all he appealed on there was really the only one there's nothing else to appeal on he appeals on that that was their because i don't think they wanted to cloud it i think they wanted to say there's an evidentiary problem we're going to put a shine of light on it. And they said, get the fuck out of here. Take a hike, asshole. So 2008, the estate of these parents of the Bentlers is up for grabs here. It is a $2.8 million worth of estate. Wow.

So there's a lot to go around. They did really well. Yeah, they did well for themselves. And people filing for it are... Oh, my God. They're fighting over fighting over they have to fight over it there are uh michael bentler's parents uh are fighting over michael bentler's sister and also one of sandra's uh siblings and also mike uh sean's two daughters oh jesus you're right they are next in line yeah uh because sean can't get it everything would go to sean but he can't get it because of the law right so it's the next one down is them

so the the grandparents and the siblings are fighting this yeah because they don't want these kids to get it lexi leslie in charge of this shit exactly so judge daniel p wilson uh denied claims from other family members of Michael and Sandra Bentler of all of this and ended up awarding the two daughters of Sean will split the $2.8 million family estate.

They get it all, the two daughters. They will split it. They said that they have to put it all into trusts and all that sort of thing and set up a probate thing and all that shit so they can take care of it forever it'll take until those kids are 18 yeah but they uh either way though they got 1.4 million dollars a piece to kids in this in this scenario here uh august of 2009 the home goes up for auction yeah it went up for auction uh in more than an hour uh 445 acres of

land were bidded on and sold uh basically they uh they broke it up into seven tracts because it's so big uh ranging from 16 acres to 103 acres and uh the house itself they sold the house and surrounding 28 acres of how of around the house for $225,000. What a deal. Which is a fucking steal. And it was like up to date inside and shit. That's amazing. Besides the fact that a family was slaughtered there.

I mean, obviously, that's weird. But if you're one of those people that doesn't care about that, that is a fucking steal. I mean, that's a lot of land and a big house and jesus it's a great deal but uh i mean uh oj's wife's house was sold for a shitload of money they just raised the house so that's brentwood real estate i mean the wife's house over there on monday that was a condo the condo they just changed the address on that right but they but they sold that for a lot of money too i think so just based on that so yeah it makes that's a much more famous oh yeah yeah no one's ever heard of this fucking guy.

I mean, the good point is that those were all outside. Yeah, those were out in the entryway. Just step around the entryway. Come in the back. We'll put some new brickwork in. So this place here, yeah, it was bought by a guy named Amos Zimmerman of Missouri. The total thing, the entire property was auctioned off for $973,800. So that is the entire value of the property.

And yeah, so Sean is out of, he's just sitting in jail, five consecutive life sentences. He's really got no real veins for appeal at this point. There's no, he disputed the evidence chain and all that and he's done sitting there and that's the bentler family those poor people and that is bone apart iowa what the fuck jesus christ what a story james that's a fucking mess isn't it would you how did this not be out more how do we not hear about even more like what those girls that are

gonna get that money yeah would you want that money? I don't even know. The one girl was one when this happened. She doesn't even know. She's not going to have any idea. She won't, A, remember her father or remember those people. She'll just have a bunch of money, and she's going to go, why do I have money? And they're going to go, oh, well, your grandparents were killed by your dad, and it's going to be complicated.

Even the four-year-old is not going to really know what the hell happened. So it's fucking nuts. They're just going to have a big trust fund today yeah they're teenagers with fat trust funds at this point and and dead grandparents and a father in jail so uh story that's a fucking mess that's bone apart iowa everybody saddle up and move there and that sounds like fun huh i am blown away what a story What a story. I am, too. I thought that was a... I couldn't believe that that hasn't been out there more. It was one of those stories where I'm like, how has nobody done this? That should be much more popular. Yeah, that should be a much...

That should be on Dateline fucking... All the time. Yeah, it should be rerun. Yeah, it's craziness. But yeah, so there that is. If you like that show, there are ways to tell us about it. Very, very simple ways that help us out a lot, like going over to iTunes,

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And honestly, wherever else you listen to podcasts, do that. Give us a review if you can, because it always helps. It always helps out. It definitely always helps out. Also, like we said, listen to Crime and Sports, damn it. Crazy episodes.

Here's what you can do with Crime and Sports, because people go, ah, it's the athletes. Like we said, it's not about the sports. But here's a suggestion of how to listen to it. Go back and listen to an episode that doesn't matter about sports. Go back and listen to, go listen to Tonya Harding. We just did it. Listen to Tonya Harding

from a few weeks ago and you know you think you've heard the story. You haven't heard all the white trashery that surrounds it. You don't know. You don't know shit. Listen to the story and go,

oh, that's what this is because that's what it is. It's not about sports. It's listen to a story that you know about or go back and listen to Vyacheslav Dotsik and go, oh my God, I don't care if there's sports in it's not about sports it's listen to a story that you know about or go back and listen to via cheslov dot sick and go oh my god i don't care if there's sports in it or not these are the craziest stories i've ever heard in my life find otis nixon uh google his face and swear to christ

if you don't laugh as hard as we did so that's what i'm saying do all of that listen to crime and sports do that go to shut up and giveurder.com for everything crime and sports and small town murder related. Get all your merchandise. Get your tickets to live shows this week, tomorrow, if you're listening the day it comes out, Friday, January 25th in Seattle at the Neptune Theater. Come see us there. Or also down in Florida on February 21st at the West Palm Beach Improv in West Palm Beach, Florida. And we'll be announcing a little later on some more dates for the rest of the year.

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We should. Maybe we'll go check out Canada or something like that. But yeah, get on there. Get those tickets to the live shows. Do that. Other things you can do from there, follow us on social media. You can do at Small Town Murder on Instagram,

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It might be Evelyn. I'm not sure. That's a tough last name. Skip Beeman donated twice incredibly. Thank you so much, Skip. Thank you so much. Good God. Emily Wilkins, Ashley Brocato. It's like bro-cato. It's bro-avocado. Bro-avocado, yeah. incredibly thank you so much good god emily wilkins ashley uh bravo uh brocado what it's

like bro like a bro avocado bro avocado yeah ashley thank you thank you luke um uh foppoly uh jennifer letico litico and lisa jensen are both coming to uh seattle so you guys up there uh javon bisoner uh javon i think it's javon yeah it's javon bisoner that's for sure and he said uh hail nimrod because he also listens to the Cummins. And he says we are two of his three favorites. Awesome. Thank you very much, Javon. Thank you, brother.

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That's also, I think that's Skip Beeman's. No, it's not. It's somebody else's. Damn it. I forget who it was. I'm so confused. I wrote the person's name down, and I was really excited No, it's not. It's somebody else's. Damn it. I forget who it was. I'm so confused. I wrote the person's name down, and I was really excited to say it. Whatever.

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I don't know what a Makature is. You're looking at me like I know. I don't know. Look up Makature Workshop. Yeah. They do something. Best lot spelling Makature. Hey, they do something there.

Yeah, they do. I'm sure they do. They do a great job. I'm sure they do. They do it well like nobody else. Sean Brandt, Gary Stevens, Chris Dabronski, Laura Vainio. Yes. Joe Busby, Joe Busby.

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Honestly, you guys, you keep it going and you just, you make everything worthwhile and you blow us away every week with your your amazing generosity and you're seeming to give a shit about us so thank you thank you it's rewarding and it feels nice i'm telling you what if somebody gave a shit about you jimmy where could they find you you can find me at wisman sucks whisman sucks on twitter instagram and snapchat thank you guys so much where where can they find you oh my they can find me at jimmy p is funny or uh copy and paste my last name from the show description don't be a hero it's a long one and you don't know how to spell it

so uh do that and uh follow us and keep coming back because uh we got crazy story after crazy story after crazy story they just never end with small town murder no and uh we'll keep coming and if you'll keep coming even if you won't like i said we'll put it out on spike god damn it deal with it we will do it. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye! Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts.

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