Small Town Murder - #105 - Charles Manson Without The LSD in Bloomingdale, Illinois

Episode Date: February 7, 2019

This week, in Bloomingdale, Illinois, a man blows into town, charming some of the local women, but he turns out to have a shady past that very accurately predicts his murderous behavior in the future. His treachery knows no bounds, as he kills, lies, and steals his way around the country. The weird part is, that's just the tip of this crazy iceberg, because his second life turns out to be even more unbelievable than his first.Along the way, we find out that YouTube stars are never to be trusted, that you should never bury a body in a quickly developing area, and that sometimes it's more acceptable to kill 28 people than just one!!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 Bloomingdale, Illinois, a man comes to town full of charm for the local women, but his shady past turns

out to be a good indicator of his violent future. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Westman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us again and again and again.

Oh, we're excited this week. This is a good one. This is a crazy episode we were in illinois well we physically but i mean we did illinois in uh i believe episode 80 was our last one so the last illinois episode so it's it's been a pretty that was the uh lesbian love triangle oh that was a good one yeah so uh this was like a close second to that i couldn't decide so that's why we're doing this a little bit sooner than we would do normally circle back to a state. And speaking of that, by the way, we'll get to the episode quickly. But speaking of that, of circling back to a state, we circled back to Oregon because Oregon's good.

We like doing live shows there and they have interesting murders and stuff. And for the love of Christ, I think twice in the show we said uh the apparently will am it right fucking valley wrong by the way everyone in oregon like everyone else that fucking sees it guess how they say it will am it that's how they say it will amet that's how they say they don't say will am it like you do they say will amet because that's what goddamn looks like so we i you take the cake now you win you win you minnesota you know what we messed with you for two years about lino lakes and you guys breaking our balls and thinking anyone cares about how your crappy town is pronounced guess what oregon you guys win biggest bitches award small town murder all time good for you that's will amit it's it's it's

it's will amit is what it is willamette it's what we say willamette and they they lose their goddamn minds wow and uh so uh no oregon episodes for a year you're suspended sorry that's what you get quit your bitching so they did enjoy us roofing apart Lincoln. Which was good. We were right there. Oh, I love Oregon. I love Oregon. But this is ridiculous.

This was over the top. The pronunciation was shit. I'm sorry. But our assumptions about a place were dead on. We're pretty good. How about that? So, you know what? Don't worry about your pronunciation.

It doesn't matter what it's called if we understand what the shit happens there. So, thank you everyone for everything this week except for your pronunciation corrections. Those people, you can go to hell but everyone else thank you for your itunes reviews especially apple podcast your little purple icon whatever god we say it all the time but they really mean a lot to us so if you could do that please give us five stars doesn't matter what you say really not for our ego it is just to drive us up the charts it really helps and whatever podcast format you listen on if there's a rating go ahead and do that it helps us out a lot uh thank you for doing that also head over to shut up and give me murder.com right oh the one thing you need to do is tickets tickets for west palm beach florida it's coming up that's february 21st west palm beach improv

so get your ass two weeks from tonight that's right do it get your asses down there. Two weeks from tonight. That's right. Do it. Get your, go over there and come see us at the West Palm Improv. It's a great place. Lots of other things you can do on ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. You can get merchandise,

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Or you can go over to PayPal. Use our email address, which is crime in sports at gmail dot com. And we one thing we advise you is listen to crime and sports. Good God, you don't have to like sports. I'm telling you, if you like this, you will like that. Trust us. Listen to crime and sports got to do the disclaimer yeah um first of all we may mispronounce a town name from time to

time so you can keep that to yourself second of all it's a comedy podcast it's a comedy podcast we're comedians i love that that's going it's gonna be a lot it's gonna be a lot yeah pronunciation disclaimer yeah we are comedians we're gonna going to make jokes. The stories are real. Every last detail is real and everything like that. We're going to make jokes. We make jokes about small towns and people who do stupid things. But what we don't do, we go out of our way not to do, is we try not to make fun of the victims or the victims' families because we're assholes, but we're not scumbags. That's the one.

That's the way it works here. So we feel like that makes it, mitigates some of our jokes. So if that sounds good to you, we are going to have a blast because this is a wild episode. If not, you think true crime and comedy don't go together.

Obviously, this is probably not a match for us. No. So it's not a good match for anybody. Have a good one. Take a hike. I'm sure the unsubscribe button's right there. Hit it. And enjoy your boring lives. Do you regret even a little bit inviting me to do this with you?

Never. Now, if you had a half-smart person sitting here, maybe I'd have been like, I think it's Willamette. No, because everyone that's ever played Oregon Trail goes, that's Willamette. That's it. They don't say, trust me, I remember playing Oregon. Everyone said the same thing. No one said, that's Willamette that's it they don't say trust me i remember playing or everyone said the same thing no one said that's willamette actually no one knows that except for people who live in northwestern oregon people live in willamette we're gonna have fun and i think it's time to

shout it out from the rooftops or the cubicles or wherever the hell you are out of your car window shut up and give me murder let's go on a trip jimmy that's you got it right that time let's go on a trip jimmy what do you say well with leno and lino i still don't know what it's lino is what they say yeah we said leno god forbid yeah so anyway we're going on a trip to illinois great let's do this from the west coast from the mispronounced area of the of the willamette valley we're going all the way to illinois Bloomingdale, Illinois, to be specific. This is in northeastern Illinois. It's just outside of Chicago.

It's a suburb of Chicago. And I understand the other one we did in episode 80 was a suburb of Chicago also. But story's fucking awesome. I don't care. And it involves other small towns, too. So it's all sorts of small town weirdness. There's small town strange, like, sort of culty things going on. It's crazy.

This is like a Charles Manson-lite guy, we'll put it. So it's outside of Chicago. It's about 30 miles outside of Chicago. So it's about an hour and change in traffic into the city. Five hours to Detroit. 25 minutes to Villa Park, illinois which is the last episode 80 our last illinois episode sex lies and duct tape right which is a crazy episode listen to that if you have not heard that uh it's in dupage county uh zip code i don't care if that's

mispronounced by the way don't care illinois uh zip code 60108 uh Area code 630 and 331. Had to tack that on. They get two also? They get two also. That's right. I don't know what happens here. It's seven square miles, so not huge, not small. It is the motto here.

Yeah. And this is good here. Growth with pride. Uh-huh. That's the motto. I don't know what. I don't know what you have. Pride.

Are you talking about their dicks? We're growing and we're proud of it. It's like a Flintstones vitamins commercial. Ten million strong and growing, but that's not how many. They're a grower, not a shower? Is that what they're saying? Or there's a lesser known one, though. This is like their underground motto.

I had to search for this one. This is like their 4chan underground motto. It's lesser known. Quote, less black people than Chicago, but you can still go to Cubs games. So that's I feel like that's the pitch they're really making. As a matter of fact, here, it's a little wordier that one, I feel like. And, you know, it's racist. So they're going to have they're going to keep it on the on the down low.

But that's what they're doing out in the suburbs. There's Bloomingdale Bloomingdale like the store. Is there any any links? Not at all. No, no, no whatsoever. Right. Is there any links to that? Not at all. No links? None whatsoever. Great. It's apparently in this county, it's one of the earliest settled areas around here. The Meacham family came here in 1833.

Who were the Meachams? Well, we'll talk about that. You don't know, Jimmy? No. Jesus Christ. Now, that's it. You know what? This show's over.

I can't deal with Jimmy. If he doesn't know who the Meachums are who arrived in Illinois in 1833, what do we have to talk about anymore, Jimmy? How are we going to do this? How are we going to do this? Yeah, they came here. Later on, some more families came. It was originally called Meachum's Grove.

Oh. Here. Oh, yeah. That sounds lovely. Silas. Listen to these. Silas Meachum, Lyman Meachum, and Harvey Meacham were the first party people. Yeah.

Party people. So many sweater vans. Silas, where's Lyman? We got to get this fucking party started. It's like a 1984 Motley Crue concert every night there. That's what it is. Just broads everywhere. And their brothers?

Strippers throwing their clothes off and cocaine piles on the table yeah i can apparently yeah they're all related i don't think it was a coincidence your name meets them too let's move to illinois wanna okay and then they all just kind of you know carton i assume they're brothers and there's no parents because they murder them for those fucking names you know that yeah thanks for calling me silas uh they were the first settlers here they cleared away snow uh from a spot and said all right this is where we're going to start a town yeah they pitched their tents and in march and there was still snow on the ground which should have been a sign that they should keep going west keep going until you hit the ocean this is the warm time if you hit the willamette valley they'll go south south though because people there are

assholes and they'll miss fucking correct your mispronunciations constantly nobody wants that so i'm just kidding people we love you oregon so uh but you're not getting an episode for that i'm sorry you're suspended so uh there was a lot a lot of natives there at the time obviously this is not unoccupied territory every time they go let's settle this it's like people come out come by and they're like no we got this already we already did we're already here it's cool settled as fuck a lot of natives completely settled look around uh there were their neighbors there uh and the only people there were natives and the meachums that's it and uh the natives were cool with the meachums they let them stay which is a mistake obviously for a minute yeah uh they were they were peaceable and

quiet they said and uh but they they the way they put it the meachums in their in their little diary here is that they were quote generally peaceable and quiet but filled with all manner of superstitious and savage peculiarities my word so they're they're observing the native people like they're some sort of project, some sort of zoological. Like Jane Goodall. Yeah, some zoological project, like Lewis and Clark collecting animals or something. It's super weird. I hate that they called them superstitious. That's called culture, you white fox.

Jesus Christ, man. Good God. Foxy. Jesus Christ, man. Good God. One of the things was, after they got there, the Meachums, they found a dog in a grove hanging from a limb to which it was hooked with a piece of tobacco tied to each foot. And they were kind of like, that's weird.

He didn't do that to himself, probably. He was like, I can't take it anymore. Never mind. that to himself probably he was like i can't take it anymore never mind he just this tobacco will will tell everyone of my pain and he just tops up on there uh no he was solving his own cancer maybe uh this is what did it to him with the leaves and as apparently the natives said that they uh they had some bad luck and the dog was offered as a sacrifice. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

I would say so. It was known among the Native Americans as the Pinayak Grove, and there was a root there that was like a potato. Apparently, that's what they named it after, I guess. That's a Pinayak? A Pinayak, yeah. I guess that would be a Pinayak, some sort of off-brand potato. I'm not sure. Not exactly Idaho.

Illinois is not known for their potatoes, so which is better? It can't be as good, right? It's a knockoff potato. It's got to be worse than Idaho. This is our Canal Street potatoes. Yeah, come on. What do you want? It's got starch in it.

Hey, grab a sec. It's Long Island potatoes. We grow them out there, too. They're all right. They're not bad. I'm not going They're all right. They're not bad. I'm not going to lie to you. They're not like Idaho or nothing, but they're a lot closer. So what the fuck?

You know what I mean? You can mash it. I'll tell you what. You buy a bag, I'll give you a date with my sister. What do you say? You look like a clean guy. You bake it and tell me there's a difference. Come on.

Ain't got no diseases or nothing. That's all right. You bake it up. You come back. You hook up with my sister. You don't even have to take her out. Just take her in the backseat of your car. We'll call it even.

What do you say? Throw your sour cream all over the place. You throw sour cream on it, bacon, fucking, whatever you want. These potatoes will hold it all is what I'm telling you. They take it right in the face, these potatoes. Jesus Christ, man. jesus christ man so uh yeah they uh apparently they uh they were they they would loan each other things the the indian people that were there and then the meachums would loan each other things uh the meachums got pissed off at one point harvey meachum loaned uh a very valuable rifle of his to

the to the natives for several days on the promise that they would return it and they brought it back on the appointed day so then they figured they could trust them. So then they started always letting them borrow stuff and they would teach each other things. They started loaning with a gun? Yeah, they started. Like his best rifle. He said, well, tell you what, here's my best rifle.

He said, if they bring it back, then they're good people. So they brought it back right when they said they were going to. So they said, hey, these people are all right. Everybody's okay. If I don't know somebody nor trust them with my life, I'm not loaning my fucking gun. Hold on. I'm going to turn around and farm some things. Hold on.

I'm going to hack up these. What were they? Penny axe. Penny axe. Hack up these penny axe real quick and I'll turn my back. You can shoot me and kill me and kill my brother. Take our women. You hold my gun for several days.

Yeah, it's all right. I don't need it. I'll be fine. Harvey's a dipshit. There's no bears around here, right? No? All right. It paid off for him.

That's all right. But. So Lyman Meacham's wife died in the fall of 1833. So they got there just 1833. Okay. She died of the year. She died of 1833. They would call it she died of the year. of 1833 they would call it she died of the year and it was just

i don't know just kind of ran out of steam i guess it's people die early there wasn't much we could do people die early here her coffin was made of boards taken from a wagon box brought from the east uh so they made they didn't have i don't, that was a symbolic thing. Used the car. Yeah. The next death was a young mechanic who came to the town with a guy named Major Skinner the next year. And he was buried in a coffin made from a big log. They made like a big deal out of burying the first two people. And then more people came. And then they died. And they were like, just put him on the ground.

We can't be so special forever. Yeah, this is ridiculous. Some symbolic shit here. Can't treat you like a coveted mechanic. No. Just put them in the ground. We can't be so special forever. Yeah, this is ridiculous. Some symbolic shit here. So then. Can't treat you like a coveted mechanic. No, what are we? And the wife of Lyman. Right.

She married a guy named Lyman. You know what a good, what a good, nice lady she was. He said, my name's Lyman. And she was like, you know what? I can live with that. And by the way, a mechanic in the 18th. A mechanic of what? That's a carpenter i was gonna say

i've i've played oregon trail and you break an axle and can you stick an axle it doesn't really take mechanical skills it's kind of just it's a it's a heavy piece of wood do it that's straight that's it i don't know what the hell is going on that's a carpenter yeah you'd have to build yeah you build like the the spaces for it to go into, the joints and everything. That ain't a goddamn mechanic. No, no, not at all here. So the Meacham brothers in their first year built a log house for each of their families, and they planted 40 acres of prairie and fenced it in so they could have stock, not graze off the area, but they could graze in their land.

The settlement increased to 15 families by the end of 1834 now you're talking they heard some people was some things were happening some shit was popping off you can you can loan a native american a gun and they'll bring it back we got to get out there this sounds amazing so uh yeah they were uh everybody uh they said that that people would just uh help each other all the time and and help them carry a plow to get it sharp. And just they kept all these notes of like how everybody was so helpful to each other. Great.

Because if you only have 15 families, imagine if your town was 15 families. Everybody would help each other out. There might be a couple people feuding, but otherwise it would be, everybody would be nice to each other. Statistically, there's always a dick. If there's 4 million people,

we live in Phoenix, there's like 4.5 million people here. You can't care in Phoenix. There's like four and a half million people here. You can't care about everybody. You're just leaving them behind. That's it. In 1849, the first permanent building was built, the first decent structure. Guess what it was? The bank.

A church. Money or religion. One of the two. Then they had to build a bank to put all the money the church got into. That's how this worked. The bank is number two. Like, hey, we have too much money. People are going to steal it here.

It still stands today, this place. Wow. And it's a museum now, the first of old Baptist church here. So yeah, every time the railroad came through, more people would come in. Every time there was an event of something, a road came by there that was an easy access to Chicago. So a lot more people came because they could get to chicago uh one one they they talk in this one uh little i love these little clips of like you know writings of the time here and they talk about one they were

all excited because uh there was more stuff happening and they said it's amazing that this town's growing there's already two boot makers oh a men's clothier and a tailor shop two carpenters a wagon maker a blacksmith a cheese factory what else do we need you got a cheese you know what hey there's a close the gates we got a cheese factory fuck it we're no one else no more no one else is allowed no we have cheese what are we what are we doing we got curds we got cheddar we got whatever we want wisconsin's right there we don't need these people anymore but get them out so uh apparently yeah i like that they're aiming at the men in this market though that all those things were for dudes there's not a single thing for women in there no that's why they said it was lyman and

silas they didn't say they're who their wives were it was mrs lyman that was who she was in 1834 there's no candle shop they didn't even have identities they're like we'll bury you out of something but make your coffin out of something half decent when you die sweetheart that's all you're gonna get out of us it's terrible time back then should have been called for men for yeah just for men for me just for men men only and then they were like hey they're gonna and all the gays are gonna come you know hey you know i come uncomfortable pussy i like pussy you what? I got nothing against it. Don't get me wrong, but when it's right in front of me, you know, it makes me uncomfortable.

That's all the good news. They were very progressive for 1834, but they're still a little lagging for now. I don't want to watch. Yeah, for now, they're still like, yeah, come on. What do you care? Relax, asshole. But for then, that was very progressive stance in 1834. Progressive stance in 1834.

In 1839, this was originally in Cook County, and it was annexed to DuPage County in 1839. And basically, they wanted the northern part of this town to be commercially developed and keep the southern part farming. Kind of like Sim City back in the day. Like, I'm going to put a bunch of agricultural here and then I'll put like medium density housing right there. Residential. Southside sucks. Need a couple of commercial store store.

Why is it every place where that has a south side? The south side is always the shit. Unless it's like Miami. Yeah. Or unless the ocean is attached to it. Yeah. The ocean's right there. The south side is where you want to be.

Otherwise. Yeah. Well, if you're in like fucking Nebraska, the south side sucks. Whatever side is closest to the ocean is going to be the better side i think probably so i don't know our south side is closest to the oh it's terrible and it's shit it's a dump yeah it is bad actually no the south side you have to go all the way through mexico to get to the ocean the west side's terrible too though so never mind that's all right so who knows uh so23, this village split to accommodate this difference. And the northern part of the town was called.

They made it a different town called Roselle. That's still there from 1950 to 1980. In 1950, there was 338 people in this town. And by 1980, there was 12,659 people in this town. So they really it increased a lot. That was the flight from the cities. This is a close suburb. You can still, you know, if there's a train that goes right from here to here, you can

work in Chicago and be there and commute. Now, notable people in this town. For a small town, this has some weird shit going on in it, okay? This could have been a case for either small town murder or crime and sports. Really? This one. Yeah, we could have done it as like either small town murder or crime and sports really this one yeah we could have done it as like a crossover episode this one thing that happened nate fox was a basketball player he played for the university of maine uh for a while uh here and he averaged in college 17 and a half point seven and a half rebounds in a senior year great

player good deal uh he played in europe though. Played in Portugal and all sorts of Germany. We've seen all these. Israel, Belgium, Netherlands. All sorts of shit here. So March 2008, he got a world he was suspended from the world of basketball. A worldwide

suspension. Literally a worldwide international suspension for seven and a half months after a positive drug test for, it was doping, so I guess it was steroids or something like that. Must have been a whole bunch of them. Yeah, I'm thinking that they test like in the Olympics in European basketball, maybe. I have no idea.

But anyway, he was a good player in the Baltic League. He was MVP of the month a couple of times. Anyway, he ends up getting back in 2014 he's living in bloomingdale here and uh he's shot to death in the in his driveway holy shit by a businessman named jeffrey wayne keller uh who was ended up being convicted of first degree murder it was a big public crazy thing with a love triangle and this guy ended up killing uh this basketball player in his driveway over a woman. Holy shit. It's a crazy story. Yeah.

Yeah, it would have been a good small town murder. And then also this, because this is timely, Austin Jones. Do you know who that is? He's a YouTube douchebag. A YouTuber, like a singer or something, who has been accused of a lot of child porn very recently. Very, very recently. He apparently was contacting underage female fans online

and persuading them to dance for him in videos and telling them how to twerk and shit for him. What? Telling them, if you're really my number one fan, you'll take your underwear off and shit like that. Oh, my God. That's horrible. But at least like 26 years old now.

And he's doing this shit. And he looks like he's one of these 26 year olds who looks like he's 14. He looks like a 14 year old blonde kid. So he is going to get pummeled in prison. Absolutely. He is fucked. At least his asshole. Well, yeah.

And in 2017, he was arrested at O'Hare Airport by Homeland Security. Oh, trying to get on a plane of O'Hare Airport by Homeland Security. Oh, shit. Trying to get on a plane of two counts of producing child pornography. Gross. And, yeah, this was, in each case, he persuaded underage female fans to make sexually explicit videos of themselves while he was watching. Thanks, YouTube. Thanks, yeah. He was released from federal custody to home confinement in his mom's custody, because he looks like he's 12.

Yeah. He posted Bond. He has to, he in his mom's custody because he looks like he's 12. He posted bond. He's not allowed on the Internet at all. He ended up, he pled guilty five days ago in court, February 1st, 2019. Wow. I couldn't believe it when this came up. I'm like, I just read about this guy. He pleads guilty to a single count of receipt of child pornography, and he's about to be sentenced.

What is that? I don't know. What's a receipt? It's a plea to get him down to a reasonable sentence and guideline that everybody can live with. But he's going to prison. Yeah. There's no doubt. He's definitely going to prison.

He pled guilty, so he just now is waiting on sentence. He's waiting on sentence. It's a prison offense. There's no two ways about it. He's going to prison. I wonder how long he gets. I don on sentencing. He's waiting on sentencing. It's a prison offense. There's no two ways about it. He's going to prison. I wonder how long he gets. I don't know, but it's going to be good. Keep your eyes on that, everybody.

What's his YouTube name? Do we know? It's Austin Jones. He goes by Austin Jones. Oh, that was a big, dumb move. Should have picked a stage name, dickhead. Yeah, I don't know if that's his real name or not. Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

Who knows? That's what he goes by. Also, those two guys, so a murder victim with an interesting life and a gross disgusting youtube pedophile and frank c rathy the president of the american bankers association that's it and he's the worst one he did not yeah nothing no no uh did never got caught for pedophilia or anything but he's a scumbag in charge of banks. I'm sure he is. He's a piece of shit.

I'm sure of it. Now, people population in this town is twenty two thousand two hundred and fifty four. It's up thirty four percent since 1990. Back when the time when we're talking here, there was about three thousand people here and we're going to talk about it. So it's going to be like that. Median age here is high. Forty four point three.

It's usually about 37 uh which is all the young demographics are low all the all the 55 at age 55 and over are high yeah so it's just older people live there uh but there's still the normal male female ratio it's not too out of whack with i wonder austin had no friends no yeah yeah it's all all old people he's like i'm not into old ladies he's a a fucking asshole. There's no kids around here. I've got to get on the internet to find them. More married people than regular. God, I want to punch this kid in his face, too.

If you saw him, you'd want to punch him. More widowed people because they're slightly more older people. Just how it works here. White. It's about 75% white. That's about 63% is the national average. 75 here. 2.92 percent black so

not very black 12 and a half percent asian interesting a lot of asian people in this town i don't know why i don't know what the i don't know who knows but there's a lot of asian people here good for you uh nine and nine percent hispanic it is so uh you know it's a decent mix more more diverse than most small towns we look at. Much more diverse. Seventy-two percent of people here are religious. Good Lord, that's a lot of religion. That's too much. That is too much.

Forty-one point nine percent Catholic. Catholics are the Baptists of the Central, apparently. Wow. That is... It is north. It's north, yeah. Point two percent Jewish. So not a lot of Jewish people here.

6.6% Muslim, so a lot of Asians and a lot of Muslims. It's very, very interesting here. 53% of the people voted Democrat in the last election, 38% Republican, 8% Independent, so that's pretty high here, which in a Democratic district, they probably might have voted for Jill Stein or some shit. Unemployment rate's about normal, like everywhere else, about 5%. Median household income here is $71,000. It's usually about $54,000 in the rest of the country. So not too shabby at all here on the-

YouTube fucking pumped that number up. Yeah, he definitely upped the average here. Cost of living, 100 being regular average par. Here it is 124. So a little bit high. Everything else is kind of low. Transportation is high for some reason, 145. I don't know why.

Housing is 148. So the median home cost here is $276,200. So this isn't terrible. Chicago's an expensive city for anything kind of right around the suburbs there. A lot of the houses are between $200,000 and $400,000 as you would expect. And if we've convinced you, all of you, you need to be in Bloomingdale, Illinois to

live like Silas Meacham and party all night. We have for you the Bloomingdale, Illinois to live like Silas Meacham and party all night. We have for you the Bloomingdale, Illinois Real Estate Report. Found your average two-bedroom rental here is about $1,680. So it's about $400 higher than the average. It's a little bit high. I'm going to commensurate with the real estate. Found a four-bedroom, two-bath, 1,878-square-foot vinyl siding wonder. Shit, yeah.

It's a vinyl sided. It's a nice little house. But, you know, it's, you know what I mean? It's that house. Everybody knows what that house is. You know exactly what I'm talking about. $289,000. That's kind of your average home here.

I found a three-bedroom, two-bath, 2,149 square feet. It's made of stone. There's no vinyl on it. It's a nicer built house, probably a better foundation. Nicer basement, better insulated. $374,900 for that, though. It's a little more. Then you want to stretch your legs a little bit.

Found a five-bedroom, five-bath, 4,800 square foot. Nice. It looks like a John Hughes movie house. It's a nice house here. $690,000 to live like Molly Ringwald. It's going to cost you for your dad to drop you off with your sushi

lunch at your Saturday detention. It's going to cost you, damn it. A Kirk Cameron poster on your bedroom. Oh, you know it's right there. just growing pains all right we're all religious so there we go no shit things to do here september fest batting down the hatches for september fest holy shit round the kids up september fest is coming i can't wait for october fest we're gonna do september fest it's the annual end of summer gathering held the first saturday after labor day it's kicked off with a parade that ends right in old town park in addition to stage performances they don't tell you who's performed just people

will get uh we're gonna get kurt cameron local bands and possibly kurt cameron but you all have to convert to whatever the shit he's preaching nowadays if you want kirk cameron to come here i guarantee it is the most extreme of christianity i'm sure it is yeah he makes weird movies and shit like yeah he's does christian movies that they sell on the discount bin at walmart i had a plan to go get uh because movie theaters will give you the poster of whatever's there yeah when they're getting rid of it unless employees claim it yeah i remember as a teenager i wanted i asked the guy if i because there was a kurt cameron one for that's hilarious it said like puts the jesus back and it was like a fighting oh god it was crazy he's fighting the demons for jesus i was like two questions one him and santa tag team two questions one can i have that poster and two how many tickets have you sold and

he goes we haven't sold a single one wants to go to this i was like how long are you gonna have this in the theater he's like i don't know maybe it's already done anyone who's who would want to see this will not leave their house they're all on house arrest as a matter of course cameron's on his way down this is the only ticket that's just him It's just his mom. This festival, in addition to Kirk Cameron posters for all, there's a car show, a, quote, family-friendly carnival. I don't know why it would be. They all are. It's X-rated carnival, as opposed to all those X-rated carnivals out there where you're just,

you know, you have to, instead of a clown's mouth, you have to shoot it up a stripper's ass and it blows up and fucking you know how it goes jimmy uh so uh this is all the same all all bachelorette party novelty straws for the kids everywhere everybody dick straw slurpees for the kids everyone wants it with dicks all who doesn't want a dick straw slurpee kids what flavor dick straw slurpee would you like what does the dick straw have to do with it makes it taste different tastes like shame at that point so i haven't slept in two days i'm a little delirious here guys so this is what you get when you finish the cotton candy the stick doubles as a flesh

yeah yeah that's amazing it's gonna be awesome're going to love it. This is my daughter. So, yeah. A variety of food, craft vendors, and a Lions Club beer tent, because it is Illinois and we're getting shit-faced. Crime rate in this town, what we're interested in, property crime is about 20% high. It's a little bit high on the property, but violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course, assault. Don't you dare forget about assault. The Mount Rushmore

of crime is about 25% lower than average. So they will steal your shit, but if you give it up, they're not going to hurt you. That's the difference. You do it peacefully. Like, listen, give me all your shit and I won't do anything. You're like, okay. And he's like, all right then. And he leaves. And you're like, oh wow.

Just like the natives who borrowed the Meacham's rifle. They're very honest people around here give me that i might bring it back on time maybe i'll bring it back to you you never know i won't use your credit cards i'll steal your wallet but i'll only take the cash and not anything else you have a value but not your credit cards because you know what that's a pain you gotta call the place and i'm i'm a nice guy i can't do that it might be a criminal but come on i got my limits So let's talk about a murder. Yes. Shall we? Let's do it here. 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+. Join Wondery 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 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. Let's do this. Murder here. Let's talk about a man named Edmund Henry Lopes. Shall we? He's not one of the Meacham boys. This guy. And he's not from Blo the meacham boys okay uh this guy he's not from bloomingdale no not for even from illinois he's born in plymouth massachusetts oh

this man we're going back in time for this one jimmy good we're going back in time this is like we're going back to like think about this like this is going to happen in the late 60s early 70s oh psychedelics and uh thisics. It's so musty. I don't know if it got to Illinois. I'm sure there's a lot of weeds. It's going to be definitely like weed and incense and patchouli scented this whole episode here. But then it's not really because there's not a hippie in this entire thing.

Not one. It's kind of the opposite of that. Really? It's the time that it's going by. And this guy is like Midwestern Charles Manson. Oh. Like in California, to be Charles Manson, you had to be like a hippie and cool and like do acid and have acid to give to other people to then dominate their thoughts while they

were tripping. Gee, what are people like? He was a genius for getting to get give them acid and then make them think things. I'll believe if you give me acid, you could tell me anything and I'll believe it. That's a good point. You're on acid all the time. You're drugged. On acid. Right. It's not just sleeping pills. No, you could tell me anything and i'll believe it that's a good point it's you're on acid all the time drugged on acid right it's not just sleeping pills no you could tell people anything they're

like whoa yeah i see i can see it right fucking crazy yeah so no this guy without the drugs here uh edmund lopes here flimmas massachusetts he's born way back in uh 1936 So he's an old-timey fellow. Lopes, L-O-P-E-S? L-O-P-E-S, 1936, Plymouth, Massachusetts. In his high school yearbook, his motto was, quote, speed is our safety over thin ice. So that's kind of like you've got to gun it through the turns, I guess. I guess it's the same theory.

Speeds or safety through thin ice. Over thin ice. So if you're going over thin ice, don't slow down. It's kind of like in Funny Farm when they were crossing the bridge. It's just termites holding hands. You got to gun it. You can't go slow like that. You got to creep through it.

Back up and gun that shit. Back up 100 yards. Give it a head start. He was in the Marines for a little while, this guy. He's a tiny guy. Yeah. He's 5'3". Oh, poor little fella.

So you could bully this man. Yeah. Like, and full grown. He's a very small man. I gotta get me one of those. But ego. Oh, really? Big ego.

He's a very, that's what I mean. I think he's your size. He's like Charles Manson. He's a 5'3 guy who wants to be thought of as tough and he wants to be thought of as uh he doesn't want to be thought of as hey little guy that's not how he does it I feel bad for sorry if you're five three guys out there uh I feel sorry for yeah dudes that are shorter they they know it that's they're like yeah I get it motherfucker they either they either have a sense of humor or they're a total dick yeah one of the two it's

kind of like a big fat guy right either a total asshole or the funniest guy in the room. One of the two. You're not getting it in between. That's the truth. That's the truth. It's when you feel insecure about something or you feel inferior, you tend to compensate for that one way or the other. Yeah.

And a guy like that also, 5'3", he wants to prove he's tough. He joins the Marines. Yeah. He also played, I guess, semi-pro football for a little while. I don't know at what level that was. Back in the 40s and 50s, they had a bunch of little

local football leagues. They'd pay you $5 a game to go out there and get concussions. They just lay him down, mark the spot, lay down again. I don't know what he would do in football. He's a punt returner or something. I don't know what he would do in football. He's a punt returner or something. I don't know what the hell. 5'3 is, no, that's small for any time in football.

That would be a very small man. That's a horrible, ugh. He'd have to be very fast. 5'3 is miserable. That would be tough. For a girl, it's not so bad. 5'3 is a decent size. No, for a woman, they don't, Sarah, my wife, is 5'1, and she will complain about not being

able to reach things and stuff. But otherwise, it's not like.'s not comical, comically small. It's just. Yeah. But if you're a man and you're that small, you're like, oh, did you have polio? Like, what happened to your legs? Why didn't they grow? What happened to you?

That's it's it's that's how people are. It's not that it's right. I'm just saying that's kind of society there. So he he ends up getting married. So he's a Marine semi pro. He ends up getting married. So he's a Marine semi-pro. He ends up getting married and has four daughters with his wife back in Massachusetts. So he's a military guy, and he gets out. He plays a little football.

He's married and four kids, and this is back in the 50s when that's what you did. You got married. I hope she was 6'2". That would be the best. All the daughters are like 5 11 they all tower over him at age fucking 12 that would be amazing and then he's they're walking he's walking him down the aisle and they're bent over to hold his hand he's so angry he's just so and this this episode is about him a massacre at an n NBA exhibition game held in a small town. Those tall sons of bitches.

And he just goes there. I'll kill them all. And a Harlem Globetrotters game. I'll kill them all. I hate tall people. So he's got a wife and four daughters in the 50s, which is like a sitcom. Like, oh, dad's the only guy. And that would be like a 50s sitcom of him and all his daughters.

They all have little bows in their hair and skirts. But instead of, in non-50s fashion, in a 50s sitcom, he'd come home in a tie every night and take his sport coat off and smoke a pipe like Ward Cleaver. Instead, he abandons his wife and four daughters. That little guy? Just abandons them. Thinks there's a better life somewhere else.

This guy, by the way, much like a Charlie Manson, is the ladies are mesmerized else this guy by the way much like a charlie manson is the ladies are mesmerized by this guy don't know why it's so and people will say later on that i don't know people women were met i don't know why they'll say i i never i couldn't figure it out it wasn't like there's some guys you see yeah and you go obviously yeah that's why women like him yeah it's a fucking guy's handsome or whatever. He's got some sort of something. This one, he doesn't give off any palpable air of anything special, yet they're just like, out of the way, I'll flock to him. I don't understand it.

There's a guy named Kieran that works at the clubs here. I've seen him. I mean, he's a friend of mine now, but I mean, I'm just looking at the man. I'm in awe of what the fuck he looks like he's the most you see handsome people all the time ever there's handsome people all the time I worked with Jeff Dye a hundred times Jeff Dye is a comedian he's tall he was on NBC with some TV show there I remember what the hell it's him and like Terry Bradshaw yeah I forget what it's called traipsing around Asia or some shit I don't know it. It's called Cancel. It's Cancel. It was Cancel, actually. But Jeff's a great guy and a funny comic, but a fantastic dude.

But you have to have some sort of confidence staying out with him because he's like six foot four and the most handsome man and also well-mannered, well-spoken, polite to everyone on Earth, from the lowest person to the most... It's ridiculous. People like that, you go, I if there's people like that you go i can see why girls like that guy probably this is not that man and he generally doesn't discern between male or female no he's just nice to people he's not gaming to fuck somebody i've seen nice to everybody i've seen open mic comics come up to him and just be like hey man well then

he'll be like hey that's a cool shirt i like that team what do you where are you from are you from and talk to the guy for 20 minutes like you mattered and this was a this person doesn't matter at all to him and can't help him or anything like that it's a nice guy so uh this guy complete opposite the chicks like him no one knows why but uh they do and he abandons his wife and four daughters unbelievable don't need them moving on so picture a man with a flat top and a and a tie that's a little too short walking away in black and white. That's what that looked like, I assume. So he ends up developing quite a little bit of a criminal record as he goes around to these places. He picks up a little record here and there.

You're going to get caught, little buddy. You stick out. No, no, no, not him. He's going to pull it off, man. He develops a criminal record, including car theft, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, disorderly conduct, things like that. He just kind of builds up a general resume of fuckery. Abandons the family, does a bunch of stupid illegal shit. Panhandle behavior, basically.

Don't steal a car when you're that size. No. That guy clearly doesn't belong. Well, they'll be like, oh, my God, that car's driving itself. And when you're that size no that guy clearly doesn't belong well they'll be like oh my god that car's driving itself and then they're like no it's not never mind there is a child behind the wheel i'm sorry sir do you have your license this isn't your car because the cars the cars back then the seats were very low too like an old lady you couldn't see them they'd be sitting you know over the steering wheel now you can boost your seat up her white hair sticking right above the door yeah yeah, yeah. Short people are going to be mad at us. By the way, Jimmy is a short person, so don't be mad.

I'm a terribly short person. Yeah, he's very short. It's embarrassing. Jimmy picking on this guy is like... It just feels good. It's just, yeah. It's really arbitrary. It really isn't that much of a difference, I'll be honest with you.

He could likely say the same shit to me. Yeah, yeah. If this guy had, like, tall shoes on and Jimmy had sneakers on, you couldn't say a word. He'd be like, all right, fine. We're just having a little fun. So he finds women, though, abandons his family. You know, not no discernible things that would be attractive, but he finds women. He dates a local woman in Massachusetts massachusetts named helen hansen yeah uh for a long time they move in together actually uh as a matter of fact they lived together for a while and then in 1966

she is found dead in her apartment oh no now they just find her dead this is not this that's the best part of this story not that that's good, but this part is worse. Next to her in a crib unattended is her six-month-old baby girl. And this was in July in a closed-up apartment, very hot in there, with the decomposing body of her mother, who had been there for four days. Holy shit. So this baby was in a crib next to the decomposing body of her mother for four days. And she's alive? Yeah, she was alive when they got there. Thank God.

Yeah, she was alive. Kellen was not alive. The mother, certainly not alive. Otherwise, she wouldn't decompose, probably, I would assume. Much less chance of decomposition if you're breathing. Or at least the smell of it, because we're still decomposing well always we're dying from the inside so uh but the six-month-old baby girl is okay but helen is dead now uh they lived together uh for approximately a year before her death this was like her live-in boyfriend now the weird part is the cause of death is, we're talking the 60s, so 1966.

The science is not perfect, but they can, the cause of death is listed as acute alcoholism. She's 34 years old, by the way. Oh. And acute alcoholism. She's been boozing hard. That would be really hard. But the police in Massachusetts, that's all they could find for an official cause of death. But the police in Massachusetts, that's all they could find for an official cause of death.

But the police in Massachusetts said there's indications that they believe there was foul play involved. And it was just hard to prove because of the level of decomposition after four days in a hot, sweltering part. It wasn't decomposed completely, but the skin wasn't perfect and shit like that. Back then, the testing wasn't as good as it is now. It just isn't. So it's a little different. I'm surprised they didn't write she couldn't cheer up. She couldn't cheer up.

This bitch died of not cheering up. Prescription found in the drawer. Let me put my glasses on, my readers. Cheer up, bitch. She did not follow directions. So we're going to chalk this down as her fault. suicide we'll just put down suicide so johnson would you look at her face completely uncheered look at that jesus christ lack of cheer my goodness these damn women won't cheer up for some reason i don't get it we tell them to and then they just don't do it we go listen woman cheer up and take speed and

clean the house and then they get grumpy still i don't get why and you can't have a career and if you do you're gonna get paid half as much right uh but cheer up and your bills are twice as expensive this is the 60s enjoy so yeah ridiculous so uh the whole thing was uh very shady and gray and mushy, and the police were very suspicious and were really curious about this whole thing. Edmund moves pretty much immediately after this. He moves out of state, leaves Massachusetts, and moves where? To Illinois. All right.

Moves to Bloomingdale, Illinois. As a matter of fact, that sounds familiar. I think the Meachams are from there, if I'm not mistaken. And some natives? Yeah. Wasn't there a story you told me about a rifle, I believe?

Jimmy knows all about this county's history. It's amazing. Local lore. He knows it all. It's weird. Here, he does not go by his name. No. He goes by Jasper Brown.

Why would you do that? Well, if you're... If you're this guy... That fucking name, Jasper Brown sounds like an old prospector that just came down from the hills after three years and has to readjust to society. That's not a sophisticant of Massachusetts. No. After living with the wolves. Maybe that's why it's like they're all rednecks there.

I'll call myself Jasper Brown. So he moves there, changes his name, holds jobs as both a school janitor, because this sounds like the type of guy you want around the kids, obviously. This is going to shape young minds. But they wouldn't know because Jasper Brown's record is clean. Jasper Brown sounds like a school janitor. Yeah, it does. It really does.

I could totally see. He's got a big, like a stinky, almost looks like a hand-rolled stogie hanging out of his mouth. Like a stinky cigar. There's no cigar. You never light that. That's weird. Oh, it's not a cigar. I found it under the bleachers.

I just found it, like, six months ago. And it's tasty. I'll be honest with you. It's not bad. It's like a Slim Jim. Can't tell if it's dog shit or a Slim Jim, but it tastes fine. It chews fine. Mighty fine.

Real nice. tastes fine. It chews fine. Mighty fine. Real nice. Mighty fine. So also he works out as a laborer in a country club. Maintenance man, laborer, whatever needs done. Fix that sprinkler and then, you know, clean up that overflowed toilet type of guy. Greenskeeper hasn't been invented yet. No, he's a janitor through and through.

He's the blood of a janitor. This is at the Medina Country club uh and they're around that area he also works nights at a tavern uh you know a little bar in town too yeah what's he do there he just works i don't know he's probably a i was just a bar back or something i assume he's carrying things throwing kegs he yeah he can he can go he can get in in tight places and the keg room's small he can he's he can maneuver can you fix the tap in the keg yeah i'll climb right in there climb in there and over it they can't the last guy they had to fire he was too he was too normal a couple too many deep dish pizzas and couldn't quite get in there so he works there uh in 1969

yeah he meets a woman another woman i don't know how he finds these, he meets a woman, another woman. I don't know how he finds these women. He meets a woman named Phyllis at this point. So he meets Phyllis. She is a divorced 43-year-old waitress. This is in Bensonville. They work in this restaurant. So he kind of gloms on to her at this point.

He's like, all right, I can do this. He's a little younger than her. kind of gloms on to her at this point and he's like all right you know i can do this he's a little younger than her uh she is uh like i said she's uh divorced in the 60s and a waitress in the midwest had a certain connotation to it as uh when are you gonna find another man i mean clock's running out sweetheart you know you're in bloomingdale there ain't much here so it's yeah one of those yeah back then that was uh so he might have felt like he could, you know, kind of move in on her a little easier. She might have been like, oh, easy prey. She's a little down on her luck at this point.

And all she needs is a little Jasper. Very little. A little Jasper. So they meet and they get married pretty quickly. All right. So things move along fast then. So they get married pretty quickly and they settle together in bloomingdale uh the marriage is not wonderful though no from the start it's because he's not a he's not a good guy let's just say

that from the start this i'm always fascinated with how these people can change their names and then get married oh yeah you know in the, though, every paperwork was just written on a piece of paper. It was literally that. It was paper. Driver's licenses up until the late 80s were literally just on paper. You could make it in your typewriter if you had the sheet.

It's just weird. It was crazy. So you could change your, you could have a fake birth certificate, no problem. You could do, there was no like watermarks or any of that shit. And it was just a piece of paper. So it possible just fascinating you could disappear right back then yeah it's so

easily so easy you could be a different but that's i mean we don't know they always say like in this we never had a serial killer till the 70s it's like no you had them forever you just didn't know it there was no documentation people could just get away easily and you'd be like a cow must have kicked her i don't know she's dead and that was it you know you didn't know what to call it they probably left town well yeah yeah how many like poisonings or things like that or were ruled as natural causes back in the day it's why hh homes did it for so god yeah because people would just disappear back then and that was normal you were able to build a house yeah torture what happened to jenny oh she went to she went to the big city, and then I called the boarding house, and they said she left a month ago.

Who knows? Maybe she's in Montana. She's clearly in the big city. She's in the Dakotas. She could be looking at... We have no idea what she's doing. There was no Mount Rushmore then, but she could be doing anything. We don't know.

Jenny was off carving it. We don't know. She could have been. Back then, a letter took forever, and it might not get there, and the hell knows there was you know shit it was hard it does she's already in another city under a different name postmarked in the dakotas let's go there she's in san francisco she married silas whose wife's died or whichever fucking meachum was lyman i think it was lyman's wife died yeah lyman she probably killed herself i have to be Mrs. Lyman Meacham. No, thank you.

I thought this would be easier. No, I'm going back. June of 1970. So they've been, they met in 69. They get married. They've been together for a while. Rocky Road, June of 1970. All of a sudden, no one can find Phyllis.

She becomes just family and friends who call her Edmund here. We won't go by Jasper. We'll call him his real name here. Edmund Lopes. But the funny thing is Phyllis ended up taking the name Brown. So she took a fake name. That's so weird. Which is crazy.

She became Phyllis Brown. So he never told her. No, of course not. He has multiple shades of who he is and he's different people in different places. So bizarre. This is crazy shit. This gets so weird. So weird. So he would say different things to different people.

One time, somebody would call, he'd say, she's in the tub. Phyllis can't come. She's in the tub. She'd be out shopping. I don't know when she's coming back. She went out shopping with so-and-so. One time, she drank too much and didn't come home last night because she didn't want to drive. So who knows?

She's sleeping it off somewhere. She was responsible back then. Yeah, she's sleeping it off somewhere. Who the hell knows? She just couldn't. She passed out somewhere. She was just shit-faced. I didn't feel like picking her up.

And then also, some people, he'd just say, well, she left me. I don't know where she is. She left me. That's a lot of stories. Yeah, and when people would start to put it together, you can't tell her sister and her mother two different things. They're going to go, she was in the tub. Well, I heard she left him.

So, did she come back and then take a bath? She was shit-faced somewhere. Who knows? Maybe it's all three. Maybe she was taking a bath, shit-faced, and then she left. And then she left him because once she came to and was sober, she said, my life is terrible. This is ridiculous. And it's his fault.

My name is Mrs. Jasper. Yeah, Mrs. Jasper. So in late July of 1970, so over a month goes by, finally the restaurant they work at in Bensonville there contacts the police to say, Phyllis stopped coming to work the month before and we have no idea where she is. We asked her husband who also works here where she is and he's given us weird, we're suspicious. Every day the story changes where she's at.

Yeah, so we're getting suspicious. You might want to just take a look and just make sure she's not, you know, whatever. So do a little welfare check on her. Sure. So now about the time that Phyllis disappeared, right around the same time period this is another weird thing here you want to space this shit out is what i'm saying and

you'll know what i'm talking about in a second right around the same time phyllis disappears edmund becomes involved with another woman a woman named shirley johnston yeah uh whom he met golfing he golfs he golfs and he, he works at the country club. Oh, that's right. So he probably gets free rounds. Yeah, off hours or something. He'll certainly figure it out. Free rounds. And so she is golfing with him, and he's low center of gravity.

He's probably a good golfer. I bet he is. But he's not bad. Maybe that's what he's been running back. He's hard to tackle. Go right under your legs. Like a tiny Barry Sanders, but littler. So, yeah, apparently uh they become involved and he

becomes rather infatuated with shirley right around late june of 1970 same time his wife disappears so uh apparently though it seems to everyone around his friends her friends that he's more serious about the relationship than she is he wants to be like oh we're like just replace his wife with her right you know move yeah we're done deal we're in you're you're gonna be you want to be mrs jasper brown or what here let's get it on so uh yeah edmund here uh on july 31st 1970 edmund and shirley have a fight over the phone where he's telling her, you know, I want you to move in and all this. And she's saying, I don't really, you know, I'm not like that. I'm not as serious as you are.

We've only been seeing each other a month and I'm just not, you know, I'm just dating basically. So this Edmund Lopes was not having this whatsoever. He goes to her home, mind you uh to settle the matter you know because over the phone and i get it now we have texting and there's no and there's no way to tell what someone really means in text there's no inflection right there's no sarcasm there's no exactly there's no tone there's no anything like that so it's difficult over the phone sometimes too a misunderstanding you can't look in the person's eyes. So he says, I'm going to go over there and settle the matter and look Shirley in the eye and tell her how I feel.

So what he does is he goes over. He breaks in her home, which is what you do when you want to talk to someone. You don't set up a time and a meeting. Surprise, bitch. I'm here. Meet him at a coffee shop or something what you do is you break in and you hide behind the couch and you pop out of the shadows or under it and you say cheer up bitch it's 1970 so yeah it's it's insanity this whole thing's insanity so

he waits for her in her apartment which is probably the scariest thing you could imagine. Some angry man waiting in the shadows in your home. So she comes home, you know, like a normal day. And he confronts her. And she is it's weird. She doesn't want to listen to him. No, super weird, considering that, you know, he broke into her home after she said, I don't want to see you anymore. Not only is she seeing him, but seeing him in her home unin she said, I don't want to see you anymore. Not only is she seeing him, but seeing him in her home uninvited,

which is probably scary. So what's even scarier is at this point, Edmund grabs her and chokes her, begins to choke her and choke her, and then says, well, I know what I'll do here. This choking is taking a while. It takes a long time, so I'll just stab her in the neck. Oh, no.

So then he stabs her multiple times in the neck to the point where he leaves the knife hanging out of her neck wow uh drags her down to the basement yeah and leaves her there you know with the knife in her with the just yeah stabs choked her till he couldn't choke anymore and then was like well i've choked the neck enough i'm gonna stab it now a couple of times so he stabs it leaves a knife in there and leaves her uh leaves her down there to you know obviously to die yeah uh so yeah he takes off he's like all right enough of that shit yeah tell me you don't want to fucking move in with me right uh thinks he's you know made quick work of her and it's not like he lives there so anybody could have broken and done this and in the 60 60s, it happens. Well, it happens. And there's no DNA or anything. So he'd just go, I wasn't there.

And they'd go, he said he wasn't there. I don't know. That's all we have. Any witnesses? No. All right. Then I guess case closed. Problem is, about an hour later, old Shirley regains consciousness.

Oh, wow. She's not dead. That's my girl. She's a tough one, Shirley. And she is not taking any shit she wakes up an hour later in a pool of her own blood in her basement with full memory of what happened and a phone line that works just fine and then she cheered right up so uh yeah she cheered right on up she calls the police and the police come when they arrive. They find her clinging to a post, trying to pull herself up, sobbing, just uncontrollably sobbing and trying to stop herself from bleeding.

And they didn't know if she was going to make it because she lost so much blood and she was in bad shape. But she pulls through. Shirley does. And she survives. So Shirley's a survivor. And Jasper here, old Edmund Lopes, is kind of fucked cause now he's got a living witness to a very vicious act. Yeah.

He clearly meant to kill her. Right. He didn't, right. That wasn't like a punch and then he walked away and he, he left a knife hanging out of her. He's a, he's a bad,

bad man. So, uh, she's sobbing and bleeding and they get there and they, they help her. Uh, meanwhile, he takes off. Sure. Uh, he, he, either way, whether or not she's sobbing and bleeding, and they get there, and they help her. Meanwhile, he takes off.

Sure. Either way, whether or not she's alive or dead, either way, he knows they might have questions for me. Not a good place to be. I've been seeing her, and we work together, and people know we know each other type of thing. So he takes off, disappears. No one knows where he is. Several days later, his car is found. Where uh several days later his car is found where five days later it's found in illinois around in the local area uh found and inside the car when they

open it up there is a newspaper clipping about the attack on shirley johnson jesus and on the front seat he cut it out so he cut it out he knows she's still alive yeah that's the important part that's terrifying that's the thing he knows she's still alive now uh because they you know who would have known otherwise i anyway she would he would have definitely thought she was dead yeah but now it was publicized this woman miraculous thing this issue you know someone broke in her house and all this shit and uh now he knows not only is she still alive but uh they're looking for him yeah and he's And he's definitely wanted. They want to have a chat with him.

How many times did he say, bitch, whore? Oh, my God. So he was angry. Angry. So, yeah. So now they really want to talk to him. Not only the newspaper clipping in the car, but, oh, yeah, the woman saying, that guy. He did it.

That guy did it. I looked in his eyes as he choked and stabbed me as a pretty good. That's a tough witness to impeach at that point. So, yeah. Now, the police mount a manhunt for him, clearly, for this attack. And also, they really want to talk to him about the disappearance of his wife, especially now. Sure. Especially now.

They might be able to buy. She took off on me. She met some other guy and took off but now after this they're like you know what that's this and then a woman disappearing that was it's kind of close too much let's talk to this guy here uh so they had no idea where he was and they still have not don't know where phyllis is phyllis is gone charlie survived but phyllis is goddamn Phyllis is gone. Shirley survived, but Phyllis is goddamn gone. She remains gone through the end of 1970. So this is months they can't find Phyllis. Until December 19th, 1970.

They find Phyllis finally. She reappears when a backhoe. It's never a good sign when you're found by a backhoe. It's never a good sign when you're found by a backhoe. Was digging in and installing a septic tank in Winfield Township. Somebody asked the operator, hey, what's your name? She's like, I'm Phyllis. Yeah, she was working it. She was like, no, no, this way. She was like the ground person.

She wasn't working the backhoe, but she was like the person on the ground. Right here, right here. Yeah, now they found her completely decomposed body in the ground in December of 1970. Putting in a septic tank. Putting in a septic tank in a very remote area. Wow. A remote area like that six months ago no one was touching and now they were building on because of the huge growth in this area that we talked about.

So the growth got him. It's like in Goodfellas when they're like, we got to get that body out of there. Billy Bats. He's like, it's a Jimmy. It's been months. I don't care. We got to get it out. That's what we're talking about here.

Same thing. Except nobody got it out. And poor Phyllis is found dead, obviously. Yeah. They believe she's been strangled and put. It's an 18-inch grave. So, Nadia, very shallow grave. You barely even.

He dig cats deeper than that. Yeah. I would hope so, or else they're going to get dug up by other cats. Right. And dogs and everything else. They'll find that cat when your other cat's taking a shit. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, they were having. No shit. What's that? So, they were having a hard time identifying the body because they didn't know. And it was far enough away where they didn't know if it was Phyllis. And the body was very decomposed. The way they were more easily able to identify her is because she had a broken arm at the time and had her arm in a cast. And apparently the cast was still

there wow and so they traced that to anybody with a cast that was missing and they figured out phyllis and then the doctor knew the rap the way he did i guess it's like a if you roll it it's like rolling a joint i guess like you know who rolled that joint if you know like five people and you all roll joints or blunts or whatever you know who rolled which one you have your own technique that's all i'm getting at so nobody's a machine here so uh yeah so uh that's how they end up identifying phyllis so now they're like where the fuck is edmund yeah now we have a body of this woman and uh an attempted one chat time he's gone for both uh where's eddie we're chatting right now so where the hell is edmund that's the question it's fascinating that's what that's what we're all wondering where is he where do people go when they're on the run they got murder charges and a bad come on jimmy

florida yeah that's where they go god damn it they go to florida mexico canada that's like saying what happens when the raiders don't want you anymore then you play in canada but not not here you go to florida when all else fails and you're out of options and you go mexico or florida well florida's wilder i guess i'll go there there's less law there it's more more law it's more corrupt in florida i'll go down there so he goes down there and uses the name of george spezio down there he is really good at aliases. They're not even close. This is his former boss at the country club. His name was George Spezio.

That's not good at all. So Jasper Brown was probably just some guy he knew in Massachusetts. He was like, I'm Jasper Brown. So Edmund Lopes slash Jasper Brown slash George Spezio here. He goes down to Pinellas county florida which is down where uh uh tampa is that's that county uh yeah saint pete that area he gets a job working for a veterinarian i have no idea what this man is qualified to do as a janitor for the vet health i assume the all i can think of is when the animals are in there and they have to be in there for a while

and they shit on the floor. He has to come and wipe it off the linoleum. That's what I imagine is his job. That's what he seems to be good at, his janitorial custodial services. And otherwise, I don't know what health care qualifications he has for animals. I'm not sure. But he says he's George Spezio, and he backs that up with a book of George Spezio's checks, which he had stolen from his former boss before he left.

So that's his form of identification? If I wasn't him, why would I have those checks? Why would I have those checks? And they go, that's a good point. It's 1971. We have no way of proving anything. So I guess, yeah. Okay, George.

How much cash would you like? Mr. Spezio, you're hired. You're hired. And how much can we cash that check for you, as a matter of fact? So he started cashing checks down there. Just, yeah, you know, that's all good. Now, while this is going on, Edmund Lopes is a wanted man in Illinois, obviously, for attempted murder and possible murder. They want to talk to him here. And so there's a photograph and a description of him

circulated throughout the United States. Keep an eye out for Edmund Lopes slash Jasper Brown. Now, finally, down in Florida, he attempts to pass a forged one of George Spezio's checks here, and he is busted for it. And Florida police find that George Spe spizio is ed low as ed lopes and they're like holy shit look at this uh by the way they also charge him with uh convicted he's convicted down there on forgery charges which carry a four-year jail sentence down in florida

and jail down there by the way is they just you have to live in florida yeah that's jail it's they call it open air and you just that's why florida's so crazy on the peninsula there's no prisons they're just like you have to go to well look where's he going uh saint pete all right you're done you have to go to fort lauderdale jacksonville for you son he's like oh man daytona damn it shit i didn't want to go to Tallahassee. Shit. So, yeah. So he's getting, he's busted down there. They alert, down in Florida, they alert Illinois and the Massachusetts Police Departments because they see he has a record there, too.

So they're like, well, might as well see if, you know, make sure. We'll let them know. In case you're looking for him, we got him down here. You know, who knows? This guy, who the hell knows what name he was going under there uh so then he's uh returned to illinois to stand trial for the attempted murder of shirley johnston and also the murder of his wife right so uh this is in april 1971 uh there uh that's funny too because they they asked uh they ended up going the bad check down there they went to the real george spezio in illinois and they were like were you trying to pass bad

checks he's like the fuck are you talking about that checkbook is actually stolen i don't know where it is i lost it or whatever and then oh and today's today's climate though so it'd be like somebody stole it yeah no they was like i must have misplaced it. I don't believe it. I must have misplaced it. I mean, I never lock my doors. Or that gun. You see, that was stolen. It was misplaced. Misplaced.

So, yeah, anyway, they showed him the picture of this guy, and he said, well, yeah, that's Edmund Lopes slash Jasper Brown here. So he ends up going there. Now, the sheriff here, they talk about the extradition sheriff uh uh chief it's sheriff deputy chief that's a lot of titles you're a lot a lot of it's it's like up the chain you're a sheriff then you're a deputy then you're a chief the sheriff of all deputy chiefs well he got demoted to to deputy yeah sheriff to deputy now he's chief what is that like sheriff deputy chief

yeah i think he's the deputy chief of the sheriff but there's yeah they just didn't there's no punctuation or is he in the newspaper sheriff deputy slash chief i think he's the the the deputy chief of all sheriffs is what i'm gonna go with okay uh robert susek uh he he was talking about the extradition he said quote i had heard stories about this guy and his crimes, but when I picked him up in Florida and brought him back, he was meek and quiet, never said a word. As a lot of the, you know, if you're violent toward women, a lot of these guys aren't too ballsy around guys. It's a weird thing. 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 Aaron 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. 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 one and watching along with part two as it airs on Max, starting April 21st. Bye-bye. The Official Jinx Podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. You see that all the time. It's funny when you watch the Ted Bundy tapes

on Netflix. Yeah. They're letting him walk around uncuffed while the prosecutor reads off, the DA reads off the list of charges.

You just know he's never, he's not going to take a swing at that guy. He doesn't want to get the shit beat out of him by a bunch of fucking... He's fuming and he hates that man. Yeah. And he can't wait to take it out on a woman. He wants to cut his throat, but yeah, that's what he's not gonna take a swing at that guy he's not just want to get the shit beat out of him by a bunch of human and he hates that man yeah and he can't wait to take it out

on his throat but yeah that's what he wants to do because otherwise he's like those big guys are gonna beat the shit out of me and i don't have any balls if i get out of here i would ruin your wife or daughter yeah well first i'd trick her i wouldn't fight her straight up oh god let's be honest i would not tell her she might be able to take me right so but i would trick her and pretend to be you know as soon as the handcuffs on her she might be able to take me. So but I would trick her and pretend to be handcuffs on her. She'll understand. She'll get it then. Then she'll know.

So he's he's arrested. He's like I said, brought back here, charged with murder and attempted murder. Also, police in Brockton, Massachusetts, would like to talk to him about Helen Hansen's death as well, because they suspect foul play. But he refuses to say a word to them. He just says, don't know anything, and I'm not talking to you. And they can't get him to say shit, and all they have to go on is, we feel there might be foul play. So they have no, they can't charge him in Massachusetts with that.

They say, quote, the death certificate stated, the cause of death was acute alcoholism and was accidental. That's what they're going on but the body had been decomposed at the time of the discovery and there was some evidence of foul play that's in the affidavit of why they were talking to him and why they wanted to go to illinois to take a trip uh now what he does he has no way of getting out of the shirley johnston thing that he can deny all he wants and helen h and even his wife, but Shirley's alive and goes, that's the motherfucker that did it. That's a problem.

You can't do that. So he has to plead guilty to that. He knows he's dead to rights on that one. So he pleads guilty to attempted murder, which is a big step for this guy, I feel like. He admits to it, the whole deal. On October 18th, 71, he pleads guilty to trying to kill her. He's sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for that. Up to?

Up to 20 years in prison, depending on a bunch of factors. Now there's also the, now he has to go to trial because he will not plead on the murder. He says, I don't know anything about Phyllis's death. Nothing. Not me. She took off and she must have hooked up with a bad fella and he put her under a future septic tank i don't know what to tell you here uh but there's a trial and in january of 1972 he is convicted oh of the murder of phyllis uh the jury rejects a plea for the

death penalty at this point though uh rejects that and they uh but they do find him guilty of murdering his wife uh march of 1972 is the sentencing uh which is uh interesting here while awaiting sentencing from for the uh for the murder he tells a parole officer that it's a pre-sentencing they do the pre-sentencing hearings and they talk to him there's a whole bunch of shit he tells this parole officer that he turned to crime for thrills okay that's what he said he was just bored yeah so that's that's why you start killing women and you know passing bad checks and pretending to be people you're not yeah just bored well i'm five three this world ain't built for me i'm real bored you know i got a lot of stuff go i don't sleep much that's what i got a fast metabolism it's just the way it works i eat a lot of candy too so i'm really i'm going a lot you could have gone

fishing yeah but i gotta walk to the end of the pole to bake the hook i can't reach the end reach a lot of stuff the boat's a real struggle the oars are too far away for me i can only do one at a time then i just go in a circle which is no fun i zigzag down the lake that's all i do i grab one i grab the other so the report said quote uh he began to feel he was missing out on the excitement of life he began to choose as his idols men who were involved in criminal activities so that's what the pre-sentencing report says which is not a good pre-sentencing report no that's bad it sounds bad it's not like well he had a bad time and he's good now. It was none of that shit.

He just was bored. So if he's bored, he might start killing women, which is... That's not a positive outcome for later. No, we're going to put him away, I think. And then March of 72, the county circuit judge, Alfred E. Woodward, not Alfred E. Newman, which is... The Mad Comics guy? He must hate that so much son of a bitch alfred e woodward i know just don't just kill that e delete that real fast

not doing he uh he sentences him to well what do you say here we'll do you sir may certainly fuck off uh 50 to 99 years in the state penitentiary yeah for murder no this story is nowhere near you're like oh okay now we're gonna have a couple appeals that's oh no no no no way crazy or shit no no court is nothing there's a court in the rest of this it's just craziness okay so uh he's sentenced to 50 to 99 years think, wash our hands of this guy like a dealer in Vegas. Right. Flip him over. Flip him over.

And also for the attempted murder here, he goes to the Pontiac State Prison. And he goes, a bad place for a 5'3 woman murderer, probably, I would imagine. The prosecutor in this case, Joseph Laria, said about him, this is a great quote, quote, he was a strange little bird. A strange little bird. Who said that? The prosecutor. Yeah.

Called him a strange little bird. Mainly you call like an old lady a strange bird. Right. Like a 75-year-old woman who's peculiar. He got the little dig in there. Yeah. He was a strange little bird. He was stoic during the entire trial and never took the stand.

I found it difficult to believe but ladies found him attractive this is what i mean the prosecutor's like i don't know why i i'm looking at him going he's a piece of shit and all the women are swooning i don't understand it but uh luckily apparently there wasn't that many in the jury or the ones in the jury didn't find him attractive and they sent him down the river but the stenographer oh she was drooling stenog in one handed she had done button a couple of buttons in her blouse she got a little hot a little hot under the collar that's how it went so he goes to prison illinois state prison uh lou lowry who's the assistant warden and sounds like an assistant warden at the pontiac state prison he remembers

edmund as being a well-behaved prisoner uh said he worked in the print shop and was always polite he says quote i'd see him with the bible in his hand everywhere he went he had more charisma than most inmates and he knew how to do his time he was always always mannerly good morning sir and things like that yeah the bible's gonna come in big here and uh he is gonna turn into quite the interesting fella here. One of his lawyers said that when he visited Edmund in prison, he was told that Edmund had a steady stream of women visitors. Steady stream of women visitors. There's barely TV yet.

Barely TV. Yet somehow these women know all about him and what he looks like. A five foot three guy who's not that attractive and oh, by the way, kill every woman that he gets involved with um that's what i mean this is crazy shit they wouldn't even know he's in prison yeah he's not like he's sending him dick pics over the phone it's a good point too who knows what the third fact i don't know it's what i mean it's like a charles manson situation he has this weird power i am blown away without acid he's doing this with no drugs. He's using Jesus as acid, which is a little weird.

That's some powerful, powerful ecstasy. This is some crazy Jesus. I'm seeing everything. Wow. So he's in prison receiving a steady flow of women visitors. Throughout the 70s, he has a bunch of appeals that there were no witnesses to the murder. There's no murder weapon, no hard evidence that he strangled Phyllis Brown and buried her in an 18 inch grave. How can you say that's me? What are you talking about? And they're just like, we kind of just think it's you. A lot of coincidences going on here. Now, one of his

lawyers said, quote, even when I visited him in Pontiac State Prison six or seven years after the trial, he was always contended he was absolutely innocent. So he says he's innocent. He says he's innocent, innocent, innocent here. Now, 1978, while he's doing all these appeals and he's finding all these women, he meets a particular woman, a woman named Joan, through the pen pal program here. Now, he, trying to impress her, really talks up the Jesus about him, the born-again aspect of him. And that he's, yeah, he might have been a criminal, but he's born again. And that's how Jesus can save you. And I'm proof of it.

And that's, you know, all that sort of thing. I'm proof of it. And that's, you know, all that sort of thing. So not only that, he starts exaggerating and fibbing on why he's in prison rather than saying I'm in prison. And you can't Google search him. There's no like background check. You can pay ten dollars for it. It's just whatever people say. You have to believe he says rather than saying, oh, but I kill every woman I come in contact with.

He says I was a mob hitman. That's why I'm here. And he tells her that he was on death row. And Jesus has made him turn his life around. I'm no longer a hitman. No longer a hitman. I've been in prison. And now that I'm on death row, which he's not, now that I'm on death row, Jesus has brought me around to the light.

Yeah. And, you know, that sort of thing. And I'm saved. So it's cool. Yeah. It's good. Don't worry about it. I tie his name Lopes.

That's the thing. But still, they used him as a hitman, like Kuklinski. It's the same thing. They're like, yeah, he's strictly highly paid, by the way. I'd never be a made man. No, no, no, no, no, no.

He doesn't get his hands dirty with hijacking i think he's a highly paid specialist that's what he says i'm a killer and they call me and i have contracts and i go out and you know he's very very very big time there now uh joan and ed and new year's eve 1979 they're talking on the phone which is great way to ring in the new year. Talk to your murderer fucking prison boyfriend. And he says, quote, do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe Jesus Christ is our high priest? Which I've never heard it put that way. I'm not a religious guy.

I don't know much about it. But I've never even heard that like when I was watching the 700 Club to make fun of it when I was stoned when I was 15. I used to love to watch the religious channel when i was a teenager stoned and they'd like sing songs and shit oh my god were they fucking hilarious giggle your balls oh my god jesus i would laugh so hard because just the hair and they're all shiny and they're singing these songs i'm like this is hilarious i mean come on this is awesome the lamest of the white people write those songs awesome they're the worst songs yeah ain't that good news the lyrics are terrible yeah it's pat boone's up there fucking

because that's what my cousin used to put the you gotta you gotta watch pat boone he's hilarious and he's just such a corny shit it was so funny ain't that good news ain't that great good news i remember that we used to laugh and my cousin would sing it all the time hey man could we crack up laughing pat boone all at one in the morning when we'd smoked a lot of weed religious songs are always like when you hear the lyrics you just go these are these aren't even easy to remember how do people know they really got a shoehorn shit in there i remember that night barely rhymes this was such i was so stoned that night I drank a can of creamed corn.

Drank it out of the can. I just tipped it up and tapped the bottom and drank a can of creamed corn. That's how stoned I was. That's disgusting. At 15. Oh yeah, I didn't care.

I was starving. Didn't matter. It went down. So yeah, that's at 15 I was drinking, chugging creamed corn, everybody.

I was a party animal. So Joan, do you believe Jesus Christ is our high priest, That's a 15. I was drinking, chugging cream corn. Everybody has a party animal. So, uh, Joan, the, do you believe Jesus Christ is our high priest, uh, high priest? Uh, and then he says, quote, then why don't we declare our marriage vows right here and now since, you know, we're Caesar grand dragon to Jesus is everywhere. So he's witnessing it. So why can't we just say on the phone, we're fucking married, babe. So, uh, he does that. So they're, they they're they're you know prison married i guess you could say phone jesus married yeah uh over the phone uh so january 20th 1983 he's released from prison he's paroled

why after 11 and a half years of a 50 to 99 year sentence. What are you doing, Illinois? What the fuck is that? What sense does that make? The weird part of this is, I did a little research on this and found some stats here. 11 and a half years for murder and attempted murder is actually right on average. In 1983, which was the year that Ed Lopes was let out, 234 murderers were released from the Illinois prison system. The average time served by all 234 of them was 10.2 years. How the fuck is that justice?

The average thing. But the problem is he got sentenced to, he didn't get sentenced to 20 years and then get out in 10. He got sentenced to 50 and 99 and did fucking 11 and a half. Wow. Which is really low. That seems easy. It seems ridiculous.

There's only one condition of this insane deal. Don't murder again? Well, two conditions of this insane deal. Two. Okay. One is don't murder any women or even try. That's the other three. Sorry.

Also, don't try to murder women. Don't even make an attempt. No attempting to kill anyone. Also, the main one is don't leave the state. You have to stay within the boundaries of Illinois. We're going to keep you? We're going to keep you. In the states, you just have to stay in the state on your parole.

You're not allowed to leave the state. If I'm Illinois, I'm like, you're free. And you're free to get the fuck out of my state. You're not allowed to come back to Illinois. You're banned from the state. So instead, he is not allowed to leave, obviously. So after eight days, he leaves the state. He immediately leaves the state because he's an asshole.

And that's what you do when you're told not to do something. You do it. He's the size of a teenager. He may as well behave like one. He may as well act like it. He's the size of a teenager. He may as well behave like it. So rather than being thankful that he's out of jail after 11 and a half years on a 50 to 99 fucking bid, he instead that he has a parole meeting eight days after he's released and he misses the parole meeting. So that's that's not terrific here. So they start looking for him. Now, while he's looking, while this is going on, in that eight-day interim, where was he?

Well, I know where he was. He's with a woman in Westmont who says she also married Lopes in 1980 while he was serving his murder sentence. Holy shit. So he got out on, this isn't Joan from the Pem Pal program that he married on New Year's Eve with Jesus and the high priest. This is a different woman who he married

and then when he gets out on parole, he lives with her for eight days. Okay, this eight day period where he's there and before he misses the parole hearing. Where's this, Longmont? Westmont. Moves into her apartment.

Where's that at? It's in Illinois, somewhere around there in that same area. There's a shitload of towns there uh sarah's actually from one right next to this so anyway yes he's uh he's he gets out on parole he moves into her apartment apparently gets her to like give him money and shit like that and you know kind of drains her of whatever she has and then uh after nine days he just. He just takes off and leaves her. Leaves Illinois.

Leaves his, quote, wife. Yeah. Leaves all this shit behind and goes to Nebraska to hook up with Joan, the woman he met in the pen pal program, who their high priest is Jesus. And they got married on New Year's Eve over the phone. So he goes there. Now they get married officially officially this is while he's still legally married to the other woman that he married while he's in prison so what is he doing

he is a disaster uh this is a fucking mess uh now according to this in 1983 she files for an annulment the one in westmont who lived with him for eight days and he left uh in the in the court documents there she says quote he has a golden tongue certainly i was fooled and i think the man used me to get out of prison he pretended that he was a christian he's real good at that yeah so he had her come in to these parole hearings going he's a changed man and i'm a good little church woman and we're you know we're married now and we just want to live a quiet life together and go to church every day and sold me a bill of goods, all that shit. And so they said that to parole and that she's more sympathetic than him. I'm sure she's never murdered anyone or left a knife in someone's neck.

And she's legit Christian. Yeah, she's a nice, nice woman. So they're like, she's got no criminal record. She hasn't killed anybody. So anyway, so nine days after he's's released she does get the annulment nine days after he's released uh uh she he's uh you know they're looking for him now he's a fugitive uh but they don't they don't like really look for him they just go yeah if anyone sees that edmund lopes guy yeah we're here so all right what's on tv now and they don't really like go looking for him. They don't do anything because he's only in Grant.

He's in Grand Island, Nebraska, which you should never have the word island in Nebraska. I get that there's lakes and you probably have a little island, but fuck you. That's not an island. I'm sorry. So he goes to hang out with Joan there. Joan, by the way, he calls her angel. She's his angel always he says uh now she they have a civic ceremony like we said he carries a bible with with him and quotes it wherever he goes and uh he's just he they say he just goes around committing acts of kindness

and then uh telling people being kind to them and then telling them all about his commitment to his Savior, Jesus Christ. And, you know, he found it hard getting work, you know, as a convicted murderer. It's difficult. Right. When people go, would you? Oh, my. That's, wow. Yeah, I don't think I want you working at Olin Mills taking family pictures.

I don't think you're hired. No, you can't do that. We do have a shit-mopping job. And this is 83 this is 83 in nebraska so far too recent he had yeah oh yeah well it gets more recent uh so he just you know he said he loved preaching the word of god yeah but he couldn't get anyone to trust him once they found out that he was a murderer which yeah it's weird right isn't it weird that not only do you get put in jail and so you know i gotta get a lawyer and go to, it's weird, right? Isn't it weird that not only do you get put in jail and say, you know, I got a lawyer

and go to court. It's such a pain in the ass. But you lose like social cachet. It's like it's like it's not even worth murdering people. What the fuck, man? Kill one person. You're a murderer. Well, two and a half.

Right. And, you know, one, definitely, probably two and almost three. And, you know, people put a label on you like you're an asshole, like you can't even be talked to anymore. Ridiculous. So he was really frustrated by that. He also loved watching Charles Bronson films and things like that because that was like his old life on the streets. You know, that's what he is. He's an enforcer.

He's an enforcer, man. He's a bad dude. But at this point, he's like, man, no one around here is. He's an enforcer. He's an enforcer, man. He's a bad dude. He's a bad dude. But at this point, he's like, man, no one around here trusts me. And it's Nebraska. We got to get out of here. We got to go somewhere. He's going to pick Joan up and move. We're going to go somewhere where, guess what?

We can just chase. He's probably like, listen, you could be Jasper Brown. You could be anybody you want. Just go. I'll grab a checkbook. It's no problem. Where do they go? Washington State.

Really? They go to washington state state uh they struggle in nebraska for two years uh at this rate doing menial jobs and uh being angry that no one will let him preach the word of the lord to them he's got to know they're looking for him back in illinois right they're not looking that hard but he's got to know that they that they're interested at least interested but it's like as long as he stays out of trouble they're not actively looking for him. I mean, unless he gets taken in for something

big that, you know, there's not like a link computer system. It's state to state. This is why Ted Bundy got away with it. That's what I mean. It's him too. So one of his friends here in Nebraska gets a break for Lopes here.

He gets Lopes a job as a salesman for a medical supply company in Southeastern Washington, which is not like the, it's not like the wet area. That's like kind of like the, almost a desert type, you know, bushes and shit looks like weeds growing everywhere.

That type of shit there. So, uh, at this point he's preaching as much as he can. He's preaching and preaching. And him and his wife, they join him and Joan join the free. You have to be specific with him, him and this wife. They join the First Baptist Church of West Richmond, West Richland in West Richland, Washington.

It has 12,000 people now. But back then it had about 3 000 people uh spread over 22 square miles that is a lot 3 000 people in 22 square miles is you got a lot of space anybody no you're you're spread out you can't even hold hands across the fucking place like that's a not a lot of people so uh yeah at that point they so it's a small town, it's farming and rural area here. And at this point, this place at the First Baptist Church of West Richland, it's a Southern Baptist church. He starts telling everybody here, the whole, all the parishioners about his, you know, his, how did you find, because they're all like, how did you find the Lord and how did you find the Lord? And his is, he starts telling them, I was on death row.

I was staring death in the face after being a devil person and murdering people for money. For money, I murdered them, God damn it. I was a mob hit man and I murdered tons of people and I was on death row and I said, I've lived my life wrong. And Jesus came down and God damn it. He touched my heart. That's right. I use the Lord's name in vain right after I said to boost him.

I used that as a booster for the man himself. That's right. Because that's how much I love that man. Touched me on death row and brought me out of my doldrums. I love that he did tell them that he was on death row and for murder because multiple you already know contract murder somebody says i'm on death row you go oh who'd you kill because nobody's ever been on death row for parking tickets no and the that's right it's all murder and the fucked up part is there's something psychologically where you look at a hitman yeah as less of a dangerous person as someone who i don't know stabbed a bunch of

women or strangled them and buried them under septic tanks killed some people that maybe they deserved it i don't know nefarious but you well you look at it this way and you're like well he was just that was the lifestyle they were in and i mean if he wasn't doing that i'm sure he would have done something else maybe those people killed people you got to make a living right i mean it's one of those things that's what he was good at what do you want yeah it's exactly but not even that because he like has a psychological need this is like a kuklinski like well i'm pretty good at it. What do you want? The first Dexter. Exactly. But not even that, because he has a psychological need. This is like a Kuklinski, like, well, I'm pretty good at it, and people will pay me, so what the fuck?

I guess I'll do it. Pay him a mortgage. Yeah, pay him a mortgage. So that's kind of the way he puts it, and that is more palatable to people. He feels like, I don't know how many versions of the story he got to before he landed on the one that hits. You know what I mean? I don't know if he worked this out. I was just going to say like i don't know if he worked this out yes i was just gonna say i don't know if he worked this out in like the

small clubs and bars and shit before he took it like to saturday night saturday early show he's like i worked now i got it i got the bumps out it was a little long in the middle but now i switched that punch around to here and now pulled the fat out i made the middle's now a tag so it fucking works it's weird it works after the ending better than before. It's strange. So only comedians will understand that joke. The middle part is the meat, and that's the one that really fucking uppercuts. And I didn't realize it.

That's the big laugh, and then the end of it's just like the pitter laugh that rounds it off. But it's only the big laugh if you say the other thing before it, because if you say the middle first, then it doesn't work. But if you do the middle at the end, then it's done. And then now you got something. You got a low laugh at the beginning, high laugh in the middle,

low laugh at the end. I'm glad I worked it out in the shit halls, because otherwise I would have done it wrong. So that's what he's doing here. So the people were, were amazed that such a terrorist, I mean, guy who leads such a devilish life could be turned

around by jesus and this is a story that people need to hear you should be amazed because it didn't happen because it didn't happen it's incredible it's like it's like a bullshit movie i don't know but they're so incredible they're like this can inspire others if jesus can turn this man's heart around oh boy he can turn any's heart. That's the way they're looking at it. Talk about making chicken salad out of chicken shit. Wow. What? That is... Is that an old saying?

It's lemons out of lemonade. Okay, because I've never heard salad shit. I've heard old wrestlers, and all these wrestler interviews I watch for Crime and Sports, old wrestlers always say that. If they get a bad match, somebody's heard, I made chicken salad out of chicken shit and it turned out to be a pretty good match that's hysterical it's like an old man term that i never love it it's better than lemons out of lemonade or lemons into lemonade i must say that's amazing yeah take that

with you put that in your pocket and use that later because you're gonna enjoy that you're gonna be using that a lot i have a feeling at work and shit i'm gonna get fired everywhere we go you'll be at the gas station jesus christ so they so good they forgave him they forgave him uh and because this town by the way this is how small this town is and especially at that time but the town you got to this town by crossing a narrow iron bridge over the yakima river okay and the sign at the bridge says quote dismount and lead horses oh it's that old it's an iron bridge that they want you you know watch there's people that you point is people with horses cross this bridge often enough to have signage yeah to direct them

to the correct behavior so and if this bridge collapsed you don have signage yeah to direct them to the correct behavior so and if this bridge collapsed you don't want to be on horseback when it happens no because you'll go right through i don't know if the horse's foot will get stuck or how it works but uh yeah so this is a small small area and they're so impressed with him over a three-year period that they make him the pastor of the church they make him he a pastor. He gets a preacher's license. Apparently in Washington, you need some sort of preacher's license. But you don't need to go to college or anything.

You can just go get a license, and now you're a preacher. So he does that, and these people are captivated by him. They're tiny people. It's a tiny town. He's a tiny man. It fits very well.

He finally found this thing now. He's using his past that he's embarrassed about that everybody would keep him out of. I can't get a job. They won't listen to my Jesus talk. All this. Now he's using this to his advantage with this crazy story he made up. He's like, I can turn a negative into a positive. Or you can do what?

I don't know. Oh, chicken salad that's right what the fuck i recalled it it's not perfect but i recalled it the look of panic that crossed your face I'm like I don't know what we're doing oh my god it's shit salad I'm supposed to know something and I don't know

I know I'm supposed to know I don't know this information flashbacks to junior high shit I was gonna say this pop quiz fuck she just talked about this shit you're laughing about it but whatever face I made, I'm sure several teachers have seen it. Oh, yeah.

They know that one. And they wanted that response as well. They wanted to laugh, too. They know that one. Well, who is this dipshit? Oh, man. That's awesome. Chicken salad, chicken shit.

Chicken salad, chicken shit. Yeah, chicken salad, chicken shit. Yeah, that's the one. So. I didn't nail it, but you get the gist you know i can't you know i remember i get it all worked i was paying attention 10 minutes ago so he uh he's after a while though he's not like this hit man that came to the church he's just the pastor yeah and then if people new people come they tell him this crazy backstory, and he's the pastor, and that's all he is. His wife, by the way, Joan, her nickname for him, Loverboy.

Oh, boy. Angel and Loverboy. Angel and Loverboy. No. It's like the most uncreative CB handles ever. They're terrible. This is, yeah. Come in, Loverboy.

What's your 20? Breaker, breaker, Angel. Breaker, breaker. What's your 20? Good Christ. Oh, my God. But everybody believes in the mafia hitman shit, and there's also more lies we'll talk 20. Breaker, breaker, what's your 20? Good Christ. Oh my God. But everybody believes in the mafia hitman shit

and there's also more lies we'll talk about in a moment. He has a whole, like a whole, he builds a monument to himself of bullshit piled high.

They get a nice little house, all good works. Joan is the Sunday school director and he's the pastor and you know, they're running

the whole thing uh he also started a seminary correspondence course so he could become you know officially get his shit together a little more with the whole the jesus stuff he does it's southern baptist so this is uh this is you're going to hell all day you're going to hell and again this is like some hardcore lots of threats do what we say or else motherfucker type shit which is i think on the front of uh their version of what they use for their bible i don't know which for king james version or whatever they use but i believe it says do as we say motherfucker or burn i believe that's right on the front so they tell you i mean they're not bullshitting

you they're telling you right up front what this is about so you know no no complaining later it's like our it's like a disclaimer it's like our disclaimer that's exactly what it is uh so uh this whole thing here uh he he jesus christ man he did a uh uh he would like dress up and and do like these he would do like these big uh just big productions and he made he put on a show as the pastor there he would you know to to make a point he would dress up as like historical characters and shit weird stuff like that here a little more criminal joel austin yeah yeah he's really you go why is Ain't the word enough? Right. So, enough? Come on. He earned $18,000 a year, but everyone said he could have 10 cents in his pocket,

and he'd give it to you and find you an extra nickel if you needed it. He'd turn chicken shit into chicken salad. Make chicken salad out of chicken shit, man. See, I can't say it either. salad into chicken shit in a chicken salad make chicken salad out of chicken shit man so uh see i can't say it either uh he was an umpire in the local baseball games a uh a member of dale baird who's a member of the first baptist congregation and wife lois played piano at the sunday services these people are entrenched in the church he says about uh old pastor ed quote he had a good strike zone oh so that's good he was not a good basketball referee but everyone wanted him behind the plate for baseball okay so

dale knows yeah you need a an ump well this is your guy he's low he can see the strike zone that's what i'm talking five three he's he's watching that ball sail right by. High level. Basketball, they're all above the rim. He can't see shit. Staring right at it. God damn it. So, Jesus Christ. What was he telling people? He told people he's a hired mafia contract killer.

He said he worked for Murder, Inc., which was in the 30s. Yeah, Hemingway. Yeah, Hemingway. Which he had his own little gang of contract killers. And he said that he killed 28 people as a hitman. And he's claiming to have worked for Murder, Inc. Murder, Inc. and killed 28 people. Okay.

So 28 people is what he's saying he murdered. That's better than one. Right. Confirmed. Wife. Yeah, wife. That's better than one wife. That's amazing.

28. That's this. You can say what you want about back then. and it was sexist, and it was very misogynist, but one dead woman equaled 28 dead men. Greater than. One dead woman greater than 28 dead men. Fine. That's fine. We can forgive that. You killed your wife, scumbag, and that's exactly how it is, too. I can forgive 28 dead guys one dead woman gangsters yeah that's right one dead woman i'll trust you you're an asshole i'll

trust you you got issues i'll trust you you don't want that equality women uh he's that's a different kind of equality uh that should be the name of the show a different kind of equality uh so uh he said that he was counseled by charles colson who is the a big he was convicted in the watergate conspiracy uh with nixon he was one of nixon's advice yeah so uh colson he says his okay it's going real deep now and personally counseled in jail by the evangelist Billy Graham as well. The world famous evangelist who wouldn't piss on this guy if he was on fire because he's so wealthy. So he said he found God on death row, even though he was a never on death row. And at the time he said he found God.

There wasn't even a death row in Illinois at the time. So full of shit, full of shit. Yeah. So he's like a kid that moved to a new school and wants to be tough. Just wanted to create his own reality. It's like in my old school, you know, we did that. I used to. I got a girlfriend.

You don't know her. You don't know her. I had to come here because I got a teacher pregnant. Right. He goes to school in a leather jacket. Yeah. You know, I got my science teacher pregnant. You'd think she would have known.

You know what I mean? Wink, wink. What's happening, sweetheart? Got my science teacher pregnant. It was impressive because he's a dude. You know, that's how strong my sperm are. They're good swimmers. I'm pretty tough.

You think you're surprised you see Mr. Jones' face when he shit out a kid? I was going to say, by the way, it wasn't voluntary. So I'm a pretty tough guy, too. I'm tough and tough guy, too. I'm tough and I'm virile. Mr. Johnson's never going to forget that. I'll tell you that right now. Mr. Johnson's never going to forget that.

All right. Jesus Christ. I'm laughing about rape. I'm giving you detention. Good God. Well, it's a fictional rape of a child on a teacher, which doesn't seem possible. It's a grown rape. The whole thing is very not possible, so that's why we're laughing about it. We can laugh about that.

That's ridiculous. Oh, Christ. So, yes, that's almost like the George Carlin. When they go, he says, rape is never... Picture Porky Pig raping Donald Duck, or the other way around. Elmer Fudd. Elmer Fudd raping Porky Pig. Tell me that's almost like the George Carlin when they go, rape is never, picture Porky Pig raping Donald Duck or the other way around. Elmer Fudd raping Porky Pig. Tell me that's not funny because it's not real. That's hilarious.

So, yeah, that's the only time when it is funny. paper in the area started hearing. She said she was she heard from a friend of hers that there was this this pastor. She says, quote, Basically, I started out to write a feature in December about a guy, a guy gone good. A local minister here who's a friend of mine told me there was this charismatic pastor over in West Richland I might want to do a piece on because he has this really interesting background. Everybody called him Pastor Ed. He worked for the mafia executing people.

That sounded pretty dramatic. Yeah, it does. So I would say so. So she said that he told her all about how he felt as a soldier in Korea. He was never in Korea. Oh, boy. He was in the Marines, but not during Korea. After Korea and never – or when it was...

Never a wartime. He didn't go to Korea, is what I'm getting at. It didn't happen. But he talked about his disillusionment he felt at being at war in Korea. Just made up emotions of other people's lives. It's ridiculous here. Also says that he, this is amazing, used to keep stilettos strapped to the inside of his wrist, like switchblades, switchblade knives that he could pop out.

He saw that in a movie somewhere. He saw Doc Holliday. Or a Charles Bronson movie where someone came up to Bronson and popped a stiletto out of the thing and then Bronson kicked it out with his cowboy boot. I just did like a round kick in front of Jimmy's face from the thing. A swirl kick. Pow.

He does one of those. Knocks the knife to the ground and then beats the shit out of him. Bronson's the original Steven Seagal. Steven Seagal just fucking bit all that shit from him. That's embarrassing. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, the non-athletic. Right.

Yeah, because Van Damme's like, he's doing athletic shit. Like, you have to do, he's doing splits on chairs and shit. Nobody's watching to see his acting chops. He's doing splits on chairs where his feet are up here and his cock's on the ground. You can't do that. He's teabagging the floor through chairs. Yeah, while his legs are two feet up in the air. It's insane.

Ridiculous. So she talks to him also. He talked about that. He talked about all the cars he had and all the women in the high rolling lifestyle of being a gangster, the casinos. Then he talked about just the horrible despair of death row and even how bad the toilets were on death row. It was different from the rest of the prison. All this shit's made up. For 18 grand a year.

None of this stuff is real. This is how hard it is to make 18 grand. You have to make 18 grand you have to make all this shit up uh so she kept interviewing him he says she said quote he described to me in terrific detail his 16 year career for murder inc which sounds like 20 that's too long yeah 15's too rest 16 16 something i put some time it's long like you're a veteran you're a pro but it's like not like an unbelievable amount of time yeah uh 16 year career for murdering he said he executed 27 or 28 people okay he's not sure give or take a wife yeah uh you know throw that on there said his weapon of choice was a luger that he nicknamed betsy for some reason. He nicknamed Betsy, on which he said he changed the barrel after every killing,

so it wouldn't be the rifling, the ballistics. Okay. Changed the barrel. Yeah. He's slick. So he's found some- Interchangeable barrel lugers. They run tons of those all around.

I mean, you can change them pretty simply. You can take a gun. I don't know what the guns were like in the 80s. 28 just throw it in the fucking river and get a new one what are you doing you're a highly paid mafia hitman in the casinos and throw the fucking hudson or the lake or wherever you are in chicago and move on what are we doing here jesus christ so during this interview it's uh with the tri-city herald he tells this reporter wanda briggs that he also killed a woman in brockton massachusetts in the 1960s oh you don't do that one why did he say that who the fuck knows no one knows why he said that he did she's not saying did you kill that what she doesn't know anything about that shit nothing she knows nothing

about it he just brings that up she was on board with the mafia hitman and korea and all that shit now all of a sudden he's killing women in massachusetts so uh this is crazy he also told the story of killing the woman in massachusetts to at least two other people uh one of which is uh galen irby who's the director of an association of 23 Baptist churches in this area in southeastern Washington. And police have obviously been trying to link him to that death for a long time. Now, the reporter, Wanda Briggs, says, quote, when we were done, I told him, don't be offended, but I'm going to check you out. And she said he really didn't blink an eye. So she called the reporter called illinois

corrections officials to check whether he had been on death row or not she did her background she's a good reporter obviously uh she uh checks that out and uh that's at that point they said wait who are you talking about now lopes he's he's kind of a fugitive and she's like interesting so this led them to him now she's she's like the the people in illinois are like where'd you talk to this guy because we'd like to have a chat with him he's you know a fugitive and all that so uh all of this they start looking for him and on december 12th 1991 uh at 2 40 p.m west richland police arrest him at church eight years of this shit eight years of him it takes uh wow for him to be so stupid that he talks about this shit to a fucking reporter rather than just going i like to do my

work in anonymity because you know jesus and all just say that years eight years he's gone uh on the run so they finally get him they arrest him for jumping parole uh and after they read the story the next morning people of the congregation uh realized that their pastor they're calling him a liar and a murderer uh there's a front page article that says quote lies exposed killer turn side tri-city pastor which sounds killer liar right in the fucking title yeah killer liar pastor that's what you see right there. Bad stuff. The Illinois State Fugitive Unit head said, quote, he still owes this state time until 2019.

So that's a long time from 1991. Obviously, still now, right this minute. So he's in jail in Washington, arrested. And he said he broke down in tears and admitted that he lied, but he's not a bad guy, whatever. Now, one of his members said, quote, he has an effective ministry. He would give you the shirt off his back. He's well-liked not only by his church, but by other churches in this area. This was a total surprise.

I mean, a total surprise. So everyone is shocked this is like blows a small town away like the the pastor ed holy fuck is a terrible terrible man well he said he was a terrible man but apparently he's a he also lied a little bit but that's what he's trying to say it's just just the paperwork and that sort of thing it's you know parole stuff i've told you about what i've done so uh uh they want him to go back there obviously they're talking about he can he might be able to fight extradition and he might not have to go back for a few months but while this is going on his church members a

bunch of them end up uh raising his bail uh they raised his bail for him to get him out of this situation here they do this uh do that? They do this. His lawyer in court said, quote, So what has he done? Steal money? Assault a female? No. He just left the state to become a minister.

Is that a crime? Yeah. Yeah, it is. You're not allowed to leave the state. It doesn't matter what you're becoming. You could have left the state to become Santa Claus. They'd arrest you in front of your elves. It doesn't fucking matter.

He became something when he left the state. It doesn't matter. He's a fugitive. Yeah. And it doesn't matter what elves you are. At that point, the rest of it's moot because you're a fugitive. So they put up his bail. $5,000 bond was being held.

And they end up revoking his bail and then giving him bail again basically his attorney said quote he never dreamed his bond would be revoked he's devastated so then they asked him uh that's what's that so they turn him in again they revoke his bond once he's out and then uh he asked for two weeks to put his affairs in order before being turned over to illinois authorities this guy who's run for multiple things, killed women and knows to run away. Chup does separate fucking identities, forges checks. This is a guy, when you get him, you hold on to him tightly. You don't let him go.

Judge says, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, two weeks. You go out in the world for two weeks. You're fine. Get on out of here. Two weeks of do whatever you want. two weeks you're fine get on out of here two weeks of do whatever you want yeah so uh he said uh he was talking to people uh uh outside to the press and to his parishioners and everything and he said it lies all part of the lies i figured if i kept my nose clean they wouldn't come after me but i

had this hidden sin and tried to run away now god has told me i can't hide he acts like he turned himself in now god's told me that but he let me know by sending a bunch of police officers in to arrest me it's a weird way god they say god works in mysterious ways sometimes he works through handcuffs reporters what did he tell you yeah you know yeah what forget what jesus told him what did he tell you and tell all of us let all of us know this This is much more important. This is a big deal here. They said that his parishioners, most of them believed at this point, and this is what they told the press,

they believed that Satan was responsible for their pastor's unmasking, and they raised $50,000 to free him before his bail was revoked. One person in the congregation, a Tammy Burke, said, quote, It's got to be a mistake. He has such a wonderful testimony about how he was saved in prison. And I've grown in the Lord tremendously because of him. So how could he be lying? I believed it. So it can't be a lie.

That's what she basically said. He told me such a line of bullshit. How could that be a lie? I believed it because it's a lie. That's why another woman, Patty Wilson, the women like him, described him as a true messenger of God. She said, I about fell off my chair

when I first heard his testimony about his past life as a mafia hitman. I do know that God works in special ways. This may be one of those times. So they believe in him so much, they believe this must be something that God's doing for everyone's benefit. How dumb.

How trusting. It's amazing. It's incredible. That's a question, though. Are they good people for doing this? I don't know. Are they just naive? Yeah.

I think naive is the midway point between those two things, probably. Yeah, between dummies and good people. Dumb and just good is naive. You're just like a little too, you know it's like a clutch and that's it's like it's one of those things you're putting it in and out uh so uh yeah this pastor galen erby uh he's he said he was his church and all the churches would stand behind lopes describing him as an exemplary person with a fine record as a pastor. He says, quote, We're in the business of trying to redeem people.

And you can't get any more redeemed than that. He said, quote, I wouldn't even say we made a mistake with him. He has never been any problem, and I've never had one complaint against him. He's been a different person now from what he was a long time ago. Now, Joan Lopes had no no idea she had no idea he ever killed a woman this is of news to him uh because this of her this comes out of illinois that he's not a hitman but uh in actuality he's convicted of killing his wife joan's lucky to be alive and she's here's that and she uh she says that uh she's shocked but she doesn't care she stands firmly behind him wow he's a changed man no matter what the but she doesn't care. She stands firmly behind him.

He's a changed man. No matter what the past had, it doesn't matter. He had to lie if that's what he had to do, but he did it for good. This is God working in a special way. This isn't a liar who's trying to outrun a murder rep. It's either God working in mysterious ways or a criminal working in criminal ways. In very basic criminal ways, not mysterious at all criminal working in criminal ways. In very basic criminal ways, not even, not mysterious at all. Pretty straightforward criminal ways.

So he addresses the day after he left jail for his two-week hiatus here. He addressed a bunch of people in Oregon saying that it was funny, though. He wouldn't tell them the truth, too. He said the newspaper stories about him were all lies, lies, lies. He said it was a clerical error that he's a victim of. This is bullshit. You know, he didn't say bullshit, I'm sure. That would have been a good church.

This is bullshit, man. He said they said his voice was trembling. He was really worked up. He asked them three times, people, do you love me? If so, do you forgive me? Three times, really loud. This is a Manson thing, total Manson thing. So he would lay low a little bit.

He said he was hoping it would all blow over, and he just wanted us to lay low. Even another thing, the parishioners, Jesus Christ, one of them tried to plant a story with a television station who had an in with the station saying that Lopes is the whole thing had just been a paperwork mistake in the prosecutor's office. And, you know, whatever they they were going to these church people were trying to blatantly lie and get the press to lie for him because in their mind it's worth it because he's going to bring in the lambs or the sheep or whatever the fuck you bring in. To slaughter. To slaughter or to the herd or I don't know. So on Christmas Eve, finally, he's summoned to a special inquiry of the nearby town of Pasco where he's interrogated by six fellow ministers. This is like getting called to a mob meeting in Donnie Brasco and they take their jewelry off and give it to the next guy. Like, I might not come back for the sunny black is calling for me. I got to go.

I got to go. What am I supposed to do? He's got to sit down with the grand dragon. Six fellow ministers. Yes. The grand dragons here. They begged him to come clean about his past. They promised him love and support.

Eventually, Pastor Ed agrees to write a letter of explanation to the members of the church. So on Christmas Day, he wrote this out here. agrees to write a letter of explanation to the members of the church uh so on christmas day he wrote this out here oh boy dear parishioner you are aware that in the past few days things have come to light concerning my past showing that i have not been truthful i want to come before our church on this day on this uh sunday december 29th 1991 he's making an appointment uh to set the record straight two days from now four days be there be square rsvp you know what i'm saying bring a dish that's all i'm gonna say all right gotta go uh byob all right so he said uh i want to share with you my true testimony and clear the air of whatever is untrue he he went on to describe his lies he said there was no mafia

he was never on death row well there is a mafia but he wasn't a part of it hey the mafia is a fucking lie it doesn't exist uh he said there's no death row no chuck colson there no billy graham none of these people uh he said that uh these were all deceptive things that he said but they weren't meant to hurt them he took pains to emphasize the truth of his commitment to his wife and his religious conversion. He said, that's all that's important. I don't care what I said before about this or what I actually did. Right now, it's Jesus and Joan. Joan and Jesus.

That's all there is to it. I feel like that time that I told that girl that I was in the Marines. Exactly. It's the same thing. It's exactly what you see. He stole mafia glory instead now i gotta keep lying yeah damn it fuck how many people i tell i just expect you to stick around damn it you're still here shit so he added he also said an explanation he said uh he was afraid of being

rejected and he created the lies so people could accept and like him and he apologized to his parishioners and asked god's forgiveness and that each parishioner meet him face to face and let him share this true test i'll look you in the eye individually and i'll tell you this uh so he uh he addressed everybody uh all the pastors uh the problem is uh the pastor said that they he he seemed pathologically incapable of saying anything without bearing false witness uh they said uh he said quote you've come to hear a confession and you will and uh he said i've lived a lie he tells the church uh then he talks about all the lies uh he also says that wanda harry wanda briggs the Herald reporter is was quote God's instrument to expose me so he was not saying bad things about her he said uh he became a minister to hardened criminals and uh

in prison and quote preacher and a preacher and I was became a preacher and I felt good about myself and uh people in the in the in the congregation were crying. He brought tears to their eyes. He said, I stand before you sorry and ashamed. I'm a man who has repented, a man who has been forgiven. So that's that. Moving on. So give me 18 grand a year. Pancake breakfast this Saturday morning.

He just gets on and moves on with announcements. We're going to have a toy drive at the end of this month. We're going to have a rummage sale. Bring all your shit you don't want. Oh, it's going to be good. So he admitted that he was legitimately convicted of murdering two women, one of which was his former wife, or convicted of murdering a woman,

one of which was his ex-wife, and attempting to murder the other woman here. Then he wished them goodbye, and he asked everyone to support him uh that night and uh uh when he came back for a service after he told everybody the truth he said now i got i told everybody came to hear the truth right but now if you still want to come and pray with me later on you know after hearing all that i'd appreciate it so later on 38 of the people came to pray with him that night. Wow. So these people stayed.

38 people are so nice. It's insane. So the next day, he invites all these Baptist ministers over again to have a roundtable discussion with the reporter. And Briggs, the reporter, kept asking him for more details about these murders, like uh anything just give me details here he refused to answer but finally after the ministers would ask him questions he broke down he admitted that he murdered the woman in brockton massachusetts helen hansen that he hasn't been convicted for and he said he met her at a bar and he killed her later that night and he didn't know her name or which bar it was which is also lies because he was living with her for a year.

So Wanda Briggs said, quote, he was vague, almost evasive. And so they said they really felt like he was lying about a lot of things. So they asked him how old he was, which they knew the answer to. And he replied that he was 61, even though everybody knew that he was 56. So one of the time, the pastor, Pastor Phillips, asked him, he said, quote, Listen, Ed, how old are you? And he said, Brother, I'm 56. And this guy just lost his temper and got pissed off, smacked the table and said, quote,

You mean after all this, you can't even tell me the truth about something as simple as your age. You've been lying about that, too. Enough is enough. If he lies about something as insignificant as his age then what else is he lying about yeah everything fucking everything never told you anything true everything he says why would make you think it's true at this point that's what i would not what would make you think it's a lie what would make you think it's true right jesus

christ so uh police in brockton massachusetts reopened the case of Helen Hansen. It's 26 years old at that point. They name Ed Lopes as a suspect. Now he's being investigated. Like I said, he goes back to jail. And when his wife hears about that, Joan, she's very shaken. So he's back behind bars. He finally agrees to resign his ministry after a church survey showed two-thirds of his congregation wanted him to resign. So from his cell, he wrote a letter of resignation. It was biblical, obviously, a lot of shit like that. I'm sure he was throwing himself right up there on the cross, for lack of a better term. Just martyring himself.

The mercy of the court. Yeah. So they exhumed Helen Hansen. Really? of the court uh yeah so they did a they exhumed helen hansen really preliminary autopsy showed that she may have been beaten or strangled now with better technology 26 years later she may have been beaten or strangled and uh and another guy uh this is fucked up too uh when he's arrested in west richland when they take him out of church and interrogate him one of the guys in the police department who's assigned to interview him uh was actually one of his parishioners so he had to say pastor ed i'm

sorry but let me talk to you about killing a person right here and uh pastor ed wouldn't talk to him even really no give me a new one yeah give me a nice one so back in illinois there's details of the helen hansen murder are revealed uh one of uh uh details of the Helen Hansen murder are revealed. One of seven of the members of his congregation traveled from Washington to Illinois to attend his hearings and support him. How did you do that? It's insane. This woman, Mary Land, said, quote, I don't think anything could shock us or surprise us anymore about this whole thing. So, yeah, but it was shocking to his current wife, who was shocked she was still alive.

Buckle up, Miss Lynn. This is going to get crazy. Yeah. When County Prosecutor Andy Miller read an affidavit with the police report of what they found with Helen Hansen, Joan was said to have put her hand over her mouth and said, oh my God, to herself.

Everyone saw it, which is a bad thing a bad sign at that point oh shit his wife is scared that is something you do when you're trying to keep words in your mouth because you you're hearing what's happening you don't want those to be said no jesus that's a subconscious thing you do fuck yeah so uh i guess they illinois got tons of calls from church members at first complaining about this but then then once they found out exactly what he did, people kind of stopped. And it was just a few. The prosecutor said, quote, I understand the church people thinking this guy has turned his life around.

But a sense of justice for the victim's families needs to be remembered. Well, he ran away. Yeah. So he's officially violated for parole on February 18th, 1992. He goes in front of the state prisoner review board. Joan Lopes, her daughter, Sarah, and a bunch of prisoners, like we said, traveled. By the way, he met Joan through her daughter, Sarah, who was contacting people. And yeah, it's a really weird thing.

And then ended up being like, you got to talk to this guy. He's great. It's all about Jesus. And then the mother, rather than saying, stop talking to prisoners prisoners the fuck are you doing uh the mother said oh he sounds nice he got a car he's he got oh i bet he does it's in another state behind bars but i'll take it so uh they all traveled at their own expense here and everything uh so uh they now since this he they have his followers that followed him have started a new church in his name not in his name but with him as the pastor they've broken away from the old church

it didn't support him how fucking cult is this brainwash this is crazy called cross of christ bible church that's the new church that follows him or, you know, he's the pastor of. It's operating out of some one of the parishioners home. And it's they hope that, you know, that they're asking the parole board, please don't imprison our pastor. He's the leader of our church. They're doing this to try to get him out of out of jail here. Now, the prosecutor, Andy Miller, has something to say here. I think we'll give them a statement. He says, quote, I think there was a feeling in the beginning that he was being unfairly prosecuted. One of his parishioners called up a

local TV station and said that I admitted it was a paperwork mistake, which of course wasn't true. His attorney, for instance, will say he hasn't broken the law since he's got out of prison, except for jumping parole, hasn't changed his name here in Washington, hasn't gotten a different social security number, and he's been a model citizen, etc. But what gets lost here in situations like this, I think, is the families of the victims. There's a sense of feeling justice. If you don't punish people for parole violations, why have the parole

system at all? Yeah, he did 11 and a half years. He should have been the nicest guy in the world for the next, I don't know, 40 years that he was on parole. In Illinois. In Illinois. Do what you're told and stay there. You fucked up bad, and they're giving you a second chance. Be thankful. Right.

So he asked to be returned to parole status without serving any additional time, because he's been a law-abiding citizen, which is crazy. He says that he begged them. He says, quote, this is Edmund talking. There's jailhouse talk that you hear, and I was stupid enough to listen, that if you stay straight for five years, the board isn't going to bother with you. That was something I had in the back of my mind. I figured the board was going to say, well, this man is a new man, and let him go.

That's what he told them. I figured it was fine. He just let me go because I've been good. Obviously, I've been good here. So this, Jesus Christ here, testimonials by pleas from these people, his wife, his stepchildren, parishioners, co-workers,

all these people from Washington that traveled on their own expense saying how important he is. All of them doing all this type of shit. No testimony from his victims, though, because Shirley Johnston does not, at any of his parole hearings, she, uh, Shirley Johnston, uh, does not she at any of his parole hearing, she never appears. She's frightened of him and she wants nothing to do with him or anything about a knife in

her neck. She wants nothing to do with shit. Uh, she wrote a letter saying that, uh, at one point just saying that I obviously would like him to be in jail as long as humanly possible. The thought of him on the street scares the shit out of me and makes me want to not sleep for a month. So, yeah, one of his parishioners said, quote, I didn't know it in the past, but I know that if history has ever been brought forth, a changed man, this would be the guy. These people are fucking snowed. Certainly.

Other states told stories of him helping a grieving widower, befriending an ill child, caring his father figure to orphans and shit. They're talking about him like he's fucking Jesus. Carol Spanheimer, who taught Sunday school classes with him, said, quote, The Illinois penal system is made to reform, to make new people out of old, to make them so they will not do what they did before. They have succeeded. With Jesus Christ and the penal system, they have made a new person. That's fucking funny. I don't know why. Yeah.

The Catholic Church has done that also, but it's for the worst. It doesn't work. With Jesus and a penal system. It works out bad. Yeah. If you have Jesus, your penal system is a whole separate thing at that point it really turns into a weapon he says lope says quote the thing i would like to say to this board here is that i did not break the trust the board gave me as far as being

regenerated rehabilitated i took that trust and i became a new man wonderful uh they said though they vote uh in a they end up voting here to send him back to prison for jumping parole for how long you sir may fuck off for three months oh my fuck three months for jumping parole uh uh the one of the people said that uh jesus christ it posed no difficulties and uh the the board said one parole people's person said that should be another three years, but they vote for three months. They say if Lopes maintains a clean record and reports to Washington parole authorities, they're going to let him go to Washington. They're going to let him leave and everything. As they instruct him, his relationship with Illinois officials will officially end when he leaves on Monday.

They're like, if you go to Washington, you're gone. Now you're Washington's problem. Okay? You guys take him? All right, good. We're out. This is very butch. It's weird.

What was Marsalis? What about us? Yeah, that's exactly what it is. The rain know you and me. The rain know you and me, yeah. I don't care if that motherfucker go to Indochina. Get the fuck out of town. They said another one, a criminal defense, one of his lawyers, who's also a born again

Christian, said that, quote, we had a psychologist do a profile. He came out well. He was not a deceiver on this test. Great. I'm not on this test. How about the test of his life? Or he did deceive and you don't see it either. He said, then we had

a polygraph have you committed crime since you're released that was one of the crucial questions again he came out well i think people who commit horrible crimes and realize what they've done later in their life and want to make amends for it somehow i think some of the things he told the congregation well a lie as you say no as fucking objective the dictionary says he said things that aren't true on purpose therefore a lie uh so yeah jesus fucking christ man uh he says was his effort of coming clean they may they turned it he lied to be to be more good unreal uh to get forgiveness that's why he lied they said he just couldn't tell it in the real way. Wow.

He even says that I think it might be possible that he talked to the newspaper because he wanted to get caught in his heart. That's why he told that woman. No, I think it's because he got away with it for so long, they ain't going to check. He felt like a big man, I feel like. They can't tell. He's like, that's all the way over there. That was years ago. That was 25 years ago, too. That's done and over with.

over there. That was years ago. That was 25 years ago, too. That's done and over with. So Bill Phillips, who's the pastor of another church, said, quote, I tell you, emotions have gone top to bottom, left to right on this. The braggadocio quality of his mafia fictions always bothered me. There was something in me that didn't want to believe it. He knew, obviously. But you see, he was such a believable person. Look, I want to understand that Brother Ed Lopes did no doubt have a personal experience with the Gideon Bible. I believe he's a born again man, but born again people can be crooked as a snake, too. True. Most are. Yeah. No shit, man. So, wow. My goodness. They talked to Joan during this whole thing, and she said that now he wasn't lying at all. She said, quote, the fifth letter I got, he told me what his crimes were. He never shucked and jived.

She said he told me murder and attempted murder. And she said, did he specify who? And she said, no. And they said, didn't the fact that he was a murderer bother you? And she said, quote, it wasn't the man I was writing to when I met him. Because Jesus had taken him and transformed him. Of course. So once you're transformed, you're transformed.

That's it. He's not a murderer anymore. Also, he didn't tell you he killed his fucking wife. Yeah, no shit. Jesus Christ. My God. She said, quote, then one morning here a little while ago i thought i was going to have to tie a ball and chain or to my right leg it was shaking so i want you to know i've never

for one minute doubted that little man that's his wife she said little she said that little man he's a strange little bird i've never doubted that little man yeah jesus christ uh uh yeah so uh and then she said by the way he's going to get out of this mess he's still going to be my little lover she can't stop belittling him christ almighty the church is the church by the way in the neighborhood now the new church it has 10 pews in a in a low ceiling room they have a plywood board in the sanctuary that says enrollment 60 people there. Offering last Sunday $822. Offering today $675.

Building fund $4,600 to build a new building. They're nowhere near. So they're nowhere near. So back to parole court. He only has to do three months. He's continued and he's let off on may 18th 1992 by the way the same day the board decided to send ed lopes back to prison only for three months brockton prosecutors in massachusetts decided that there was not enough evidence to charge him in helen hansen's death death he's a

free man oh my they let him go but yeah uh he's a free man and he goes back to west richland to take up his ministry but things don't go real well uh there's articles about him on an article in the paper says quote he lives in a fantasy world of homicide only five months ago he was lying to his west richland baptist baptist church congregation about his past. Not just lying, either. He was spinning incredible stories of murders with himself at the center of the violence. So they're saying, what a piece of shit he is. After a couple weeks of all of this, no one came to his services. He was just a mess.

After a couple weeks, him and Jones slink away into the night and leave Washington, which, by the way, he's not allowed to do. Right. And they go to Nebraska. Back there. Back to Nebraska. They're there for a little while. And records indicate he moved to Missouri in 1995.

Okay. In 1997, police in Clinton, Missouri, arrested him in G Gower which is north of Kansas City for violating his parole by doing what? Committing fucking bigamy again. What? For the second time.

He got married again? More bigamy. Yeah. More bigamy. You have to get divorced first, stupid. And at the time he wasn't living with either of these women.

So he was married to two women enough to get charged with but he was living alone and working as a fucking laborer. So all the talk about all the downfall of marriage and none of the benefits he's got nothing he's getting arrested for it for christ's sake so december 2nd 1997 his parole is revoked again he is brought back to illinois his original and imprisoned at dixon again so he's put back in prison that That is 1997. In prison, he's still trying to get parole over and over and over again.

One parole, I found his parole reports, which are pretty cool. Here is a report from 2013. So that is 16 years after he got put back away here. They say, quote, Mr. Lopes' institutional adjustment has been good. His last ticket was of a minor nature in 2011. He resides in the health care unit due to his medical needs. He's confined to a bed most of the time. Awesome.

He still works as a janitor and is active in religious groups. He's now in the hospice program and administered to spiritual and emotional needs of the fellow inmates of hospice. January 2nd 2013 is a parole hearing he's interviewed for parole it's uh at the dixie uh the dixon correctional center uh he is a couple there's a three-person board he's 77 years old uh he is serving a shitload of time obviously he's in the medical unit he expressed remorse and stated that he thought at the time back in the day he thought he was god's gift to women he says he wants a chance to get out and do something positive with his life he wants his kids to be proud of him you

know all those kids he abandoned once i don't know him 60 years ago you know those kids that are probably maybe dead of old age those kids uh he says that he says his plans are to, when he gets paroled, to move to the Oxford House in Bellwood, Illinois. He's estranged from his wife, Joan. He said he would seek income through Social Security insurance and he can receive Medicare through the VA because he was in the Marines. And they check on that. They say all that's true. Estranged implies that you don't know where they are. She knows exactly where you are.

She's estranged from you strange she took off yeah uh they said he served in his life a total of 26 years incarceration they said uh he's been incarcerated since the 70s he's been paroled twice locked up for 17 years he served 13 years and was paroled then they're talking about all his shit here they say uh he has no violence since he's been in corrections which yeah there's no women there 70 fucking seven yeah they do note that he's been a scam artist his whole life uh for everything they also said he has no relationship with his children to to speak of to make them proud of uh he's very weak and very ill uh they a couple of the one of the parole board actually says uh they believe the the parole board is reaching to keep him locked up on a parole violation. He's 77.

He's got heart failure. He's got liver problems. He's got all sorts of problems here. Another member of the parole board noted that his actions caused the destruction of lives and he involved a lot of people in his in his in his scams. They said last year he almost got out. He was like 50-50 on the board, on the fence of getting out on parole. And finally,

they said that they got a letter saying that he will be accepted by that house, the Oxford house, if they let him out. And so they tell him, fuck off, parole denied. You're not getting it anyway.

77 sick and whatever. We're going to keep You're not getting it anyway. 77 sick and whatever. We're going to keep you a little extra time. They said, quote, the board makes a specific finding that the release of victim protest letters could subject a person to actual risk of physical harm. They're talking about Shirley Johnston, his safety and her safety and her just being out there and also his safety of, you know, people might want to hurt him. So he pleads to the governor for clemency. He says he recognizes all the bad in his life has come on his own doing.

He says, but now as time approaches, he wants to have a few fleeting moments of freedom. Once again, he says, please help me. He says he's dying from heart and liver problems and he asked to be released to a halfway house. He's in hospice. He's a volunteer. He says he doesn't want to find himself

in the position of other men he had counseled in their last days. He says he desperately doesn't want to die in jail. August 2nd, 2013, Edmund dies in jail. His clemency letter never made it to the governor uh never got read it was in the process

in the on his pile but never even got read he died in prison in 2013 uh much like two of the women and who knows how many women he's fucking killed that's the other thing we have no idea with that kind of mo he was just fucking killing left and right. He could have went down to Florida. He could have had a trail behind him in Florida. The gators must have ate her. I don't know. Shit, she's gone. There was a book here that I got some interesting background information

from this that I got to give credit to the book because they had that background information other people didn't have. The book is called For I Have Sinned by John Glatt and it's about like uh religious leaders that kill people basically like that sort of shit like yeah bad bad pastors it's pretty fucking cool i read it it's good shit uh so check that out uh that is bloomingdale illinois and west richland washington and a whole bunch of other shit

11 years how do people not know this story yeah that's another thing well how is this not a story that you hear all the time this is crazy constantly talking about how we can't lower sentences and just let people out that's how is this not an example of that well not when they're killing people kind of like this is fucking crazy that's wow how many people could he have killed back then who knows i don't know how nobody knows about the story, like how this wasn't like, oh, yeah, this story. It's too popular for us to do. This is disgusting.

I don't understand it. So, wow. Well, if you like that story, you're not too disgusted by this when you're done with it. Give us a review. Go to iTunes, Apple Podcasts, whatever the hell you want to do here. Give us a review. Five stars would be wonderful. It really helps drive us up the charts.

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That's a weird last name. Oh, Chelsea Linnae, that's what that is. There you go. Chelsea, fuck, what did I do? Jesus. Tanisha Teo, Lisa Hewitt. That's what that is. There you go. Chelsea, fuck, what did I do? Jesus. Tanisha Tao, Lisa Hewitt, Megan Schmelzenbach. Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody.

That was a fucking unbelievable. Yeah, you guys are so nice to us. Ola, Ola, Ola. Oh, boy. Thank you. Ole, I am so sorry. Ole, hola, hola, hola, what? Holowadiji?

Dude, don't look at me like that. It's a tough one. Ola is definitely foreign. No. I don't do. Don't look at me. I'm not. Hey, I have. It's a it's a tough one. Ola is definitely foreign. And no, that is. That's not a Chad Smith. Ola. Hala Jawadi.

Not one of those Midwestern Ola's. Hala Jawadi. Are they here all the time? Hala Jawadi. I think that's it. OK. Well, thank you. I like your name and I wish we could pronounce it better. Howard Wilson.

Ben. Ben Kastner. Scott Leibarger or Leibarger, and Michelle Gilbert. You guys, thank you so much. Can't thank you enough. You guys really lead the charge. The life's blood. Thank you, guys.

Other producers this week. We have Jacob Harshman, who went to both Patreon and then over to PayPal. Thank you, man. Karina Walker, Haley Brustaukas, Thomas Smith, Michael Bretz, Jen Stevens, Chris Currier, Matt Dietrich, Benjamin Donaki, Chelsea Morgan. You know what? She donated twice. Wow.

Thank you. Thank you, Chelsea. Wendy Dyes, Suave Marsha Gumbo, or Marcia. I'm not good at this. I don't know what I'm doing. Brendan Ables, Kelly Higby, Amanda Asperheim, Bill Sosinski, Steve Schnell in PA. Thanks, Steve. That's the right role. Hey, thanks, brother.

Heavy metal scientist. Yeah, yeah, that's what it is. What am I doing? What's up, Steve? Thanks, brother. And in Pennsylvania, when we were at the Philly Punchline, he told me what he does. It's fucking... Oh, he's fucking smart as shit, that guy.

You look at that guy and you go, what's his difference? You talk to him for five minutes does. It's fucking... Oh, he's fucking smart as shit, that guy. You look at that guy and you go, what's his difference? You talk to him for five minutes and you go, oh yeah, he's really smart. He's clearly brilliant. He's a really smart guy. But you look at him and you're like, he looks like a roadie from Metallica.

He looks like a psychopath. Yeah, yeah. He looks like he'd crush your skull for selling bootleg Metallica t-shirts in the parking lot. They'd send him out there to kick your skull in. And then drink cheap wine out of your skull.

Yeah, and he's a great dude. He's amazing. Quebec, I don't know if the city donated. The whole city? I think. kick your skull in and then he's a great guy cheap wine out of your skull yeah he's a great dude he's amazing uh quebec uh i don't know if the city don't the whole city i think thanks french people jesse hartman maribel leal uh remy remy uh remy peck pequery uh remy is it remy or remy remy with like a little thing remy that's i'llamey? I'll bet it's Ramey Picari. Okay. That's right, or P-Query. That sounds great.

I'm sure it's wrong, but it sounds beautiful. Ashley Veo, James Fraker, Deanne Dooley, Margie Kunze, Tracy Renninger, Jacob Hoem, Jordan Moser, Naima Shea, Marshall Walker, Peyton Mahoons. No, Meadows., Peyton Mahoons. No. Meadows. Mahoons? The fuck did you pull that out of your ass from? Oh, boy, oh, boy.

Under the Sea Fabrics, Edward Kaczynski, Marshall Walker, John Vulcanar. Vulcanar III. I've said his name a million times and I can't fucking, I'll never get it. Tough one. Jesse Foster, Rachel Robbins, Stephen Rood, Stephanie Smith, or Smith Stephanie. I'm sure it's Stephanie Smith. Probably. But it came in the other way. All right.

Rachel Robbins, Stephen Rood, I said that. Laura Schwartz, hockey, yes. Janice Hill, Jonathan Wilder, Keith Cole, Ashley Hathaway, McKenna Cota, Dominique Nichols. There you go. That's the one. This is really frustrating. Alex Calder, Caleb Crawley, Shawna Rogers, Roger Lovelady. What?

Heather Mueller, Gary Howard, Barbara Howells, Lindsay Furster. Almost called her Fister. Sorry about that. Fister, sorry about that. Fister, hardly knew her. No, Sean Tucker, Misty Keene, Vern Parks, Ted Cyrus, Natalie Meyer, Gretchen Jones, Neil Jones, Justin Miller, Patricia Grace, Charlie Way, Haley Marble, Shama Parker, Shama, yes, Shama Parker. Shama.

Yes, Shama Parker. Yeah. Yeah. Sarah Jenkins, Hannah Simmons, Donna Englehart, Rachel Stora. I said Rachel, and I got her again. Maylee Elliott. I hope that's the – it's probably somebody else, but I know somebody that goes by Maylee that does some adult films, and I wanted it to be her so bad may lee elliott ren finch uh maurice peterson uh jordan bennett herb garcia

lisa watson uh louise no levi's, no, Louis, Louis Tidrick. We've gotten delirious. Thank you, Levi's. Alyssa with no last name. Krista, Krista. I called her Levi's. Krista Gibson, called a man Levi's. Krista Gibson, Aaron Aishiek, Caitlin Mingus,

Heather Norton, Jane Richards, Lindsay Walker, Sebastian Martin, Stacey Hardy, Daniel McDonald. I am so sorry, Lewis. Spring Monday Wise,

Team Crucial on YouTube. I don't know what that is. Hey, thank you. You can go look them up. Chad with no last name. Emily Brazel or Brazil. Kelly Pinozian. Yes, Pinozian.

Okay. It's one of those. Yeah. Ashley Wilsey. Summer McClain. Matt Sledge. Sledge. Sledge.

Matt Sledge. Sorry, sir. Levi Sledge. Where's Levi Sledge when Sledge. Matt Sledge. Sorry, sir. Levi Sludge. Where's Levi Sludge when you need him? That sounds like something that happens after a lap dance. I got Levi Sludge, everybody. I'll be back in five minutes. I got to go to the can.

Carly Dodson. Jamie loves Jimmy because she's very nice. Kay with no last name. Jacob Cornwell. Desiree Brown. Vanessa Fajardo. Fajardo. Fajardo. Fajardo. That's it.

Daniel Harnois. Lonnie Hall. Plum Foxington. That can't be real, right? I hope so. That's a great name. Kristen Waller. Kurt Atherholt. Kurt Atherholt. Brittany McDonald. Tracy Jones. Laura great name uh kristin waller kurt alther atherhalt kurt atherhalt uh britney mcdonald tracy jones laura foswan faso fasoni oh yes yes uh steven tucciarelli no to trello uh ken slattery uh

jen collazo patrick fetty uh captain surly that's easy enough yeah carrie burger or berger colin shea jimmy's nuts jimmy's nutsack that's what that says whatever uh you got me you happy now edgar cordero lily meyer dragonfly girl shelly cassidy don peterson mariah musgrave carrie centeno uh yes and hayley landgraf you guys it's a fucking unbelievable list and and we can't be thankful enough to really tell you how grateful we are. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much, everybody.

This has been a wild week, and wow, thank you so much for everything you've given us, and we just appreciate the shit out of everybody that hangs out with us. Thank you so much. And what if people appreciated the shit out of you, Jimmy? Where can they find you to tell you that? You can find me at WismanSucks, W-H-I-S-M-A-N Sucks, on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. The messages you guys send, I do my best to read or respond to just about all of it. And thank you guys.

So it's really, it's fucking overwhelming. The support that you guys give in terms of personal words is fucking rad, and I really appreciate it. Like Funky Ryder and her sister Vin her sister vinnie sister vinnie yeah i think that's true she wrote me about her sister's birthday or something the the the it's it's interesting that these people listen these people uh the people that listen they listen and they listen with their family and that's cool and they have like inside things that they say to each other. That's amazing. Okay. I love that so much when people like listen together.

Like when we have people come to our shows and it'll be like a mom and her 17-year-old son or like, you know, just a couple of sisters or a group of people from an office. We all work together. We all listen. It's so personal. They're like connected and they say like, we say this all the time. And they have like, what we have done our whole lives with movies or comedians or whatever, you have these little lines that you give back and forth, and great outdoors.

Right. To some people, we're like 10% of the great outdoors for them, which is pretty cool. Some people have only seen the great outdoors because of us. That's weird. That's like Bill Murray calling Chevy Chase medium talent. If it's coming from Bill Murray, that's a compliment. You know what I mean? He's trying to be insulting, but fuck, I'm proud of that shit.

What about you? Where can they tell you you're medium talent? You can call me a medium talent over at Jimmy P is funny, or you can copy and paste my last name from the show description because it's long, and why bother? Why try to spell it if you really don't have to? I mean, honestly, what are we talking about here? But I can't thank you guys enough for everything you send my way and compliments and everything. I don't know how to take them sometimes, but I appreciate them a ton.

And we really do appreciate everything. Even you Oregon people. So this episode, did you watch any news coverage of this? Like watching somebody say his name? No, I just know in an article they say lopes like ropes oh to make sure you know okay to make sure you know it's not lopez it's l-o-p-e-s i was letting this ride l-o-p-e-s and they say lopes like ropes said thank you chicago tribune you fucking bastards i love it i wanted this whole episode to go nope clarity at the end i said this shit with confidence and if your town if your town isn't pronounced bloomingdale go

fuck yourself because it's spelled bloomingdale i'll tell you that right now there's a goddamn store with that name i wanted the way more popular than me go are you sure it's not lopez yeah no i'm not sure not positive at all and don't care. And don't care. Nope, it's Lopes. Otherwise, I would have went with Lopez. He's dead. Fuck him. But it's Lopes.

Fuck him. He's a dead murderer. Dead murdering liar. So fuck him. Anyway, everybody, until next week, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.