Small Town Murder - #110 - A Tangled Tree Of Disaster in Bridgeville, Delaware

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

This week, in Bridgeville, Delaware, a complex web of relationships emerge, causing a ton of strife. People marry, divorce, get back together, then marry one of their spouse's relatives. A brutal murder takes place, only to raise suspicions. You know what that means... more murder! Cover ups, shallow graves, and destroyed families follow, leading to some seriously interesting court proceedings. This one is a mess!!Along the way, we find out that scrapple is apparently a fruit that is easily tossed, that when you divorce, you might want to avoid marrying another member of your ex's family, and that graves should probably never be shallow!!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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. 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 Bridgeville, Delaware, relationships, greed, and deep-seated hatred caused the disappearances of two rivals. Welcome to Small Town Murder.

Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today. We are excited. We have another crazy, crazy episode, as usual. I hope you enjoyed last week's Insanity. Where was that?

Last week? Yeah. Last week, we went from, okay, let's map out the last few weeks. Ohio to? Ohio to Missouri. Missouri, that's where we went. And went to Bonneterre, Missouri. Right.

Yes. And apparently that's the correct pronunciation. That's the correct pronunciation. It sounds stupid as shit. But it's not in a Missouri accent Right. Yes. And apparently that's the correct pronunciation. That's the correct. It sounds stupid as shit, but it's not, and not in a Missouri accent. That's what I want to say the whole time. That's not,

I get that Bonn Ter might be correct, but Bonn Ter ain't correct. It's just, you even had to say ain't. That's what I mean. That ain't correct. Right. So that said,

but I thank you guys for everything this week. Thank you for your iTunes reviews this week. All of your reviews, the Purple Icon, Apple Podcasts, whatever it is. Those reviews really, really help drive us up the charts. So if you have not done it yet, please get on there. Give us five stars. It doesn't matter what you say. It's really not for our ego. It's just to drive us up the charts.

So anything you say would be great. Five stars would be wonderful. And any platform you listen on, if you can review, go ahead and do it for us. It helps out a lot. So thanks for that. Head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com for any of your merchandising needs. T-shirts and new T-shirts are up. Grim Karen is up.

Fantastic. We have I'm a Grim Karen and I'm not a Grim Karen or don't be a Grim Karen. One or the other. You can choose sides on that one. Pick your side on those. And there's a bunch of I think Meth Falcons coming out soon. We've got a bunch of weird stuff up there. Enjoy all of that. Get into it, you grim bitches.

That's right. Also, get your tickets to live shows because they'll be up there soon. Nashville sold out. Told you so. We sold out like the day the show came out. Thank you guys for getting your tickets to that. So we apologize to anyone who is going to miss us in Nashville.

We will be back at some point, though. Don't worry. And we're going to announce a slate of all sorts of live shows over the course of the year very, very soon. So stay tuned for that. That's fun. If you want to hang out with us, you want to be one of our heroes, you can do that very easily by going over to patreon.com slash crime in sports or head over to paypal use our email address which is crime in sports at gmail.com you can make a one-time donation there you can be one of our producers we will talk about in detail at the end of the show these wonderful damn people to keep this show going uh we we must do the disclaimer we do we do. We have to. It's one of those things.

This is a comedy podcast. It's a comedy show. Not to say that the facts aren't real. The cases are real. Everything in it is 100,000% real, but there's going to be some jokes in there. There's going to be murder, and there's also going to be jokes. There's plenty of serious shows. You can listen, and they'll discuss in a very somber way how the head was sliced from

the body that's fine if that's what you're into cool there's a lot of great great shows that do a good job tons of them we're not that we don't do we're going to give you details we're going to make jokes uh we make jokes about small towns we make jokes about the murderer yeah we make jokes about a police force that bumbles and can't catch a murderer we do things like that what we try to do we go out of our way to do, is we do not make fun of the victims or the victims' families because we're assholes, but we're not scumbags.

So this disclaimer is to tell you beware of humor. There's humor in here. There's goddamn levity. There is levity, so we feel like that's an easier way to deliver the whole thing. And if that sounds great to you, we're going to have a have a good time if it doesn't if true crime and comedy should never go together for you then by all means please go away yeah you're not gonna like the show probably

if you think oh god was that a joke you're not gonna like it so we'll call it a blind date that didn't work out and uh have a good one certainly gonna annoy the piss out of you yeah so have a good one there and uh for everyone else that's left that wants to have a good time, I think it's time to shout from wherever you are. Go ahead and shout it from your cubicle. See how cool your office is. See if you get fired from traffic. Is that where you want to take your chances, people?

Shout it out the window of your car. People will get out of your way. Shout, shut up and give me murder. All right. let's do this okay let's go on a trip jimmy yes what do you say i like trips let's go trips are fun we're gonna go on a trip and i know we said last week that this week was georgia and that is my fault because i messed my schedule up and this week is not next week is georgia got it um it's it's a weird thing that i have in my head it's like itunes has their funky algorithm for rankings i have my weird funky ocd algorithm harry dancing in your brain yeah of what

where things go and when and i can't have the georgia one before after it has to be after this one it's a weird thing it's too close to missouri no not even it's not even geographic it's part geographic and it's part uh it's part just the crime and the different it's it's a long story that's close to missouri right where a couple of states away what is georgia it's it's down there yeah it's sort of over there yeah it's in that direction ohio's not that far from missouri we did ohio and missouri point we had to do is different cases so you'll see what i'm okay if you look at it as a whole you know what i'm getting at but we're going on a trip all the way to delaware uh-huh all the way to bridgeville delaware is this our number two from delaware this is only the second delaware that's the thing in georgia we've only had one also so georgia would only be our second

georgia okay coming up and the reason why there's there's a ton of murders in georgia i was gonna say a ton of great murders which sounds awful now there's a ton of murders in georgia juicy stories yeah juicy juicy uh stories and in georgia but a lot of them you have to sift through the ones that are like and figure out the ones that were just crammed through the justice system because it was you know run by like uh you know a sheriff and like two scarecrows right that say the n-word all the time or something like that was the whole gotta get him yeah so just white black did just poor meant you were just guilty and that was how georgia worked so that's brutal

a lot of those southern states you have to really sift through the shit to find out if the person actually did it or not and well that might be kind of fun too it is that well that's what we end up doing half the time and our georgia case is sort of has a hint of that also a little tinge of maybe not it may be not but it's a it's a modern day one too so we'll get into it though but this week delaware and this is some damn redneck delaware shit right here not since mary dell not since no that was maryland was that yeah that was mary dell maryland's on the delaware border delaware we'll get to that in one second this was mary dell delaware no mary dell yeah it's m Yeah. Got it. So this is Southern Delaware.

Yeah. But the whole state is like one big panhandle. So fuck it. This is a just, it's a panhandle state, Delaware. Okay. I can see it. Yeah. You can incorporate your business in Delaware and it's got some weird tax advantage to like

90% of the companies in the US corporations are incorporated in Delaware. Really? It's super weird. Yeah. Is Delaware the one that's shaped like a mini Idaho? Yeah, you know what? That's exactly what it's shaped, like a panhandle, like a couple of panhandles. They took the first quarter inch of Idaho off and slapped it.

Yeah, it's a mini Idaho. All right. Or maybe Idaho is actually a larger- Rhode Island. We're going to have a- Rhode Island. I mean, Delaware. We're going to have a larger Delaware. We're going to make it to scale, but larger. That's how We're going to have a... Rhode Island. I mean... We're going to have a larger Delaware. We're going to make it

to scale, but larger. That's how we're going to do it. Hilarious. This is about 40 minutes to Dover, which is the capital, about an hour 35

to Baltimore, and about an hour to Kenton, Delaware, which is our last one. There it is. Episode 44. That guy was a dick. That was a real...

I don't remember, obviously. It was a real... Listen to that one. Go back and listen to Kenton, Delaware. I'm going to give that a run. Yeah, guy was a dick. That was a real... I don't remember, obviously. It was a real... Listen to that one. Go back and listen to Kenton, Delaware. I'm going to give that a run. Yeah, it's a mess. This is in Sussex County, Delaware. Zip code 19933.

Love those one zip codes from New York where you get the one. I love the originals. It's great. Area code 302. It's four and a half square miles. So, small town, but not like one of those two block towns but a pretty small town. Motto. This is fucking

actually their motto. This is not a joke. If you lived here you'd be home now. I hate that. Like a shitty apartment complex. And two months rent are free. That's what it should say under that sign. Welcome to Bridgeville. If you lived here you'd be home now two months rent free no security deposit utilities utilities included

come on in what the fuck the apartment complexes of towns here jesus christ how dare they that's not a motto also a lot of the real estate companies around here use the motto, a great place to retire. There is a boatload of old people here. Just a shitload of old people here. Now, history of this town will breeze through this pretty quick because there's not a whole lot of history. And it's a weird thing. Historical Society or American Historical Association in a report in 1906 said, quote, there is probably no state in the union where one would find less material for writing its history than Delaware.

Wow. So for some reason, I don't know if everyone was illiterate there or what the fuck. No one wrote shit down back in the day. So they have very of all the states in the union. They're saying this is the least documented of what the hell happened here. Interesting. I don't understand why. Are they hiding something?

Who knows? We don't know. It's not documented. That's the problem. We don't know if it's one of those county seats. We're arguing. Everybody's records got burned and they were like, fuck it. Who cares?

You want to at least write down what we remembered? Nope. Who cares? It's all gone. It's all gone. History starts now right uh so uh bridgeville is the oldest community in the western part of sussex county uh it's very old the records of land trend transactions go all the way back to the uh for to like the early early

1700s so that's a long time and uh i guess there was already a big agricultural community by then, too, before by the time there was land deeds. Already people were farming and Native Americans obviously were using. Yeah, sure. And then also Europeans that came were also farming there. So that's interesting. Yeah. Nobody knows what the fuck they were doing. Apparently not.

I don't know why the fuck nobody wrote anything. I don't know what it is with Delaware. It's not like this town or just, it's the whole state and you cross the border and they wrote everything down. I don't understand.

I don't get it. What is wrong with you, Delaware? That is weird. Get your head out of your asses, Delaware. Maybe they're just like, no way they're letting us keep this land. Who gives a shit about writing it down? Yeah, just forget about,

I don't know if it's just lazy. At the end of the day, they were like, it's been a long day yeah you need to write down your experience tomorrow for history you know to have nope sorry not doing it and just sits there wishing he had tv that's incredible to flick through the the one guy they they enlisted to do it is just the laziest dick in town yeah he's like i don't feel like it not tomorrow i'll get to it's kind of an alcoholic yeah he's not real reliable a little forgetful doesn't show up all the time i was gonna write what happened today but i forgot i forgot i don't know what happened again maybe i'll remember tomorrow who told me

that that fuck it doesn't unbelievable so uh they built a small group of houses along what is now main street uh by the beginning of the 1800s they had started building a main street with with you know houses and it started to take shape as a town uh there it was known at the time it was known as bridge branch because there was a stream nearby and uh which was they had a bridge across the stream as early as 1730 so the bridge here has been a big deal they're very proud that they can cross water here yeah that's every name they have dry by the way wait till you hear some of the names that were around this area of towns exact oh you're gonna shit when you bridge branch bridge branch turned into bridgeville bridgeville uh-huh now uh by 1804 there was a lot of uh there was a lot of people there it started to grow so they put a post office in

that means you're that means you're coming to into your own here absolutely you get a post people can mail you shit now it's on uh the village was formally recognized in 1810 when they passed uh you know made it a town as bridgeville so then it became bridgeville uh the in the 1800s there was a water-powered mill a charcoal furnace a fruit drying business oh who thinks to do that you know what i'm gonna do dry fruit what like in the basement no no professionally yeah just for everybody that's my job anybody needs fruit dried i'm your fucking guy that's it just sitting in a dry room yeah just i'm waiting the dusty ass room the frustrating business too just oh geez looking at it nope still moist maybe tomorrow yeah we tried to dry out some peppers one time to fry up some peppers for hot peppers and shit and

they they never fucking dry they just wouldn't dry out takes this guy must be very just the most patient man is very that's it he just sits there i'll wait it's the same guy that's the same guy that's supposed to be writing shit yeah he has all the time in the world that's the thing make the fruit guy write shit he's got all day he's watching fruit tries that doesn't even have a book he's just sitting there on a stool with his legs crossed just tapping his fucking fingers running that pinky pinky ring middle that little thing yep that's a little drum roll that's it there so staring at apples jesus christ staring on dry turn they had a charcoal mill is that what it was i want raisins fired milk i'm looking for

raisins uh no they had a charcoal furnace i don't know what the hell that did and he apparently dried fruit i hope yeah that's what i was thinking like go stick that shit up there bud there you go give it a head start give it a boost uh the growth of the town uh shot up big time when the delaware delaware railroad came in in 1856 as we know that if there's a railroad or anything like that or a major port transportation of moving goods you're booming commerce equals people that's how it goes so uh the town was laid out by a guy named William Cannon, and Bridgeville was named because they built a bridge there, and it was better than Bridge Branch, they figured. Sounded more townish. Yeah.

Now, they had very weird names of towns near here. They called them controversial, and I would say. Oh, boy. One town was called Murderkill. No. Really? Oh, that's not the weird one oh jesus one town's called murder kill now that's nothing compared to pussyville well a town no well you'll see yeah you're you're actually that's more mild i think than what there is it's a cockering town uh so kill i'm from new york and in new york there's a lot of uh you get like native american names of

towns and shit like that and uh my father lives in a town called fishkill which kill means creek that's what that is so that's anything with kill in it that's creek okay uh that's what that comes from murder creek but that doesn't sound better what is it better than whore kill? Because that's the other town. Yeah. Whore kill. Whore kill Delaware. Spell it the right way. W-H-O-R-E-K-I-L-L. That's amazing. Whore kill Delaware.

That one almost killed this whore. That's hilarious. Whore kill and murder kill Delaware. That's amazing. Yes. Nothing? Whore creek and murder creek. You're not going uh yes uh what nothing no no whore creek you're not gonna elaborate how did they get there they fucked up dutch names they fought there was names that were like that and they messed up the names and translation that sounded like it so it ended up being a horror kill and murder kill which that wasn't what the dutch words were that it wasn't what the Dutch words were. It wasn't like, you know, Lady of the Night Creek

and fucking killing a human creek. That's not... That is amazing. Yeah, so there was... Mastaken. Whorekill. So, mistaken. This town begins on mistakes.

We'll put it that way. And they progress all the way up through this case and to this day. Wow. Whorekill. Yeah. That's quite the mailing address murder kill is not any better no no murder kill is not better but murder kills vague that's just murder kill whore kills like very specific like you're you're look out yeah you're not

welcome here but there's a a murder is is just is a uh is an amount of something right isn't there like a pack of something that's called a murder? Crows is a murder. Is it crows? Yeah, a murder. A murder of crows, yeah. Really? Yeah.

That's fascinating. Yeah, I only know that. Because that's like a death bird. I know nothing of science, but I do watch The Simpsons. And back in the day, I watched The Simpsons anyway. Okay. So you could be calling that one Crow Creek. Homer had a bunch in his bed, and he said, a group of crows is called a murder because marge was freaked out by him that was to make her feel better you

have this flock of crows he's like no marge a group of crows is called a murder as they stare at her it's pretty good what is a group of whatever called what's that a whore what is that it was literally a dutch word that was like H-O-I-R whatever the fuck. And they just said, I know that word. That's hard. They're trying to say whore, but they can't spell good. They ain't lettered. Shame.

We tasked him with keeping the records. I guess we'll have none. Fuck it. That's incredible. So people in this town, population 2480. And so it's not a big town and that's up 73 since 1990 wow so yeah it's it's like a lot of these small towns small towns have seemed to swell and then some of the ones have died and you just attribute that to cold weather and people moving

because delaware's delaware's cold no i think i attribute that to people moving to the suburbs since 1990s. Just more of a city, more of a, yeah, different. Well, people will move out and then more people move into the city and the people who lived in the city moved out of the city

and that's how it, that happens in all these different cities. It's fascinating that small towns has a stigma of like, you can catch a disease because they just run off all the chemicals there. And then big cities has the stigma of,

this is where all the chemicals are at. Yeah, that's where they make them to run them off all the chemicals there. And then big cities has the stigma of, this is where all the chemicals are at. Yeah, that's where they make them to run them off in the small towns. And the smoke is all in your city anyway. Well, yeah, from here. No matter where you're going, you're getting diseased. Oh, yeah, yeah. Just enjoy it.

We're a country of disease. America, a country of disease. You'll be diseased everywhere you go. That's one thing we guarantee. It's on the Statue of Liberty. It's your huddled masses and all that, year're yearning to be free and you will get a disease so look out for that incurable get some health insurance untreatable well treatable is thought that's you know curable no no no we'll keep you alive do that median age in this town is normal right now is 37.8 that's average across the u.s here it is 60.7

oh boy it's about 61 years old so every 30 year old there's a 90 that's what we always say yeah my christ for every baby yeah there's 120 year old man walking around that's how this works for every newborn child there's a decrepit corpsman walking the streets like a zombie i think that you're so positive you think that fucker's walking oh yeah like a zombie so it's more frightening he's in a wheelchair that's just sad but if he's like drooling at you that's that's scary unless he's wheeling it that's even scarier his legs don't work but his arms are strong enough to roll that fucker yeah but if he's walking it's he's the und Unless he's wheeling it. That's even scarier. His legs don't work, but his arms are strong enough to roll that fucker? Yeah, but if he's walking, he's the undead.

He's 120. You know what a 120-year-old person looks like? Like they've been dead for 20 years. The smell of them is real bad. Well, they're disintegrating. They're decomposing already. Nature's like, fuck it. My stepfather's dad died at like 97.

That man smelled terrible always he did yeah and his skin was he'd bump into a door not even anything sharp on the door the flat part yeah yeah and his skin would just open oh yeah yeah 97 yeah you're a mess at 97 you're just a disaster here i don't want that you're a fucking disaster i don't want that at all and and things happen and you're like and it's not even like a big deal my My grandmother, Italian grandma, knife-wielding grandma, had a stroke last week. That's right. And she's fine now. She's 90, and they were like, yeah, that happens.

They literally were like, wear and tear. They checked. Like it's brake pads? Like she's a fan belt. My grandma, the fan belt. Wow. She went, and they checked, and they go, oh, they go i've had a few others too we see and they were like but you know that's uh it happens they check there you don't have any clots or anything causing them so it's just that happens when you're 90

can't even turn your rotors it's over why'd you why'd i have a stroke 90 that's why just that's it that's all we can say no other other reason. Did you check your birth certificate? You're old as shit. You should be dead. Do you know that? You're on what we like to call in the medical profession, you know, medically, house money is what we teach us in medical school. So at this point, be thrilled that you're alive. Have you heard of a reverse mortgage?

I mean, yeah, I can turn you on to one. So Italian grandma's okay is what I'm saying. She's fine now. She's doing well. she's in the hospital for a couple days and they said you're fine get the hell out of here she's breaking everybody's balls she was they're like i think she's okay now she's been breaking our balls for a long fucking time so uh yeah female it's weird it's an older population yet the male female population is completely normal. Usually the female population is way high when it's older people. The 65 to 74 demographic is normally about 8% that age group. Here it's 28%.

That's a lot. So it's a lot. All the young demographics are low. This town is for the elderly. Married population is about 62%. It's normally 50%, which older people tend to be married. Oh, I don't like this story already. We haven't even gotten to it, and'm terrified well it doesn't involve the elder

it's a town of all old people in the town and this doesn't involve the elderly fantastic it involves they dodged it yeah able-bodied people anyway i'm not saying that elderly can't be able bodied but they're young and able-bodied got Got it. So married population, like I said, 62%. The married with no children is 65%. So they're older people. They don't have kids. They're out of the house. They're swinging, giving each other STDs like nobody's business.

The race here, white is 56%. So normally it's about 62%. Here it's 56%. Black is 56%. So normally it's about 62%. Here it's 56%. Black is 26%. So there's a good mix of people here. Asian, 0.32%. Not a mix of Asians, though. They're not invited to this party, apparently.

I remember World War II. What the hell's going on here? That's true. These are all people like, I fought in Korea, damn it. Like, yeah, I'm not Korean at all. Doesn't matter. Get out of here, chin. Doesn't matter. Get out of here, chin. Doesn't matter.

Sir, my name's Henry. I don't know what you're talking about. My family's been here for three generations. I'm a professor at the university. I don't care. You're creeping through the holes in the jungle. I know what you're doing. Sir, I'm Chinese, first of all.

We've never fought in a war. I'm from a sprawling metropolis much bigger than this town. I think we're from Beijing. I'm from a middle-class family. family grew up in the suburbs of you know three generations ago but i've been here forever i grew up in sacramento i don't understand they don't get it uh but uh yeah that's uh hispanic is about 15 of the population here which is about average um religion it's about 38 religious which is funny the older people whenever we get these towns with older people there's less they're less religious they abandon it it's fucking awesome it feels like i swear to god they're like i lived this long i don't need

fucking god anymore because i'm still alive you know it strikes to me that uh these are people that have seen horrible things and they're like well if there's a god they would not let my friend die the way i just watched him die either that or they plum forgot yeah that's okay i woke up am i i don't i'm not religious religion i don't know never mind that doesn't sound right at all it's about sound like me me i watch football on sundays uh 15 catholic here uh 0.0 percent jewish which is it's a odd uh 0.0 percent islam uh voting wise in this place in the county they do it kind of by the county when it's a smaller town uh 37 voted democrat in the last election 59 republican it's an older demographic because i'm a dope what way does uh delaware usually go blue they're usually blue yeah delaware is a blue

state but uh if it touches water yeah and it's not Gulf of Mexico, it's pretty good to bet it's a blue state. Gulf of Mexico doesn't count. If it touches real good, nice water. If it touches an ocean. Yeah. How about that? If it touches an ocean. Right.

Yeah, because the Gulf of Mexico is not technically. It's the Gulf of Mexico. There you go. That's hysterical. then discounting south carolina right that doesn't count either do they touch uh no yeah yeah i gotta say there's that i'm on board yeah you know it works here unemployment rates about four percent it's about normal with the rest of the country median household income uh in the rest of the country it's about fifty seven thousand dollars here it is fifty one thousand dollars so it's close it's you know in the in the country, it's about $57,000. Here it is $51,000. So it's close.

It's in the ballpark. It's a pretty middle-class everything as far as the economy goes here. It's very kind of middle of the road. A few more manufacturing jobs than normal, more retail trade than normal. It's weird, but I would imagine there would be a shitload more health care because of the older population, but there's actually less. So that's really, yeah, it's a weird little odd stat there. They're just euthanizing each other? I think so. It's all just chloroform and a needle in the arm there.

Henrietta's got a cough. Somebody got that 357. Somebody put her down. It's just a big thing of rat poison. They pass around amongst each other. Cost of living, 100 is normal average. Here, 103. So it's pretty close to normal.

Housing is 101. So that's kind of pretty close to average here. Median home cost, $188,000. So pretty reasonable as far as the rest of the nation goes. Most of the houses are between $100,000 and $300,000, $150,000 and $300,000 in that ballpark. And if we've convinced you that you need to find a bridge and move to Delaware, we have for you the Bridgeville, Delaware Real Estate Report. Your average two-bedroom rental here is about $810, which is less than the, kind of, less than the, you know,

matches up with the buying cost. Seems like renting's the deal to do here. I found a three-bedroom, one-bath, 1,400 square feet. It's a foreclosure, and it's more like it's abandoned. It is rough as fuck. It's really rough. It's a shell of a, and it's more like it's abandoned. It is rough as fuck. It's really rough. It's a shell of a home. $54,900. So, yeah, at least you can afford to fix it up if you're going to buy a normal house.

It's more like a van. It looks like they just said, fuck it. Bank wants it. Let's give it to them. Or the owner died 20 years ago in the house. They just found it. Nobody knew. No one.

I found a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,512 square foot. This one's nice. It's up to date. It's very clean and everything. $159,990. Can't get it to be $160. Get right up to the $10 less. Found a three-bedroom, two-bath, 2,268 square feet.

And it's very nice. That's a house. It's very well put together. Really up to date nice kitchen good backsplash and shit like that nice stuff 349 900 if you want to live comfortably there that's a lot but that's so that's kind of the range of what you can have from a foreclosed abandoned shithole crack house to you know a nice real nice house so uh things to do here oh boy is there things to do great let me tell you something there is one thing to do but it's a thing uh the bridgeville

apple scrapple festival hold on i love by the way this is my favorite part of the show researching the show is finding whatever weird horse shit festival these towns have i love it so much they they forced a rhyme to it apple scrapple what the fuck is scrapple well it's judging by the bet of the website live entertainment over 500 crafters and vendors and delicious food all with exclamation points so it has to be true notable events include oh boy the ladies iron skillet toss. Oh boy. So that is, I assume, women throwing an iron skillet as far as their body would allow.

Whichever way they can move that thing. Swing it around over like a grenade, whatever. The Scrapple Chunkin' contest. What is Scrapple? Scrapple Chunkin'. I don't know. Is that like the peel? I don't know what they're doing. I want to know what Scrapple a scrapple chunking i don't know is that like this to peel i i don't know what i want to know what scrapple is i don't know if because it's their they they used to have a big

pumpkin chunking thing here which i fucking hate they had the pumpkin chunking like american championships here for a while and they moved them so i don't know if this is apples maybe they're flinging a big thing apples i have no idea what the fuck hold on the pumpkin chunking used to be in this town used to be in this town? It used to be in this town until a few years ago. In Phoenix or in this town? In this town. What Phoenix?

Everyone out there is not in Phoenix. We're in Bridgeville, Delaware right now, Jimmy. What are you talking about? They used to have pumpkin chunking. Look out the window. We used to do pumpkin chunking here, and now we're doing the apple scrapple. Apple scrapple. We did both, but now the apple scrapple has pushed out, much like the black hand of a

1920s mafiosi has pushed the punk and chunking out of business and taken over their spot here. Also, the mayor's scrapple sling, where a man or woman who has tried to get a position of respect in the town must make a fool of themselves in front of everyone. The name of the festival is derived from two agricultural products which are important to the region, which are apples and scrapple, which I don't know what scrapple is at all. I was on the edge of the seat waiting to find out what scrapple is. Don't tweet us.

We'll find out. No, don't tweet me because I don't really care that much. And I also don't want to know. I would have looked it up if I gave a shit. There's just too much scrapple in this for me to not want to know what the second. The scrapple sling. Well, people are flinging it. There's scrapple chunking.

I assume it's a big thing, like something you can chunk, as they would say. Something that can be slung or chunked so it's got to be big otherwise an apple's not that impressive if you fling that so many better ways with this i would say and now the apple scrapple festival this is the list you want to be on jimmy this is the list we need our podcasts on and everybody wants their business on a list as one of the top 100 events in North America by the American Bus Association. That community.

That community. That community loves this place. A community of hobos and the disenfranchised downtrodden masses. They all feel this is one of the top 100. 60 people at a time. i don't get it

jesus christ what a mess uh crime rate in this town they should do an arm wrestling uh they're called the scrapple grapple scrapple grapple you can have you know what too it's too you just want to put the word crap in there that's the problem so it's just you can't have the crapple crapple apple crapple scrapple it's too much i just can't all the kids make fun of it they rearrange the sign you know it goes on there they just black out all the extra letters crap festival fucking crap yeah go sling your crap mayor it's the mayor's crap sling. There he goes. Full of shit. So, crime rate in this town, what we are interested in here for. The mayor's crap sling. That's an event that everyone needs to see.

I just saw Bart Simpson. The old mayor. And then filling up his sling with actual crap. With crap. And then just giggling. Here you go, Mayor Quimby. Property crime is about 20% high. These old people will steal your shit.

There's some shady old people. And violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime here, is almost double. So these old fucks will cut your ass. Wow. Almost double. They will beat the scrapple out of you. Yeah, you'll be leaking scrapple out of your backside.

Put your Depends on so your scrapple don't leak on your pants. Let your scrapple fall out. Jesus Christ. Oops, I scrapped my pants. The old SNL thing there. Was that an SNL thing? Oops, I crapped my pants and it was like a fake commercial for a big fat diaper. Oh, God.

Old people. No one could even tell. And they're wearing this giant fucking diaper. It's a good one. It's like a balloon. Yeah, it's this huge, big giant, like a kid looks in a diaper, but an old person playing tennis with a big fucking diaper on. A giant ass. Yeah. So let's talk about a murder that happened in this town what do you

say here jimmy it's all a light-hearted 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. early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed,

red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts 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. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. free right now by joining Wondery Plus. 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.

Let's talk about a murder. Let's start out. Let's start out with, let's talk about a lady first. Let's talk about a lady. Let's talk out. Let's start out with, let's talk about a lady first. All right. Let's talk about a lady. Let's talk about a woman named Linda Lou Skaggs. Yeah. Which, that's the most small town name you can have.

Linda Lou Skaggs. I knew a girl named Skaggs. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And she looks like what you would picture. Yeah. Yeah.

But a Linda Lou is like, you add that to Skaggs. Oh, boy. You got something there. Let me tell you something. You have a lifetime truck stop waitress at that point. And she has big earrings and her hair. She keeps pencils in her hair that she just pulls them out. It's a home haircut for sure.

And you didn't even see the pencil. And she just reached in and yanked it out. You're like, how the fuck do you know where they are? The bun's still up. Oh, hell yeah. But not even in her bun, just in her her hair she's got shit stored in there you asked for can i can we get some bread and she pulls the basket right from her head that's how it works she's got everything up there scrappling on the front of that pencil that's her earrings they're scrapples she has

them dangling instead of like pineapples or whatever the cliche is she's got big scrapples dangling you know that works whatever the fuck scrapples dangling. You know how that works. Whatever the fuck scrapple is. Unbelievable. Doesn't matter. Whatever you're picturing, that's what it is. That's what it is. That's the thing. Don't look up scrapple. Never.

Just let it be. Picture it whatever it is. Just have fun. What are you picturing scrapple is? I'm picturing like, it's not even like a shape. It's just like a mush. Oh, a mush. I'm seeing like a, it's roundish, but it's got like jagged edges around it. i'm seeing like a like a it's it's roundish but it's got like

jagged edges around it i'm seeing like a giant peach but red i'm seeing i don't know why i'm seeing a brown like a brown fruit that hangs from trees it's not quite round it's just like all jaggedy so it's just a like a lump of shit yeah because it's got crap in it because it's got crap in it that's what you see it's got the word crap in it so you see crap there's a shit tree you have a very a to b thought on that one but it doesn't look like shit it just looks like it looks shit looks like a shit fruit the shit fruit it's shaped like shit shaped like a like a shit about to drop into a whatever receptor so linda lou skags here with her scrapple earrings born in those earrings look so much it helps it's much better than there yeah uh born in 1948

she was uh and she does not have an easy life no rough childhood uh very hard life everyone that knew her said always a hard life kind of a shitty dysfunctional family uh grows up very poor grows up in bridgeville in bridgeville delaware uh just poor she's a typical kind of wrong side of the tracks kid not a good family not a lot of money uh that sort of thing she drops out of high school um as you know people do from time to time she drops out because she becomes pregnant at 16 so she's pregnant at 16 it's just a very typical kind of story and so she's pregnant at 16 which is 1964 you know like mid 60s too that was like in small town america for a 16 year old to be pregnant that was fucking shameful do we

know who the dad is they used to yeah yeah pregnant, that was fucking shameful. Do we know who the dad is? Yeah, yeah, we do. That was considered shameful. They'd send these girls to a fucking nunnery and come back and then pretend that the kid was the mother. That's what they do. Just like they're an aunt. Or they adopt it out after that. Who wants a kid in the family?

That's the real mom then. Aunt Judy's the kid's mom now. Well, she's been wanting a kid for a while. That's basically what happened to my dad that's what happens that was normal back then that was considered tell that on here yeah yeah yeah yeah that was considered yeah that was considered like you know classy back then to do that rather than just thoughtful towards the child yeah rather than to admit they came from a god forbid a teenage mother can you imagine oh my god the shame upon them unbelievable it's much better to come from a phantom pregnancy of a

48 year old woman now we let them keep them and put them on tv yeah that's true that's the thing i don't know which one's better make a special show out of it so uh she becomes pregnant at 16 she ends up marrying the man that she uh got her pregnant uh the boy i should say at the time they were both younger i think he was 18 or 19 but you know they're in the ballpark so legal today yeah but back then that was considered not only fine that was uh encouraged yeah they were one day they were asking her like can you find an older guy who's got more stable And they're asking him, couldn't you find somebody younger? Yeah, somebody younger who hasn't been out. She's got some miles on her, son.

She's kind of worn out by 16, you know how these girls are. You've got to get them when they're 14. That's when they're at their prime back then. God, people were disgusting. Did you get this one from Whore Kill? People were fucking disgusting back then, by the way. That was okay to do terrible why was that okay it's i don't know why was that okay parents were okay with that they were like oh look at

he's a nice guy look at him he's got a good job and he's 28 years old your daughter's a freshman in high school the fuck is wrong with you they were like i think this is a good move for her yeah who knows she might not find another one like him what so what leave it let her fit the fuck is happening well i mean what if she ran into like the president when she was three years old and he was single you want her you want her to marry him too yeah what the hell why not i mean at some point you got to draw a line and be like this is where it's at when they're old enough to do this out of the house uh and we don't have to pay for her that's how parents used to look at it back then you take care of her now you know she's cost me 16 years of money her and that

feeble female brain can't possibly make a living so somebody with a job is gonna have to take her in so i'll pass her off to you that was it's weird so anyway she willard is her first child she and she voluntarily names her child willard uh at age 16 which i mean you're 16 you don't know and then later on has a second child a daughter and names her linda so we have a junior situation which as we know is never okay now for men or women juniors never all right don't name your kids after yourself please now her first husband they're they're they're we say first because there'll be others she uh she is uh you know they're they're struggling along like many people who are drop out of high school to get married and have kids uh tend to struggle financially usually your top earning years aren't 17 to 21 no they're your top money earning years in people's lives so uh

they're having a tough time and they're struggling but they're getting along and they're a family and they're you know it's it's going all right uh and then one day uh her husband is killed in a car accident oh shit just out of the blue car accident dead and now she's now she's sitting there uneducated uneducated in her mid-20s with two kids oh jesus and a you know 10th grade education yeah and uh you know in a time when you know i don't even think back then there wasn't like probably a whole lot of programs that would help like a single mother go to school or get training or anything like that this was just like well you're fucked now there it goes you better find another guy quick huh you know oh boy i don't know what one's going to take one with two kids.

What year was this? Boy, this is like 1973. Oh, fuck. Cars just started getting real fast. He probably had a bitching car. Yeah, I doubt it. No? He was poor.

He probably was hit by a bus because his car stalled in the middle of a fucking intersection. Poor people always have that. Goddamn vapor lock and fucking plow. Next thing you know, like the- It's all over. Like the, what the hell was that goddamn show? It was texting and driving commercials going on all the time.

That was the beginning of the HBO, six feet under that show. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, with the hearse. With the hearse, yeah. That's what I see in my head. Shit, but it stalls, not lighting a cigarette. So, anyway. Poor people always have the fucking best cars in the 70s, like the fastest.

Oh, in the 70s. Because people knew how to work on cars back then, and you could work a car. Now you get a nice car from the factory, or you don't have a nice car. You can't get a piece of shit, and I juiced it up. Well, that would cost you $40,000 now to do that. You might as well buy a nice car. And it's worthless, and it's unreliable as fuck yeah good job those parts on it that are not gonna break sounds like a dirt bike good you voided your warranty dummy so it sounds like a

dirt bike i love that oh good your seventy thousand dollar car sounds like a dirt bike that you could get for six600 on Craigslist. That the big quality of it was runs nice on the listing. That's hilarious. So, yeah. So her first husband's killed. She's got two kids now, and little Linda, little Willard. She's got to try to make a living, and she works multiple jobs at a time and they're all you know menial they're all for not a lot of money mostly if you if you if you make a shitload of

money normally you don't have more than one job is the thing so you can tell usually how much money someone's making by how many jobs they have right and uh she's working multiple jobs at once she drives a bus here and there she works at a department store in the evenings after her bus shift in the day and so she's just she's hustling though she tries to make ends meet she's always she's always employed there's never a time where you know linda's lazy or lint people are like come on linda you gotta take care of your kids like linda gets out there hustles her ass off takes care of her fucking kids and makes a fucking living for herself, no matter how hard it is for her. And everybody says that about her.

Like she was every job she had. She'd get a promotion. She'd get a raise. She's very good at work and she's very studious. She just got pregnant when she was 16 and dropped out of school. So that happens. But within a year of her husband's death, she finds another guy. Yeah.

Which in the 70s, that was like, you death, she finds another guy. Yeah. Which in the 70s, that was the answer. Find another. Find a man. Also, it's kind of lucky because in the 70s, you already got two kids. Yeah. One is questionable. You have two. Fuck.

In the 70s, they look at you like you were some sort of hussy. Hold on a minute. You're in your 20s. Yeah. You got two kids and no husband oh my god you might as well be on fire at that point you might as well have open running sores on your fucking mouth like that's how people looked at it gums bleeding no nobody cares like everybody's divorced with kids like nobody gives a shit about that it's like oh yeah

that's cool you got kids so do i like it's it's not that big also the easy icebreaker there is oh my god you got two kids and you're in your 20s. What's wrong with you? Nothing. My husband was just hit by a fucking bus. Oh. Oh.

That's unlucky. Have you seen Six Foot Under? No. That doesn't come out for 30 years. That's unlucky. Wow. Can I take you to dinner? Okay.

Tell you what. I'll pick you up. Don't take the bus. I'll just pick you up because I know you don't have a car don't take the bus that's because she shows up sobbing so she meets a man named john charbonneau is his name uh c-h-a-r-b-o-n-n-e-a-w my word charbonneau and i've written typed this so many goddamn times this week that i even know how to spell it off the top of my fucking head uh this is within a year of her husband's death he meets she meets him uh he's about 10 years older than him than her uh he's older uh he's divorced and you know he's just just a guy just out there in the world of divorced guy

doesn't have any kids just you know looking for somebody meets her and they get along and so she moves in with him this is within a year brings the two kids okay moves in uh everybody said that he treated her like a queen he treated the children like they were his own and basically just moved in and it was like oh looks like everybody thought they were his kids nobody ever thought anything you know different uh about it they got along super well he was very nice to her that's one thing that no one ever disputes back then as he treated her like a queen in the 70s a disco queen yeah so uh she moves in with him and they end up having another child real now there's some discrepancy here whether this is his child or not. In certain press accounts, it says that this is her child. In an episode of a TV show, it says this is his child.

Court documents say that John is this child's stepfather, though. So they repeatedly say and make clear that john is her stepfather in court documents so the timing of it we don't know if while they were getting together if maybe she was seeing somebody else and this is cloudy so we're not sure of the of the origin of the child that's about to be born got it john doesn't give a shit raises it as his own and thinks it's his kid and is happy to have it they have another child that this is uh named melissa here this is in 1973 they have a child named melissa okay now melissa they spell like a fucking moron no uh m-e-l-l-i-s-a that is not how you spell melissa that is the that is the actual legal spelling of her fucking name. This is a woman who was on painkillers and gave the wrong spell.

You know, she's recovering. And the nurse, rather than being like, are you sure? You know, she said, sure, and just wrote that down. She turned to Charbonneau. And he even was just like, yeah, yeah, that's what she wants. That's fine. Whatever. I don't care. My name's John.

I don't know how to spell things. Who cares? She's like, yeah, yeah, that's what she wants. That's fine. Whatever. I don't care. My name's John. I don't know how to spell friends.

Who cares? And so now after the baby's born, they say John is even more engaged at the home. He cooks. He cleans. He treats everybody well. He does things and helps out. Problem is, one thing he doesn't do very well is work. He's not good at making money.

That's his problem. Not good at holding it. There are five, six mouths to feed. He's got a lot of three kids. Yeah, five mouths to feed. Isn't there Melissa too? Melisa? Melisa. There's Melisa, two other kids, John and Linda.

That's fine. Oh, Melisa is his stepdaughter? Melisa, we don't know if it's his stepdaughter. Right, right. That's the one? Yeah, he had two kids. Okay. She had two kids that came into the house.

Got it. They have another kid, Melisa. somehow i thought there was a fourth no no fourth so yeah so uh problem is yeah five people still enough it's too many and three kids especially no job small kids yeah temporary a lot of temporary employment a lot of you know a couple days of construction and then uh just a lot of temporary day work and things like that. And I can't ever find a job that really suits him that he can hold down. But it's not completely perilous and ruinous for the family because he gets a disability check as well. Oh, that's nice. He's got a heart problem.

Apparently, a few years before this, he was diagnosed with a heart problem. And they told him he wasn't supposed to live more than four or five more years because his heart was you know his heart was messed up and that sort of thing but as medicine developed in the 70s and the 80s they were able to keep him alive and he you know wasn't uh he wasn't dead obviously later on so uh yeah but he's got he gets a disability check for his heart condition, basically. So that covers shit. But they still need extra money. But that's a base, though, so they're not homeless and they're not going to be homeless. They have the staples and shit like that.

Now, as Melissa gets older, she becomes a real pain in the ass in her teen years. God damn it. She gets into drugs and everybody says she's just in the ass in her teen years god damn it she gets into drugs and uh everybody says she's just in the wrong crowd and uh you know she's into drugs and hanging out and fucking off and doesn't skip in school and dropping out and having all sorts of boyfriends and they catch her with drugs and she doesn't come home for days she's a teenage cut up yeah in the in night in the late 80s this is 1989 this is on. We picture dudes like that. Every dude.

Every dude in high school, that's him. Yeah. And when a girl does it, it's like, we're like, she can't do that. So that's weird

because every one of those dudes has a girlfriend. Who's that girl? Who does that? Who's Mel Lisa? Right. You must have met your girlfriend Mel Lisa.

Yeah, Mel Lisa. She's got a boyfriend who's a dirtbag. Yeah. It definitely doesn't, it's more boys, I feel like, than do this. But it's just bizarre. And when girls do it, they go real fucking far.

Because they can. They can do whatever they want. And they feel safe in that environment because they got dudes that are way worse than her around her taking care of her. That's the thing. taking care of her that's the thing and well it's and if you're a not to i don't know how this would be sexist but if you're like a if you're a woman like people will give you drugs oh yeah give you booze for free yeah it's it's a different it's a different lifestyle than if you're a 16 year old cut up boy you have to pay for everything or go steal it or steal it or do whatever if you're a 16 year old girl because of scumbag 16 year old boys trying to get in your pants they'll give you for you they'll give you anything you want if there's a possible hand job

at the end of the rainbow here or better or whatever that's yeah jacks are better we don't care literally jacks or better just jack or better that's all it is that's a fun game wow that's a no i was okay so no i never came up with that before so uh anyway she ends up leaving home at 16 melissa so it's so weird that no matter what the patterns just come it's so strange even if everything else is not the same as what you grew up in it's just patterns it's so. She leaves home at 16, and so this is 1989. After she leaves home for the next 10 years or so, John and Linda stay together. All the kids are now out of the house

because her older kids are already gone. So it's just the two of them left, and all they do is fight. They spend the next decade fighting with each other, just arguing all the time. Everyone that hangs out with them is just like, Jesus fucking Christ with these two. Why don't they get a divorce? Constantly fighting, fighting, bickering.

He should just be smiling every day because he's still alive. He's alive. He's happy about that. But he is. They just don't get along. And they've been together for 25 years. They've had the kids and the kid left and i'm sure they fought a lot over their daughter being uh you know a delinquent so

that causes fights with the parents and then once she leaves it's your fault it's your fault and then maybe that let it who knows what the psychology is behind it but they end up breaking up uh uh in the late 90s great uh they They break up finally, 97, 98, and it's a gradual thing. I don't know if you just leave when you're together for 30 years or if it's like, we're broken up,

but I'm not going to pack for a while because I'm pretty entrenched. It's tough to do that because then you're wandering around the house packing up all your shit. By the time you get to wherever you're going and you move in, you're like,

ah, I knew I was going to forget some shit. And you remember 12 things that are still there yeah so they end up breaking up though finally and uh within a few months of this breakup linda has found another man wow and she is shacked up and hooked up with this other guy and ready to move on with her life which hey good for you for her good for you problem is small problem here uh here uh uh the man she finds his name is william sproats yep which sounds like a euphemism for a taint it does my sproat yeah like he has plural kick me right in the sproat man it hurt like a son bitch jesus i gotta i got a mid sproat and then a top sproat don't ask me don't ask it's a medical i'm in medical journals it's pretty crazy

i can't sit down i went to the doctor i got the sproats i got i got sproats all over my body they're all over my ass i got sproats everywhere uh he is seven years younger than her yeah the sproatsman here and uh he's seven years younger than her he grows up having three brothers and a sister so he's uh he's one of five. He's worked all around. He worked as a general laborer for Davidson Coleman. He worked in different mills around, just basically taking whatever entry-level blue-collar labor jobs he could get. He liked to hunt and dick around and work on cars and shit like that and uh so she ends up marrying this billy yeah which would be wonderful except oh by the way

he's john charbonneau's nephew there it is so yahtzee that's a problem what the fuck so and he's seven years younger than than lyndon so, oh, boy. Divorces John, marries his nephew within months of them breaking up, of Linda and John breaking up. So this is a Jerry Springer episode right off the fucking bat here. He's been saying some real nice things every year at Thanksgiving. You know what I mean? She's keeping an eye. Ooh, Aunt Linda, look at you. Ooh, baby.

I don't know. Something about Aunt Linda goes in to baste that turkey and bends over. It's just mm-mm-mm. I don't know, man. I want to push in her button and see if she's done. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to give her my sproats. I'm going to give her the sproats.

Let her have a sproat or two for herself. So they get married. John, by the way way not cool at all about this oh i'm sure he's not cool with it he's not like oh well you know what two people are happy that's so nice i just wanted two people to get together and be happy so i'm just thrilled with the two of you you know what christmas is at my house this year you guys don't even bring a don't even bring a dish just come i just you're the guests of honor uh he's instead super fucking pissed off at this as you might imagine sure as i probably would be too he's got to be thinking have they been fucking this whole time of course they have sir you think maybe uh problem

with billy is billy is a fucking bum yeah billy uh i don't say he's a bum but he's uh he lives on people's couches he doesn't really have an established he is not established to say he's a bum, but he lives on people's couches. He doesn't really have an established. He is not established at all. He's in his late 30s, and he's not even close to just having his shit together. He's just kind of a mess. I'm sorry. He's in his 40s, and he's a mess. He lives on people's couches.

When he does have a home, like his friends would say, they'd go over there. There'd always be something off. He wouldn't have electricity one time when they go over he wouldn't have hot water no there you know shit like that like he was just there was always a problem and then he'd be in the process of being evicted while his water's being turned off you know he's that guy he's craig with no no no no sugar on the kool-aid no yeah ham He's got nothing. Yeah, he's a fucking mess. Right. So Linda moves into this environment, and she's been used to John at least, and her and John together have at least provided like a stable, you know, there's electricity and food in the refrigerator and shit like that.

Like when you flush the toilet, it goes away. Right. That's nice. At their house. Isn't that convenient? Over here, not so much. You never know. Still there. It's a risk. Should I flush's nice. At their house. Isn't that convenient? Over here, not so much. You never know. Still there.

It's a risk. Should I flush it? Give it a shot, honey. I don't know. Give it a shot. If not, there's gloves under the sink. Just grab it, I guess. I don't know.

If it doesn't go away, we'll all just keep peeing in the top tank, and then we'll just open it up. Get the kitty litter scoop. Good Lord. just keep peeing in the top tank and then we'll just open it up get the kitty litter scoop good lord the fuck i'm gonna flush it with this that'll help it a nice piss flush so uh she lives with this for about a year and a half or so, about a year. And then she says, you know what? This isn't for me. You know, I'm getting up there in age and that sort of I can't be living with no electricity in a fucking flop house. I'm worried if we're going to be evicted at the end of the month.

So, Billy, it's been real, but I'm going to divorce you as well. So this is going to be my second divorce of a person in your family. And I'm going to leave you. And since I'm leaving you, I don't know what to do. I know. I'll move back in with John. Is this really what happens? This is what happens.

Oh, boy. So she leaves Billy, the nephew, to move back in with her ex-husband. So now she's technically still married to Billy, but living with her husband, who's now her ex-husband, John. And her husband's uncle. And her husband who's now her ex-husband right uh john and her husband's uncle and her husband's uncle this is this ladies and gentlemen this is small town murder this is this is what it's all about right here um we have to explain relationships as far as now who's married the uncle or the nephew both of them oh okay that's small town murder. Oh, I'll be a husband's uncle.

Fuck. I'll be a husband's uncle. Oh, my goodness. So she leaves Billy. John's happy to have her home. John's excited. John is jacked up. He's like, my marriage is back together.

Somehow he forgives the whole thing. Him and Billy aren't real tight still. They're not watching NASCAR on Saturday or Sunday or whenever the fuck NASCAR is on. I think it's all weekend. I was going to say, it seems like it's always on. So I don't know. One of those things. But yeah, none of that shit.

They don't hang out or anything. And also Melissa, who is now 24 years old, ends up moving back into the house. Oh, boy. She's 24. She's divorced. And and hey she's got three kids in town oh my god she's got little mel lisa's oh little mel lisa's three of them this is mel this is lisa and this is mel lisa jr that's perfect so i don't know she didn't name her kids but uh she's got three kids and is divorced at 24 and back at home. Oh, my God. So in a way, though, John is happy to have everybody back together.

He'd rather have Melissa and Linda and the kids than have nobody. So he's happy to have them. And he looks at Melissa as his daughter and those are his grandkids. So fuck it. He's fine. But he's getting up there in age, too, at this point. He's 60 years old, in age too at this point yeah he's 60 years old 61 years old at this point so you know to have three little kids around at 60 is kind of like okay this is

supposed to be my golden years that's gonna do one of two things though it's gonna remind you of your mortality yeah or it's gonna make you just happy to have youth around some people live are vibrant when they have their kids around. He keeps them alive. Problem is, after about a couple of weeks, it just devolves into everyone is fighting all the time. All the time. Melissa's fighting with Linda. Linda's fighting with John. John's fighting with Melissa about the kids

and fighting with her about that. It's a fucking mess. So obviously, this goes on for at least a year here. We're talking about this is in 2000. 2001, this is still happening. Everybody lives in the same house. Combat all the time.

Oh, Jesus. Constant fun. This sounds like a nightmare, by the way. Now, 2001, June of 2001, Melissa, who is now Melissa Rusinski is her name. That's her married name. She keeps the name Rusinski. She meets a guy. She meets a guy on the Internet.

It's 2001. Hell yeah. So she has a different way of meeting guys after she's divorced. Internet, very normal for that at that moment in time. So she ends up meeting a guy named Willie Brown online. Hell yeah. Okay. She starts to form a relationship with willie they get kind

of serious uh now there's an issue though it's kind of a it's a roadblock impediment in the relationship is that willie is not welcome in the home uh john charbonneau here is uh has has specifically banned willie from the house not Not because Willie's done anything specific. He has, as we'll find out later. But John doesn't know that. See, John just hates black people. Right. Fucking hates black people.

I already knew that. Like, bad. Like, really, is a just open, out in the open racist. Yeah. Tells. And Willie Brown's best friend is a black guy, right? Willie, yeah, exactly. Exactly. in the open racist yeah tells and willie brown's best friend is a black guy willie yeah exactly exactly uh willie brown is very black and john charbonneau is not okay with that we'll put it

that way i don't know if you could be very black he's fucking black and john charbonneau is not cool with this shit at all with his existence no less his presence in his home put it that way so uh yeah john's kind of a dick here so uh he tells as a matter of fact willie's so unwelcome in the home john tells melisa that uh if she brings willie to the house john will kill willie oh my you bring him on my property i'll shoot him that's what he's saying uh so this is like next level crazy this isn't i'm gonna be i'm gonna not be polite to the guy at thanksgiving this is i'll i'll murder him on my lawn if he comes to take you on a date in front of you and your children in front of you and all your goddamn children i don't give a shit you can invite fucking neighbors over

invite his mother over and i'll shoot him in front of her. He's a dick. Yeah. So, you know, this is like, this is obviously causing a bit of a problem in the household. It's amazing that she sticks through this. For a little bit, she ends up moving out. Okay. She ends up taking off, and she can only take so much. She wants to be with Willie, and basically, she can either be with Willie or live in this house.

So she can't have it both ways. Oh, can you imagine the amount of times the N-word is strewn around? Oh, my God. Holy shit. I pray that these people, someone was covering these children's ears because they heard more N-words than any child should ever hear. So anyway, so September of 2001, just to give you a lay of the land here. Yeah, I remember that month really well. We remember September of 2001.

Let's go outside of New York City. Something else happened that month? Outside of New York City, outside of the Pentagon. And this is what I mean. All that was going on. That's all we knew was happening. All this shit was going on. Everyone's watching the news.

Everybody's doing this. The world stopped. The world doesn't stop, though. People's personal lives continue. And here, Linda Charbonneau, she's living in Bridgeville Everybody's doing this. The world stopped. The world doesn't stop, though. People's personal lives continue. And here, Linda, Linda Charbonneau, she's living in Bridgeville with John. And Melissa Rusinski is there. She's about to move out.

Now, Billy Sprouts, the Sproutsman, he lives in Magnolia, Delaware, which is nearby within 20 miles. And Willie Brown lives in Lewis, Delaware. Lewis, I think it is Delaware. There are lose either one Delaware. So they're all kind of spread around in this little area. Now, problem is there's a lot of fucking problems here. But the main is uh everything is just just tension everybody's walking on eggshells everything's tension and then one day september 18th 2001 this is obviously a week after september 11th shit's still smoldering shit's still smoldering this is still the talk of

the world and obviously this is still all that's anyone who can be concerned with but john has jury duty that day char Charbonneau, which God, I hope no one would pick him on a fucking jury. Jesus. Any reason why you can't serve on this jury? I hate black people. You saying that just to get out of jury duty? Nope.

I wish I was. Nope. My daughter's dating one. He comes on the lawn i'm gonna shoot him i'm gonna need you people for me so start tomorrow absolutely i'll be here fuck no so thankfully he doesn't show up for jury duty we'll say well not really thankfully because he remains missing after that no so not thankfully thankfully for whoever was in that yeah that this man didn't show up for jury duty uh wow that tells you beware of juries right there uh so he remains missing uh but people are like where is he everybody thinks he's on vacation yeah linda says he's

on vacation uh it's it's a you know he's in arizona watching the world series that's all it's that's going on and the playoffs are there it's just he's on vacation watching the World Series. That's all. That's going on. The playoffs are there. It's just he's on vacation, which is a weird time. If he flew there, it was a real pain in the ass to do that a week after September 11th. But she says he's on vacation. That's why he didn't show up for jury duty. And he hasn't done anything that he normally does. Nobody doubts it.

They just go, oh, yeah, John went away for a few days. And that's fine. Problem is, I keep saying problem is because that's fine uh problem is f i keep saying problem is because there's always a problem in the story there's always like here's something else ridiculous that happens problem is there's something ridiculous on the on the horizon here so i'm going to stop saying that and just just know there's always a problem know that shit up front so about after a week of john being missing week and a half of him being missing this isn't a long time if he's on vacation that's you know it's a normal vacation or you know maybe he's going away

for two weeks he's gonna really splurge and be luxurious uh linda packs up and moves out okay while he's gone she's had enough she just leaves packs all her shit moves out uh where's she gonna go moves back in with billyout. Oh, wheeze. So this is wild. How could she? How could she? How could he? How could she?

How could any of these people, Jimmy? Let's just say that. How can they? How can any of this shit be happening? This is fucking ridiculous. What is happening? What are these people doing? Wow.

It's a mess. This is, like we we said small town murder at its finest right here at its most small town at its most panhandlerist she she is bouncing between uncle and nephew back and forth back and forth like a fucking volleyball yeah and no one has spiked it yet no it's just well they've been spiking the shit out of it well at least three times we know that we know of in spite. John's gone, though. He's out of here.

Finally, his missing status, I guess, is reported to the authorities by his family who not his nephew, but his nephew. Actually, we'll find out where his nephew lies and all this type of shit. But he's reported missing by other members of his family who cannot get a hold of him and are just told that he's on vacation. And then they go to his house and no one's there. So they're like, that's weird. Linda usually lives here. Now, the whole thing's weird. Let's just call Lisa.

Yeah. All the baby. I don't know what's happening. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller available exclusively on W Wondery+, 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.

I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife. Hi, my name is Zach Stewart Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you the official Jinx podcast. We'll be revisiting all six episodes of Part 1 and watching along with Part 2 as it airs on Max, starting April 21st.

Bye-bye. The official Jinx podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. Billy Sprotes is like, my wife's back. Cool. Yeah. He's happy to have her back. He's over there spiking.

Yeah. He's like, this is fine. Cool. I'll help you move all your shit back in. No problem. He's thrilled. Problem is, once again, we'll say it one more time. He is helping her move boxes up into the attic.

Boxes of hers, of all of her shit. And one of the boxes, the bottom of it, he picks it up and he feels moist and he looks at his hand. And the bottom of it's soaked in blood. Oh, what? That's a problem. What's in this box? Okay, that's a problem. Well, he just brings it to the attic. But he's like, there's blood on that box.

It was all bloody on that box. And she has some excuse for it. And he's not satisfied with the excuse. But he's like, okay, this is really weird. Linda just kind of skirted the question. And he thought it was very, very strange. And he starts kind of talking around, kind of asking around, talking to his family. And we'll find out later on who he talks to.

He ends up talking to Willard, her son, about this. And he's like, your mom came and John's missing and there's blood on this box. And it's just kind of weird. He actually contacts, the Sprouts does, contacts theaware state police and expressed uh fear of linda and said that uh uh listen i'm afraid of linda i'm also afraid of melisa here yeah and also willie brown i'm afraid of all three of these people um they seem to be up to something and john's missing and there's blood on a box and it's a but it sounds like kind of just this crazy conspiracy theory like hi my wife uh who killed my uncle who's also her ex-husband like there's blood on a box and then her kids are here and then she met this guy on the internet and they're like

what the fuck is this guy talking about no go away shut up right he just sounds like a crazy person to this just sounds like a white trash calling again yeah it's fucking the whites are calling from west virginia they're over there eating all that scrapple you know that goes he's high on that scrapple you know how they get with the scrapple they just eat it and their mind goes of just to shit their mind goes to scrapple that's what happens you know he scrappled his eggs that's what happens all scrappled up his brains are scrappled that's what happens scrappled. That's what happens. Scrappled his brains. So he tells them, look, I think John's dead because this blood. And I'm not sure, but this is what it is.

He also says that there's a bunch of shit here from John's house that she brought here that I don't think John would want her to have. Like a bunch of furniture and stuff like that that I know is his, and she brought that. There's a bloody box. This is super weird. She moved into my house and brought all his clothes? It's real weird. Very strange.

So October 17, 2001, this is a month after John has disappeared, Billy is going hunting with his brother one morning. They're going hunting, and Billy doesn't show up. And brother goes looking for him can't find him billy's gone no one can find billy um no billy's just disappeared uh now there's several theories uh did he run away is he scared of linda like he said he was or is he involved in the john killing good point he's fucking running away here because that would make a lot of sense too i mean who would have a motive to kill a guy who who's who

your wife just moved in with right that's you know this is all so they're very suspicious of this whole thing with with with billy they don't know what's going on um uh his relatives though notify the state police that he's gone in November of 2001. So he's gone almost a month before anybody notifies anybody because, like we said, no one knew it was up. And his relatives didn't want to call the police if they thought maybe he was involved in a murder. So everybody was kind of like, hmm, I don't know what's going on with Billy. Let's all just kind of sit back and hope everything works out. And then finally, it's November and they're like, OK, we got to start working.

We got to call the cops here. Now, at about this time, the Bridgeville house that John had, John Charbonneau and Linda, they lived in. Everything there is removed from the house. The interior of the house is empty. Yeah. And when I say everything, I don't mean furniture and personal items. I mean, everything. Ceiling fans.

Kitchen cabinets. Kitchen cabinets, kitchen sink. What? Linoleum is gone. What the shit? Who the fuck takes linoleum? When they move out, nobody. I'll put this down in my next house. Linoleum, once you put it down, it's down.

That's it. I bought this one place, but I could use about 30 square feet linoleum. You know what? Get one of them putty scrapers. Really just dig it off the floor. It's all right. It'll re-stick. Don't worry about it. I'll go get some Elmer's and we'll put it down this weekend. Carpets.

Down to the bare wood floors. Down to the fucking walls. Down to everything. They took everything. She took the paint. Sewage pipes. What? Sewage pipes they took. They took the sewage pipes from under the toilet and shit like

that they took the piping they took wiring from every they stripped this house to a fucking frame of nothing which is the weirdest shit ever uh that would be either you are a total crackhead or it's also helpful to cover up something yeah if there's a lot of evidence in the house on those well we can't clean it just strip it there that, well, we can't clean it. Just strip it bare. That's the other thing. Can't clean it. Just take it with us. Yeah.

It's very fucking weird. Now, he left. Billy was missing in October. Yeah. And within two weeks, before the month of November comes, Rusinski, Melissa, her children, and Willie Brown are all living at the sproats residence okay so he's missing which is a good time to move in yeah it's like that's a good you want to move into yeah there's this he's not here anymore his side of the bed's open so that's just a weird thing

normally when someone's missing you go well if we're gonna move him we'll wait till he's you know found right before we move into his house we gotta wait for permission at least yeah so uh you know how that goes so everyone's know the police have talked to linda because she's the person who knows both of these people and uh linda tells them look it's very simple billy left me for another woman uh he said i was too old for him right and he found a younger woman and he left me and said that he was going and just uh have a good one i won't be back told me i'm packing my sproats and getting the fuck out and with that they said well he's not the most stable guy billy and he's not like he's got a big career to you know he's not going to show up for work on monday so he's a he can drift so they were like maybe and then he said she said john

went on vacation billy left me for another woman john's on vacation shrugs her shoulders maybe maybe wherever i don't know maybe wherever billy went john was another woman john's on vacation shrugs her shoulders maybe maybe wherever i don't know maybe wherever billy went john was already there they're fighting over the same woman somewhere you know what i wouldn't be surprised if they killed each other that's i'm just saying i wouldn't be surprised you should hear him talking that's all i'm saying i'll bet they're just over in some other i'll bet they're up in murder kill uh fighting over some other woman and they're gonna have a duel yeah they're gonna turn around and both win that's how it's gonna or lose however you look at it both win that's hilarious or lose yeah so uh and also at this point they find that john charbonneau's mail this is you know less than

two months after he's been reported missing is being forwarded from his bridgeville address to a post office box in Felton, Delaware. And they do a little investigating and they find out Mel Lisa was the one who completed the paperwork to forward the mail. So this is all very intertwined and spider webby and just very panhandle. This whole thing is excessively panhandle. This is real gross. This is no nickery at its finest. This whole fucking thing here so november 30th 2001 police officers finally visit the john charbonneau's residence

he has been missing since september 18th and now what what month are we in november 30th they finally december they finally go to his house after the relatives have been constantly asking them can you please fucking check up on this? And they just kept going. Well, they say he's on vacation. Like, can you fucking check? And finally they go there and they find the home bare. Like we said, sewer pipes, carpets, linoleum, sinks, everything stripped, which the cops find weird.

Yeah, they find that a little odd. That's not a typical move out situation. It's not like they took the copper out of the walls and like shit. They find that a little odd. That's not a typical move-out situation. It's not like they took the copper out of the walls. They took shit that's not worth anything. Old linoleum does not... There's no resale value on pulled-up linoleum. That's amazing. Or shitty old carpet, either.

Ragged old carpet from under the feet of a vowed racist is not worth anything. That's racist carpet you got there. I don't think I'm going to take it. I don't want it. I mean, they got easy answers for this. The drywall's gone because the kids were running around dragging their hands on it. There was black marks on it. You know how much you can explain.

You know how John A. is all gone. You just had to pull it all down. The carpet, the high traffic areas started getting a little too dark. You know what I'm saying? See, we had a plumber come over, and he was a black man. Right. And he touched both the carpet, walked on the linoleum, and fixed the sewer pipes, and the sink, so it all had to go.

It's got to go. It's all got to go. So that's all it was to it. So they find that to be odd, and then they start looking around the property, too, just to see, because it's a big property. And finally, about 100 yards from the house, a police officer sees an area that looks like it's been recently disturbed of ground. And the odd thing about it is, on top of that is a big pile of tires that just doesn't belong. It's not like there's a big junk pile and there's tires here.

It's just a pile of tires in the middle of the yard. Just sitting there all piled up nice. Which is super just a suspicious thing. It's like you could just look out across the yard and go, what's up with those tires? It's the first fucking thing you'd say. It's the first thing you'd say. You're better off to just leave a corpse in the yard. You'd see that less.

You might just look out and go, I don't see anything. Or at least hammer a cross in the yard. You'd see that less. You might just look out and go, I don't see anything. Or at least hammer a cross in right there. Is that pile of tires doing out in the middle of the yard? That's weird. I think I'll go look at it. So they do. And then they look and they go, oh, the ground looks funny under the tires. Let's move these tires and see what's going on.

So they move all the tires and they dig. And they don't have to dig very far. They dig like three inches down. And they find linoleum. They find carpeting from the living room tons of it uh tons of it it's actually a shallow grave and they find billy sproats there oh whoa whoa that's a twist yeah uh billy sproats is in the yard uh planted like a like a fucking a bed of azaleas yeah he's he the yard. They identify him through fingerprint testing,

and his wallet is in his back pocket, and that contains his ID. So they didn't need to grill the fingerprints that bad. Then they dug it up. They go, well, it's one or the other. I don't know. We have two identities of what it could possibly be. Yeah.

An autopsy's performed uh they find out that billy sproats's death is caused by multiple stab wounds blunt force trauma and asphyxiation so clearly an accident yeah clearly just a suicide he stumbled it was a real nordberg situation like you know oj in the naked gun he got his ass kicked that poor kid yeah it was this was really bad uh also the kicker though that's bad enough they stabbed him beat him asphyxiated him all that when he was buried this is where the asphyxiation comes in when he was buried he was still alive oh god damn it they buried this poor man alive wow buried him alive because he was asking questions and was suspicious so he is buried alive um wow that's too much that's crazy yeah beaten stabbed and buried alive and uh we'll find out

a little more joking on dust when they put tires on it's a joe pesci casino situation it's exactly what they did it's fucking awful while they were shoveling dirt on him and then piling tires up on top of dust coming out of his mouth fucking disgusting it's awful so as a part they obviously investigate this uh they go to his house in magnolia they uh they search a dodge van and a chevy lumina the dodge van was registered to linda now uh the the lumina was owned by willie brown but he was owned by him until the fall of 2001, right around this time when he sold it to Linda Charbonneau. And so they search everything. They find blood in the van and they find out it is John Charbonneau's blood. So they know they have his blood there.

They just don't have him there. They don't know where he is, but they know he bled in this van at some point. They also find ATM receipts for money withdrawn from John Charbonneau's PNC bank account, which is also weird. They're found in the Lumina. Now, so they do a little investigation. They find the receipts, so they look at the timestamp, and they get the security camera from the bank to see who was pulling that out at the ATM. And who do they find mel lisa oh no mel lisa observed on video withdrawing funds at a wawa convenience store right around the time of john charbonneau's disappearance it was uh september 23rd 2001

so five days after he fails to show up for jury duty she's pulling money out of his atm now uh john charbonneau's driver's license and social security card were found in a diaper bag in the kitchen as well so it's not good not they don't they're not good at covering tracks like we always say the dismount is the most important part of the murder plot it really is really the big one is the dismount anybody could just kill a guy yeah i could reach across to stab the shit out of you to death right now right but i'd go to prison what are you gonna do then what that's the thing that's the fucking thing you know there's always a plan then there's got to be plant not plan b yeah plan b is when plan a goes awry when plan a goes right what's plan two because you got to go from a to two

you got to start on the on the where does this go now yeah yeah yeah what the fuck i think it's a hundred times i think it's the hell's angels book where he's talking about a bunch of hell's angels in jail in a small town they all got locked up and the one was like this is a fucking small town we could overrun this we could take these whole we could take these cops we could kick the shit out of them we could take over this fucking jail and the other guy goes and then what and he said the guy just was like oh like he didn't think of that good point literally didn't think past that oh then other cops will probably be called and then we'll have to fight them too not good yeah you can do that yeah that's the thing do

that anybody can kill a person that's not hard right we've shown it's really not difficult the difficult part is dismount now difficult part is and then and yes and exactly so uh yeah so they uh they end up they talk to everybody they talk to linda they talk to melisa they talk to willie all of them deny knowing anything about the corpse or anything else they're like we don't know i mean what corpse if if willie was in john's yard and john's missing i assume that john probably killed willie buried him in his yard then took off except for except for the fact that john was missing first right but he could have been out hiding it It's his alibi.

I was missing. You know how that goes. That's what they're trying to... That's their legit... That's all they have. They're like, you know what could have happened? I know. I got it.

And the cops are like, really? Let's hear your theory. I have a degree in criminal history. Let's go ahead. Fire away. Let's go. What do you got? Oh, yeah?

Oh, then he killed him. Oh, so he was hiding out in the woods. Oh, he was doing like a Ted Kaczynski thing, really like sitting in a cabin plotting. I get it. I get it. All for Linda. Okay. So this Linda better be hot as fuck.

She better be a piece of ass for all these guys just be willing to murder each other. She's hilarious. She's so funny. Oh, God. That's what it is. hilarious she's so funny our personality is insane she's full of life hysterical so december of 2001 late december john rusinski who is melissa's ex-husband they were uh divorced in january of 2001 baby daddy three baby daddy uh he tells uh he tells the police at this point that mel lisa and linda asked him to quote to help them quote get rid of john charbonneau in the fall of 2000 he says they came to him with this proposition the plan was to kill him and uh bury the body in the backyard or hide it in a camper that was the plan that they gave to him uh that's what he

said we'll find out why he said no a little bit later on because he's he would have been suspect a one number one uh so police look into everybody's background they look into willie's background and they find some interesting shit oh willie brown has some charges uh willie brown has aggravated assault charges robbery charges oh rape charges as well on there. Just as John suspected. Yeah, exactly. He knew. He's like, I knew it.

I knew it all along. I could sense it. I don't know how I could sense it. I seen his picture and then I got a feeling. He looked like there was something about him. But yeah, Willie's willie's not a good guy at all uh he has a lot of a mile long list of charges including like i said serious assaults and rapes so that's bad right away not a good dude does melisa know this uh probably yeah

she probably knows this but melisa has melisa and all of her friends, too. People said about Mel Lisa. Mel Lisa was wanted somebody to be with. She didn't. She picked who she found. And that was Willie Brown. She got a guy willing to be a daddy thrice with her. You know? Yeah. Not after January of 2000.

He wasn't anymore willing to do shit with her. That was a divorce situation. So police now, now that they know what they're dealing with they go to willie and rather than treat him like a regular person a regular joe who might have information they treat him like a fucking criminal who's been in the system a lot they're like listen motherfucker listen rapey we know what the fuck you've done we typed your name in a database back there they press they press him pretty good and they start telling him uh you know we got this we got this we found blood in the van.

We found receipts in the car, in your car, from before when you sold it to Linda. So they had some information on him, and they were like, look, man, obviously you're a suspect here. And he cracks. Oh, boy. Willie cracks, and Willie gives it up. So Willie's got a tale to tell. Willie says he went to Billy's house, went over there. Willie's got a tale to tell. Willie says he went to Billy's house, went over there. He beat him and clubbed him and rolled him up in a rug and put him in a truck or in the van and drove him over to John Charbonneau's house.

Now, obviously, why his question was, won't my won't John mind if I bury his nephew in his house? Like, he'll probably be upset with that. Right. That's what the police were asking. That doesn't seem like something somebody would be cool with. And Willie knows it wasn't being a problem at all. He said, no, no, no. John wouldn't mind.

I know that for a fact because I also killed John a month before. Okay. So I killed them both. So I knew it wasn't going to be a problem. Like, I knew nobody was home. It was cool. I knew the flanolium was gone. I was welcome.

Yeah, I was welcome. What do you think we did with the carpet you know what i'm saying if you notice on the welcome mat i wrote willie's right above well it's all good because i'm welcome now now i'm welcome yeah that's how it works here uh he also says melisa helped him that's the other thing uh he said when they when they killed john melisa drove to the house, Willie driving behind her. Obviously, they can't pull up together. There would have been shotgun shots from the front fucking window as soon as he stepped out of the car. So apparently they went into the kitchen where they found John, and they ended up knocking him out and putting him in the car.

And they took him to the woods about 10 miles away while he was still alive, knocked out in the car. That's why there was blood there, his blood. And then when they get him out about 10 miles away out in the woods, they need to dig a shallow grave for him. But before that, Willie beats him to death with a shovel. These are some rough deaths, man. Yeah, Willie's a fucking mean dude. Willie doesn't give a fuck.

He didn't account for the stab wounds on Billy. So he stabbed him up after they brought him outside. Okay. Yeah, they attacked him. He knocked him out, stabbed him a few times. He was still alive, and that's why he buried him. He thought that he was going to be dead. But, you know, you stab somebody a bunch, you expect death.

All right. It's fucking weird. So, yeah, so she beats him. Now, Melissa, they talk to her, obviously. She claims she was there but didn't help lazy bitch first of all i mean i gotta be honest with you that's why you're divorced melisa you're gonna kill your dad and your stepfather uncle thing whatever the fuck and you got your boyfriend to do it you know what you helped this guy out give him a shot here uh right around this

time by the way right before uh willie is cracks, Willie and Melissa get married as well. So they're married now. Now, she says she sat in the car listening to country music while John was killed and buried. That's what she said. She said she turned the music up real loud to drown out his screams because obviously, you know, she felt bad. You know how it is when you kill your dad or stepdad. Either one. You, she felt bad. You know how it is when you kill your dad or stepdad, either one. You feel kind of bad.

Yeah. And that new... Plus, he was screaming the N-word the whole time, too, which was also really uncomfortable for her. It wasn't like, ouch, help me. It was N-word and this and that. She was just... She's just turning up the radio. That new Alan Jackson song is on on loop. It's on on the...

Where were you in the world? Quit turning. Of course, he says the N-word a bunch, too, probably. So, I don't know. He looks like he says the n-word a bunch too probably so i don't know he looks like he says the n-word i'll say that alan jackson looks like that is a regular part of his vocabulary doesn't he he named his mustache that you know he did tickler so So, Jesus Christ, that's terrible. Now, she says all of this. She admits to it, but she says John was killed. It wasn't their idea.

This was on orders from Linda. She said Linda has wanted John's disability check the whole time. So she wants to get a hold of john's disability check and not have john in the picture though and uh you know she wants to have black people over that sort of thing if you guys want to live here that's what you'll do that's what you'll do exactly and uh billy was killed because he figured it all out that's literally what she said she said they said billy figured it out we got to get rid of him the guy that can't keep a job can figure out your murder plot real easily but when you can them a box of blood

all over it it really doesn't take much to figure out it's a good point and he was going around he had talked to willard her son and said hey you know just between me and you your mom whatever so then willard went to his mom to ask about it so but not even like she just went to go what's going on with that yeah and linda had an excuse for it no No, that's just silly. And then she was like, turned to Melissa and was like, he knows he must go. And they fucking that was that's the that's what Melissa says now. Now, this is early June 2002. This is all playing out. Melissa has Linda has taken off.

She's not in Delaware anymore. She's she spends she's living up with her family in in vermont in st albans vermont for about two weeks this is while this is all going on she saw it was getting hot and she fucking jetted and um so they go up there to vermont and they get her uh they extradite her back to delaware they charge her with two counts of first degree murder uh for Uh-oh. That's not good at all. So, yeah. Now, July of 2002, this is when Willie really cracks, lets it all out, admits about the John Charbonneau murder, and he not only does that, he leads police to a site near Millsboro, Delaware, where the body is buried.

So he actually takes them right to it. They don't believe him at first too they're like maybe he's full of shit and trying to get out of it saying this and that he's a con he's a guy it's i mean he's been in the system and all that sort of shit who knows his records long uh but he knows right where the body is takes him to it and they go he's telling the truth he at least buried it we know that uh they do an autopsy dna testing can they confirm him i mean like he like it's someone else. Oh, it's a different guy.

Killed shit. My bad. John's buried somewhere else. I killed this guy the week before. So the cause of death is attributed to blunt force injury causing a fractured skull. Now, Brown, Willie, implicates himself, Linda, and Melissa in the murders and in the burials. He says it's everybody involved. and melissa in the murders and in the burials he says it's everybody involved uh now melissa also attempted to show the police because they wanted to they want to know she was telling the

truth so they said show us where the body is because they already know they already know yeah so uh they take her uh they take her out there uh she didn't find the exact spot but they said she passed within 10 feet of the location so So she knew the place and the spot. She just couldn't remember the exact location. Plus, now it's been disturbed because police dug it up. That's the other thing. You think he just with yellow tape around it right there. Duh.

Jesus. That's the spot where those guys are sifting shit. It's like 10 feet from there. Right in that area. Yeah. That whole part with the crime. See where that body is right there he's about over here it's we're weird that's there too i don't know if you can see this it says

crime scene around it if you want to just right inside that probably i'm going to assume that barrier is going to be somewhere in there but she picked 10 feet away she picked 10 feet away uh this is an underdeveloped area a bunch of of trees and growth, and it's the woods, basically. Now, Melissa admits being present at the residence in Bridgeville when John Charbonneau was killed. She says she participated in the transporting and disposing of the body, turning up the radio and the ATM or turning up the radio with Alan Jackson saying the N word and all of that and uh she also admits to using john charbonneau's atm card to withdraw money after his death which she kind of has to admit to it because there's a fucking video of her doing it we've seen you that's you yeah stupid so uh linda gave her she says linda gave her john's atm card and pin information and told her that she was allowed to make these withdrawals now melissa

uh also admitted to having john's driver's license and social security card you know because it was in the diaper bag and no one else has babies so it's pretty easy uh prosecutors offer willie and melissa deals uh right away they offer them got it got it uh now we'll talk about how the melissa deals kind of shakes out but uh willie brown is happy to take a plea on this yeah he takes a plea he pleads guilty to murdering john charbonneau and uh and billy sprotes uh he must give full statements and testify against the others have called that's the that's the deal that they always make uh he provides uh uh further information a little later he he talks about melissa's

involvement with it. Previously, he had implicated only Linda, but now he also ropes Melissa into it, who was also incriminated herself. He says that, Willie says that Sprouts was murdered because he was talking to people about the suspicions. He talks about the whole thing. You know, it just kind of talks about

the fact that they put the body in john charbonneau's yard so people would think john charbonneau did it and then took off that was the plan that is the whole thing that's the plan yeah he's mad because he took his wife he killed him buried him in his yard now he took off which plan bad plan i mean on the surface it sounds good but logistically doesn't work doesn't really work especially when one guy's, when the killer's blood is found in your car. It's not a good thing. Who you want to be the killer. Now, April 24th, 2003, Willie Brown pleads guilty to murder.

Sentencing on this one for it. You might as well. You, sir, may fuck off. Life without parole. He took a deal for life without. Death penalty was on the table in the trial. Death penalty's on the table for everybody, by the way, here. uh everybody's a little touchy i didn't know delaware was yeah it is so they don't execute a lot of people but it's on the table and they can use it as a tool

to get you to plea to life without parole well that's what yeah that's what they do that's what they do in most places it's just like in florida and texas they're a little more enthusiastic about it they'd rather just go to trial politicians want to say i executed this many people under my watch to them that's like that's a plus in texas the constituents like that that's what they're doing you keep getting voted in exactly so uh now prosecutors want to try linda and melisa together they want to try them at the same time for both murders. Fascinating. Okay. Now the, the, the ladies here motion to sever because they don't want that.

They don't want anything overlapping information wise. Cause that's just more information. The prosecution's argument is that a for costliness and just, they say for judiciousness, just for speed and ease of the whole thing. Also, Melissa has got herself a deal where she gets she not yet. Oh, they've offered her one, but she's still saying no.

And she's still talking about going through with this trial. And she's trying to get severed from her mom. And problem is their argument is that they say Sprout's death was too gruesome to be joined with the Charbonneau murder. The pictures of Sprout's and everything, the stabbing and all that are it's too gruesome to be joined with the Charbonneau murder. The pictures of Sprouts and everything, the stabbing and all that, it's really gruesome. Oh, I'm sure. Compared to the John Charbonneau murder, it just looks like he had a fractured skull. So it's nothing you can really see.

It's just a dead body. So that's not that bad looking. But the Sprouts one looks like they did a number on that motherfucker. So they say that they shouldn't be joined together the court said it's not persuasive and and uh accepting it would imply that the that they could not receive a fair trial in a separate proceeding focused only basically they you have to be tried together they're saying uh they say that juries are fully capable of filtering the emotion out of grisly evidence to make decisions on a proper basis like they say always when they're talking about too gruesome.

Well, you shouldn't have done it. Or if you didn't do it, still, we're all big boys. We're all big boys and girls. We're all in an adult court, and we're all going to look at it and see what happens. I can see Melisa's side, though, that she's trying to get away from her mom because her mom's got the straight-up motive to be doing this shit. If I can get away from her, maybe I can get a better deal. But the prosecutors are saying, I don't know, Melisa's the one who was taking money out

of the ATM. So they're putting pressure on her that way going, why should we believe you? It looks like you benefited the most financially out of all things. So I don't know. They're shrugging their shoulders. You had a social security card and his driver's license and it's your husband who killed the fucking guy good point so you know they uh they end up finally going to trial uh right before the trial melissa takes the deal she backs out yeah backs out of the trial they the motion to sever is denied and she says fuck

it and takes a deal uh her deal is she has to testify against her mother. That was the big sticking point, was if she took the deal, she had to then testify against her mom, which is rough. The jury here for Linda's trial, it's in 2004. It's eight men and four women, which is not what you want if you're Melissa,

or if you're Linda. Who's killed two husbands. Who's killed two husbands. And, you know, she's like an awful what like an awful uh dickhead like fucking misogynist radio host would say that women are like tom likus yeah yeah chicks are just manipulators man that's all it is they're just gonna fucking manipulate the money out of your pocket and the semen out of your cock to get a little seedling baby that they can then extract

money from you for the rest of your goddamn lives. They're manipulative succubuses and you must kill them now. Succubi, succubuses, I didn't go to college, I'm not sure. Listen to my opinions. Clearly I have a fourth grade education.

That's the... That is Tom Likas in a nutshell. I've never heard Tom Likas, but I've heard of him and know who he is and I assume that's what he's doing. I heard about seven minutes of his show when he was on the air in Phoenix, and I was, how is this fucking popular? And then I Googled the guy, and I was like, never again. I will never listen to a man that looks like that and has to say about women, no thank you, sir.

They don't want to fuck you because you're gross. That's why. Shut up. That's just an angry man. Pretty simple. That's a man that's gotten two blowjobs in his life, loved him, and couldn't get more. Couldn't get more. He's like, come on.

I know I had to pay for the first two. Pay and force, even though I paid. So this is a three-week trial altogether. This trial lasts three weeks. Linda changes her whole image, tries to look very grandmotherly, comes in like flowered things and like, you know, shawls. And she tries to look like, I'm just a little old lady who loves her grandkids. I could have done this.

Carries a Bible every day in there. Pulls that shit. That's one of those. I hate her. No one knows that she was never really a religious person before. Melisa testifies now. She testifies that not only all of the things about Linda and the murder, but also that Linda was abusive to all the kids. Her Willard, Linda Jr., all the damn kids and both spouses that she's seen her with.

She said she was abusive to John and Linda was abusive to Billy as well. Domineering, abusive, physically abusive, mentally abusive. She claims, Melissa claims that Linda hated John and openly would talk about hating John in front of Melissa and had been planning his murder for years. Like, how can I kill him?

How can I get rid of him? Oh boy. And then finally saw Willie Brown as an opportunity because they knew about his criminal record and they were like, he might not be averse to murder. This might work. Plus, I think they were probably, she was probably like, the black guy will do it. That's what John says anyway. Fucking dick.

She's such a dick. So Belisa here testifies that Linda also,, this is the switch from what Willie said. Her and Willie have different accounts of events. Willie says Melissa and Willie attacked John, knocked him out, dragged him outside, all that shit, and then beat him to death with a shovel. Melissa testifies that she was there. Melissa was trying to help Willie andinda smashed john in the head with a frying pan that's her story linda not only ordered it but also participated in it and whacked him with a frying pan to help you know helps that skull fracture along how that goes now uh they

also bring in melissa's ex-husband to the stand who testifies that linda asked him to kill john so that's a that's a bad one here uh now uh he argued the guy uh husband no no the prosecutor says that john charbonneau feared for his life he feared for the safety of his grandchildren he says that he was afraid to go to the police uh and then later on they say that sproats was afraid to go to the police because he thought they killed charbonneau so they said even though he did go to the police they said he didn't he might have held stuff back and he was scared and didn't know what to do uh it's it's they say the prosecutor says quote there was no turning back after she didn't call 9-1-1 from the first when she had the opportunity to come clean she did they're talking about melissa

so they're like she fucked up but then she ended up coming clean to try to say that she's not a try to basically keep credibility to her yeah because on the stand they're like so what you're telling us is you lied to us once you lied to us again you lied to us this time that time but now now we're supposed to believe you and she said yeshuh. Yeah. So it was one of those, which is all you can say. Right. All you can say there. Now, her ex-husband said that Linda talked about killing John before, tried to recruit her, tried to, wanted to say that, you know, I'll kill him and you help hide the body, is what Linda was pitching to him. She even said, you don't have to kill him at all.

is what Linda was pitching to him. She even said, you don't have to kill him at all. Basically, I'll fuck with his heart medicine, and I'll replace it with placebos, or take it away completely so he doesn't have it, and then I'll scare him into a heart attack. Wow. That's her plan. That's a stretch.

And then you help hide the body, which if he had a heart attack, you don't have to hide the body. You just go, had a heart attack, and shrug your shoulders. Fuck, that's rough. 60-year-old man with a heart condition had a heart attack. Weird.

That's not. Yeah. Fine. That's how you get away with it. That's how you get away with it. But instead, no. That's a hell of a dismount, James. That's a dismount right there.

You just stuck the landing. Scary as it is, I could murder it with impunity at this point. I know too much. Too much. Just too much. I could kill all of you to have it so uh now her ex melissa's ex-husband testimony here uh the question i'll give some quotes they ask him prior to linda charbonneau moving in or after she moved in in august or september of 2000 did you ever have

any discussions with her uh with your wife and or linda regarding john charbonneau she's he says yes my wife and i had come home from work and you and a usual thing uh it was about bedtime i was in bed had brought had brought john jr in they're all naming their kids jr uh put him down to sleep and got in bed she asked me if i would listen to something she had to say she wanted i am taking a guess she wanted my opinion on it or i'm not sure exactly what her meaning of what the conversation was but she told me that her mother had been talking about forcing john into a heart attack by taking away his pills you know from like uh said forcing him into a heart attack placing him in a plastic tote burying him in the backyard so that she could get all of his

stuff out of the house and so that she could have the house on top of that because she was afraid if something ever happened to john she would get nothing because they weren't fucking married anymore because she divorced him and married his goddamn nephew so yeah you don't get shit anymore from that guy at that point uh so uh he says missy was telling me this that's melisa right which is better than melisa uh i don't know missy's bad missy's terrible yeah uh he says my exact words uh were well that is a little more than I wanted to know about the situation. And that, you know, I told Missy as long as she was with me, we would have no part in it. And then I mentioned something to Linda about it.

And we talked more the next morning. He said, talked about hiding the pills and forcing him into having a heart attack. He said that was just one of the scenarios that Linda had. The other was to fake a break in. He said that was just one of the scenarios that Linda had. The other was to fake a break-in and kill him that way, but she said she still might lose what was in the house, and I plain out told her I didn't know if she was trying to solicit me into this or if she wanted my opinion or what, but I did tell her that I would have no part in it, and I did tell her that. I said, you know, if you do anything anything like this the first person they're going to look at is uh you and me because of my record yeah because it hurt

melissa's ex-husband as a mile-long record really when he heard about this whole thing the death he was in jail on a probation violation uh when he heard about all this he was like oh shit john died like in jail reading the paper so uh now this guy said that uh you know uh all of this shit uh they said that uh that anyone who came looking for him uh they could just say he was on vacation or he was gone for the day or he drove down here to get a truck part or he makes some shit up yeah and whatever and they said they'll end up getting keeping to get his disability checks and uh you know all that's uh that's what about tomorrow when they come back that's what i mean at some point

you can't just say yeah he's never home for five years super weird it's a vacation and son of a bitch again that's yeah the whole thing is fucking ridiculous that's what i'm saying who would think that uh then they bring in a bunch of other people uh to testify who talk about uh sproats it's his relatives talking uh saying that sproats told him that uh linda had brought a bloodstained box that uh he was scared and concerned about john's disappearance that linda told billy that quote if he had said anything of what happened she would no longer talk to him and the same would happen to him as did uncle john oh boy that's what she he told one of his cousins

that linda told him we'll kill you too we'll kill you too so this poor billy was scared shitless and uh linda called and uh linda had called and he was going to let her into the the residence was was what they were saying so he's like she's coming over too so i'm a little scared and it's crazy now uh there's a different story uh it's a different story than before willie said melissa hit john melissa said that linda was the accomplice yeah so there's a different we all know willie was involved right but there's conflicting uh accounts of who was the other person now the defense brings up melissa and taking money out of the accounts and all that. Melissa ends up testifying.

She testified that she followed that Brown followed her to the house that night at John's house. She said Melissa went into the house and several minutes later she heard Linda say to John, quote, someone is breaking into the house. So to go out there and look uh so then melissa says she witnessed john uh willie brown beating john and then placing him in the van and she said they drove to a secluded place and buried him uh she said on the drive back uh willie called linda to report everything that happened basically to talk about it you know give a little post-mortem. Yeah. Literally. Yeah. So by the time Melissa and Willie returned, they said Linda had cleaned up all the blood.

The place looked like it never happened. Okay. So shallow grave. She can clean up a whole murder scene in the time it takes you to dig a shallow grave. Unbelievable. Not too shabby. Now, Melissa also testifies that Linda lured Sprote to his house in Magnolia, where Brown was in the house waiting for him. Already?

Already. They had him all set up. It's fucking terrible. Apparently, Brown then killed Sprouts, like we talked about, and drove his body to the house in Bridgeville, where Linda and Melissa were there waiting for him for the body. Brown buried Sprouts in the backyard and then they all sat down and concocted a cover story that if anybody asks,

Sprouts ran off with a younger woman. Got sick of me. I'm too old. That way they'll feel bad for me and go after him and blah, blah, blah. Until they find the body. Until they find the body. And then they figure

they'll just blame that on John. But then what happens when fucking john doesn't come back that's the they don't think they're the they're they try to instead of they need an end game there needs to be an end and they just have another layer to it and then this will happen then we'll do this the way the way plans work you get to the end and you work your way back you don't work your way forward they just keep going they never figured that part out it's like the puzzle that little maze on the kids menu you always start at the end and work back to the finish they just started this plan out and we're like well we'll figure it out it can't be that hard to get away with murder fuck it it's like starting at one of the dead ends and then working back see we'll see where that gets you so uh yeah the uh all the evidence says that uh you know linda

brought all the shit to sproats's house uh linda told sprouts to keep his mouth shut and all that sort of thing uh now sproats told his family members and a guy named roger layton about roger layton was a friend of his that was a police officer he told him about the boxes uh layton said that he saw the blood on the boxes and it appeared consistent with major trauma there was enough blood to where if it's that soaked into a box that's a it's a lot of fucking blood someone cut their hand open or anything like that uh linda learned from her son that sproats was involved in the questioning about the disappearance and you know asking what's up with the box and all that sort of thing linda apparently told melissa and willie brown according to melissa that billy sproats was quote getting too close to finding out

what actually happened to dad and something had to be done with him that's what they told him so yeah this is all that now what they don't do the prosecution is they don't call Willie to testify no Willie does not testify they've got enough they well they don't want conflicting

stories Willie's got one story Melissa's got another they're not exactly alike and they don't want to confuse the jury with this shit and basically they don't know which one is true so rather than you know finding out and doing it that way they're just like ah fuck it we know somebody killed him just this story just throw this story which is not really all that ethical now willie doesn't testify the defense blames a race war between john and willie that's what the defense is blaming okay uh they have nothing no answer for john and willie that's what the defense is blaming okay they have nothing no answer for billy's death that's just a big shoulder shrug but for john

uh they say that you know this is just they got in a big fight about race and fucking willie killed him because he was mad because he called him a name or something that was what they're trying to get across uh linda linda's son testifies that billy told him about the bloody box uh and then willard said that he asked his mom about it and then a week later billy disappeared so willard felt terrible like he felt like he caused this uh finally the trial is over 13 hours of deliberation here just to sort out the relationships and the messiness of the whole thing jesus christ wait so who is the who did what the nephew what now the uncle is uh what now she married the no no but whose father is the okay but then she's got three kids of her own okay now i get i think

so they got cat scooping shit out of toilets which one's black now like it would be a fucking mess what a disaster trying to sort that you know there's a couple people who are a little slow always you got to explain it to no she's fucking this one now not that one jesus no they spiked her good yes you got it that's right cat scoop in the toilet it's a mess over there but whose brain is scrappled i don't know what's going on that's beyond the answer it's a realm of answers i'm not sure i think they're all scrappled i don't know what's going on that's beyond the answer it's the realm of answers i'm not sure i think they're all scrappled i think it's all of them so there's even even when the jury comes back there's a mess with that they get back and it's kind of late so they're like what

do we do do we send them back to the motel or do we get a do we get the verdict now and they're like well let's just get the there's like an hour thing of where do we figure out how to sort out overtime where do we send the jury or what are we doing and finally the well, let's just get the there's like an hour thing of where do we figure out how to sort out overtime? Where do we send the jury or what are we doing? And finally, the judge says, let's just get the fucking verdict. Let's do this shit. So, yeah, Linda Lou sat there very quietly. And, yeah, they they find her guilty of two counts of murder. Now is sentencing.

And she is up for the death penalty. And she gives all of her spiel about you know tough life and uh all of this type of thing prosecution says she's a cold-blooded you know murder orchestrating for profit uh making her daughter kill her own father or stepfather whatever the fuck she was and she's just this manipulative, horrible person. And the judge says that she was the one in control. They were all her little cogs in her machine. And he says, you, ma'am, may fuck off. Gives her the death penalty.

Spiked. Spiked her good. Yes. Wow. The last woman to be executed in Delaware was in 1935. I was going to guess 02. Yeah. When a woman named May Carey was put to death along with her son Howard for killing her brother.

Whoa. Yeah. Same type of thing. They were going for his property or his part of the business or some shit like that. So they killed him and they hung her for it. Delaware doesn't even have a woman's death row because this doesn't happen very much. So they only have one big women's prison and they don't have a death row there so they were like we kind of have to make something for this woman here uh she appeals it obviously there's a bunch

of appeals in march of 2006 she appeals all the way up to the supreme court of delaware where they talk about the main issue is willie not testifying that's the main issue apparently 12 days before opening statements of the trial the prosecutors produced a potential witness list that included both brown and melissa yeah okay now the prosecutors knew that there was inconsistencies in the story and uh they and they were giving you know they're the critical shit too it wasn't like i think i say he drove and she said I drove. It's one said this one hit him with a frying pan and one said she didn't. It's a big deal.

But Linda had her counsel. They had extensively prepared their defense based on the assumption that Willie Brown would be called to trial since he got a deal to testify against her. And because they decided at the last minute not to call him and that destroyed their entire defense. called to trial since he got a deal to testify against her and uh because and they that they did they decided at the last minute not to call him and that destroyed their entire defense that they've been working on for months uh for months so the defense sought two forms of relief here they sought a missing witness instruction which instructs the jury there's a witness that's not testifying but this is what he has sworn to and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah to get his story there. And an order admitting Willie Brown's plea and proffer into evidence for the purpose of impeaching Melissa and creating reasonable doubt.

The judge says, no, not going to do it. Really? not going to do it really uh yep says uh he denied the missing witness instruction ruling that it was not natural for the state to call brown so long as the state believed that brown was lying so they said yeah the state it's normal that the state wouldn't call him if uh they thought he was lying but the problem is there's people being convicted on his testimony that they are on his words that they think are lies yeah this whole thing's a fucking mess. It's a mess. That seems like a violation of rights, right?

Something. The trial judge also ruled that the fact that Brown had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and the facts stated in his proper that formed the basis of his plea bargain were inadmissible at evidence at trial because they were irrelevant and because any probative value that evidence might have had was substantially outweighed by the danger and unfair prejudice or misleading the jury, is what he says. In other words, we were afraid we'd lose the case.

I was afraid the prosecutor would lose just based on this, which if they give two deals to two people who are saying two different things, then that's their phone fucking fault. They shouldn't have given one of them a deal. They should have said, well, I believe you and don't believe you. You get a deal. You don't. We're running with this one.

Yeah, not we give you both deals and we'll shake it out and see what happens in court. So this is their main differences here of statements. Brown, Willie suggested, he said at his proffer that Melissa was actively involved in the Sproats murder. Melissa said that she was actively involved in the Sprouts murder. Melissa said that she was miles away when the murder happened and that Brown had committed the murder alone and then drove over and they were waiting for him to dig the hole. Brown also claims Willie claims that the motive behind killing John originated from pornographic pictures of Melissa's oldest child found on john's computer okay and there is some there is some shit to back this up uh uh melissa also says that uh melissa says that that it that it was a battle between linda and john over material possessions all the time arguments

ensued about john's alleged abuse of his granddaughter and there was a visit by the division of family services to john's house investigating alleged abuse uh evidence also established that uh this is another thing that john and linda had a giant outdoor argument in the front lawn over a lawn ornament a week before john's death yeah they fought tooth and nail in the front yard about a lawn ornament a lawn weather yeah whether i'm sure that's what it was we can't put a black one up god damn it just paint it white something i don't fucking know so uh uh so yeah this they ended up both plea agreements get it were taken obviously also four days in the jury selection and uh before the opening statements prosecutors requested a conference with the trial judge at the conference.

Prosecutors disclosed a, quote, ethical dilemma there. They professed they believed Brown was lying about the Sprouts murder. The prosecutors told the trial judge that they did not believe Brown because they credited Melissa's statement that she was miles away when the murder occurred. They believed that. They took it upon themselves to basically figure out what they wanted the jury to see in all this. And they called it an ethical dilemma. And they could have called Brown and asked him about the whole thing. And you might ask, why doesn't the defense just call Willie Brown?

They do. And he takes the fifth. Oh, really? He says, fuck you. I'll testify for the prosecution. that's part of my deal i'll testify for them but if you call me i ain't gotta say shit it incriminates me fuck you which is crazy because he already pleaded guilty to all the shit so and proffered something that's fucking nuts so uh yeah this is crazy so uh they ended up like we said uh declining to uh admit brown's plea deal and his proffer, Willie's deal, into evidence. And they said that, you know, that's it.

You're not going to have that. That's what ended up happening in the trial. Now, Brown became unavailable to the defense, like we said, because he took the fifth. And the state entered into agreement with Brown about testifying. So that was the only thing he was legally bound to do. Now, also, she claims access. She claims she didn't get access to juror information, which is weird. She claims that her due process rights were violated because the state had access to jurors criminal records and the trial judge improperly denied her access to the information.

She doesn't claim that she should have access, but she claims that neither should the state. And if the state has it, she should. And if she doesn't, nobody should. Basically, that doesn't mean you got an unfair trial. That doesn't mean. But it's adding to it. Now, the judge or the Supreme Court rules that her trial was unfair based on the Willie Brown shit. They overturn her decision

uh they appear they overturned the death sentence uh so that's a kind of a big deal yeah uh yeah overturn the death sentence and she's up for a new trial now uh she could get the death sentence again it's still on the table but she's up for a new trial. So March of 2007, the retrial is to begin. This time, Melissa refuses to testify. Melisa is out. Melisa will not testify. Her lawyer said that Melissa told the court she did not want to be involved in the case anymore. She said she did what she had to do as part of her deal, testifying once, and she doesn't want to testify against her mother ever again uh her lawyer said quote melissa was tired of it and uh so now they don't have

their star witness yeah and uh so they make a deal with linda uh they offer her a deal and she takes it and how much so linda pleads we'll find out uh she is found guilty of uh also melissa for not testifying they say actually your deal says you have to testify in any trial that we tell you to. They find her in contempt of court and add an additional five months onto her prison sentence, which is Melissa ended up getting 25 years. So she

got 25 years and five months for that. Now, Linda's lawyer said that they were ready to go through with the trial. They said, quote, we felt like we had a fighting trance chance for an acquittal but we didn't feel like we could take that chance those are big dice to roll which yeah the death penalty is on the table uh so david sproats who was william sproats's brother and also john charbonneau's nephew right so yeah undo that

fucking unravel that family tree she should unsuck those dicks for sure uh he was pissed yeah about this he said quote my brother died for nothing we feel it wasn't fair to the victims i feel there was no justice here whatsoever that's not a good statement from a victim's family there uh this was his uh billy was his younger brother by 10 months and uh yeah he said he was super pissed and now the prosecutor uh told uh david told sproats his brother quote that his hands were tied and that the judge only gave him 45 minutes to make a decision regarding a plea offer they said either you can offer her a plea in the next hour or we're going to trial and so he had to you know put it together fast yeah uh but uh david uh sproats david Sproats said,

I just feel like my brother didn't get any justice whatsoever. He said, quote, this was not a fair trial. I feel they're sending out the wrong message that it's okay to kill. At most, she'll spend

the rest of her life in jail where she'll get three squares a day and the best medical care and TV and a workout center. He thinks they got good health care in there? He made it sound like it was a Hilton, like a Doubletree or something. The health care is terrible in there. It is the worst.

Ask Carmine Persico, the huge mob boss who was sent away in 86 on RICO charges to do life in prison. Did he look like a mask going in? He just died because he had an infection in his leg. And when they had the government shutdown, they didn't give him his pills anymore oh shit that was part of it the medical care for that because he's in federal prison oh my he didn't get his pills anymore and the infection spread and he died literally fucking government shutdown killed carmine persico wow the gambino's everybody no one could kill a guy but fucking don Donald Trump did just like that. Wow. So, yeah, 2007, after all this, she does end up pleading guilty to second degree murder in the death of John Charbonneau.

The Billy Sprouts thing just kind of floats in the wind. They just stick that on Willie Brown. They say they don't really have evidence enough for her. So they just let that go with her. Okay. She gets second degree. Second degree. She could receive up to 20 years in prison on this.

Oh, wow. She could get the least amount of everybody, which is insanity. Wow. May 25th, 2007 is resentencing. You, ma'am, may, I guess, sort of fuck off again here. Sentenced to 20 years in prison. Unbelievable. For her guilty keys.

She's 59 at the time. She received the maximum sentence, but was credited for more than four and a half years she already spent behind bars. Meaning she will only spend 15 and a half years behind bars. She could get out. Okay, now. About 2022. Yeah. So there you go.

2015. Good news for melissa there's an article in delaware here of like a positive thing of melissa is in this culinary program in prison that's apparently a very highly touted culinary program that works with the department of education in delaware to try to go work in schools and be a lunch lady for job training no no this is like high-end cooking okay most of the most of the people like in kitchens like they're all criminals fuck yeah well i knew they were criminals but i didn't know they were convicted fuck yeah yeah no that's that's a job where they don't give a shit about your background can you cook can you

can you last on a fucking line when it's busy i don't care if you care if he kills your whole family if you can cook on a line when it's busy they will hire you they do not care it's busy. I don't care if you care if he kills your whole family. If you can cook on a line when it's busy, they will hire you. They do not care. It's just the way it is. A lot of times, that's a job that people will get to get out of prison and that's like a work release job.

That's why they have so many fucking tattoos on their necks and faces. Read Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential book he talks about and in the kitchen he worked in. His entire,

every one of them, his entire crew are all mostly criminals or prisoners, either immigrants or prisoners or both. Wow. That's what it is, basically. Yeah. So there's an article here that inmates, Melissa Rusinski, Catherine Burton and Stephanie Parsons are advanced students in the culinary program.

They catered a luncheon at a program at the prison that included visitors such as jill biden when she was still the second you know vice president's wife at that point and uh yeah they said each uh hopes to have a career in the food service industry and the uh the the uh katherine burton one of the students said about melissa she can make a radish taste good and i've seen her do it so she's doing very well that's all we have is radish that's it makes them great she makes them good uh june of 2016 melissa seeks commutation of her 25 year prison sentence what uh they tell her why don't you hang tight till 2020 uh 2020 is when she's expected to be released uh from this that's her her date of her parole and she's done well with the programs and

all that they expect her to be paroled uh so in 2020 uh john charbonneau on the other hand is buried uh good for him not in the woods or his yard he's buried at the holy family cemetery in essex junction vermont uh there and uh william uh billy sprouts here the third by the way wow he's a junior's junior trey he is buried at the galena cemetery in galena maryland in kent county uh there and uh that my friends is bridgeville delaware what a story james it's a fucking mess. Unbelievable. That is a twisted up tree of disaster. That's what that is. Jesus. A twisted tree of disaster.

That's a good name for this episode. Holy shit. Oh, wow. That is too much. The Charbonneaus, Rudinsky, Willie Brown. Everybody's fucking everybody. Everyone's fucking and marrying and people are racist and killing. There's kids everywhere.

Everyone's got three kids and this is a goddamn mess wow people are buried in other people's yards that's the most bananas goddamn wouldn't it have been amazing if they buried Charbonneau in Sprout's yard that would have been the way

maybe they killed each other and buried each other in each other's yards weird as fuck they did it like backwards they meant to bury John Maybe they killed each other and buried each other in each other's yards. It's weird as fuck. They did it like backwards. They meant to bury John in his own yard and Willie in his own yard. And they did it. But they're like, oh, did you put? Oh, shit.

He lived. Oh, fuck. Oh, man. Where's the shovel? Shit. Where's the shovel? Where's the shovel, Melissa? Melissa, where's the fucking shovel, man? Come on.

I'm trying to dig somebody up. The fuck? That story is just as believable as the other one. The whole thing is already dead. The whole thing's bonkers dude the whole thing is fucking bonkers at that one spot where you said she could make a radish taste good because the prisoner's saying it i thought she was gonna say something like she could make rat shit taste she could make a rat shit and i've seen her do it i've seen her do it it ain't bad i gotta tell you didn't want to eat it but sprinkled it on a radish. Delicious.

That's how you make a radish delicious. Sprinkle it with seasoned, infused rat shit. It's an herb infusion she adds to it. It's very light. It's nice. It's basil. There's a touch... I think it's mint.

I believe it's mint, and I know dill. I can tell dill when I taste it. I like a little dill in there. I'll be honest. There's a little scrapple in it. A little scrapple in it. A little scrapple in there. Watch out for the scrapple. That's the crunchy part.

It's a delay taste. It's the crunchy part. You're like, what's in here? Crunch. Oh, scrapple. There's scrapple in here. There we go. Okay.

So, yeah, that is Delaware. Stay the fuck away from Bridgeville, Delaware. Let's just say that because that is a goddamn mess over there. What a disaster. Jesus Christ. If you like that is a goddamn mess over there. What a disaster. Jesus Christ. If you like that show, I got an idea. I know what you can do. You can go to iTunes or Apple Podcasts, the purple icon, and you can give us a review because it really, really helps us a lot.

Really, really helps out the show a ton. Drives us up the charts. It feeds the funky algorithm that iTunes needs to survive. Also, wherever you listen to podcasts, please rate and review on there. It does. It helps us on the charts, which helps us with advertisers and everything else.

It really does help us business-wise. So do that. Also, go to shutupandgivememurder.com. You don't need to go anywhere else. You should go there. We should get a news feed there, too, so you don't have to go to any other websites. You just go to shutupandgivememurder.com. You can read the news and find out what we're up to facts and shit make it your home

page that's all there is to it but shut up and give me murder.com where you can get all of your all of the merchandise cool items we have a bunch of new shit on there all the time so keep checking out the the site for that ringtones okay here's the deal made the ringtones posted the ringtones and first they told us that our artwork was wrong somehow, which it wasn't, but we said fine. And then they said that you can't have that because it's a soundalike song. And they think it's a soundalike song of our fucking show, which it is because it's our fucking show. That's what they think it sounds like? So I'm pretty sure that's what they're saying.

They're saying that we stole the song from our show and we can't sell it. Meanwhile, it's our fucking show and our song, so we can sell it. There's no sound alike. I made it on GarageBand from a series of notes. So no one would cut it together like that. It doesn't sound like anything. I cut it together. I had notes that I specifically laid out in my own way.

I didn't take huge chunks of shit. It's a sound alike so it's really fucking annoying uh i did it on purpose so it would be not yeah anything like anything else i did literally cut if there's a note if there's a wink on this thing that's one thing that i cut and then i would cut that and i would edit it in so it wouldn't be the same rhythm as other shit got it so it's ours original that's the point is there any way to like just put them up on our fucking page? We're going to figure it out. Either way, we'll put up, if the theme songs, if they're going to fight with us and we have to fight with them a little bit, they might take another week or something, but we'll

put up something else. I'll put up something. We'll put up something for you guys, but thank you for wanting those. Get all your other merchandise there. Tickets to upcoming live shows. They're planning a giant giant block of live shows for us for the until the end of the year they're coming we're going to do some crime and sports we're going to do a whole lot of small town murder we're going to go to cities we haven't

been to before uh places like pittsburgh st louis places the secondary kind of markets that aren't the giant uh cities that whatever we're going to be with you guys next uh sorry that nashville sold out so quickly but uh that's an awesome place to play and sorry and thank you and thank you sorry and not sorry yeah sorry not sorry yeah uh so thank you for everything you do for that uh if you want to be you can follow us on social media also right from the website you can follow us at murder small on twitter uh at small town pod on facebook at small town murder on Facebook, at Small Town Murder on Instagram, and that's a good idea. If you want to find tickets to live shows, some of these markets,

the shows sell out super fast. They really sell out fast. So if you're a week behind in the show, and you listen to catch up, that shit might be gone by then. Places like Cincy and Minnesota, they sold out in a day. Nashville sold out excessively quick.

So if you follow us on social media, we do notify you of shows. And that's where everybody got the tickets to Nashville. Pretty much was from social media. So follow us and get updates. We don't bombard you. We don't put ads and shit up all the time. We're not,

we're not going to bother you and clog your feed. Just shit. You might be interested in. So do that. If you want to be a bigger hero, like one of our producers who we're going to talk about in just one second, you can do that excessively easily. You can go to patreon.com slash crime in sports, which is our other podcast, which you should be listening to. And you're crazy if you don't. Or you can go over to PayPal and use our email address, crime and sports at gmail.com to make a one time donation.

And those links are available from shut up and give me murder. They are. Everything is available from there. Jimmy, everything you can get. You can do your banking online. Everything from there. You can find out everything but ringtone DNA results. We got it all.

Everything but no ringtones. You cannot have the song. God damn son of a bitch so uh yeah with that said jimmy there is nothing else to do uh but you know what dig me a shallow grave lay me in the yard and tell me about my favorite people right now this week's executive producers are jessica monroe uh kelsey allen shauna rogers cindy no it's sydney damn it sydney woods she donated twice. Thank you, Sydney.

On both Patreon and then on PayPal. Thank you so much. Sydney, not Cindy. Sydney Woods. She's fantastic. Justin Miller, Stephanie Valentine, and Heather Norton. Thank you guys so much for what you do. We can't do it without you.

No, you guys are the best. Georgina. Let's start that over. Georgina. Hello. Georgina. Georgina. Georgina Warden or Worden.

It's W.O.R. Yeah. God damn it. Yeah. You get it, though. Yeah, you get it. Was that Rhodes? Is that Rhodes?

No. Gina Warden Rhodes. That's who it is. Holy shit. That's what I did. Wow. And Candace with no last name because I was like, Candace. Rhodes Candace.

Is it right? Candace Rhodes. That's what happened. Mixed up the first person. There it is. That happens. All right. Joey Conway.

Jeanette Keel. Amanda Burrigan. Rashika Valoo. Mike Yulk. You-ilk? You-ilk. Yeah. Yulk.

Mike Yulk. Good job, Mike. Thank you, Mike. We're sorry to mock your name. Joel Hodder. Flo Guyton. I looked at that one for a minute. Is this like words that I'm supposed to try to find a joke?

Yeah, is there a pun in there? No. It's just Flo Guyton. Thank you, Flo. Well, thank you, Flo. Louisa Williams. Callie Shinkunas. That's the one.

I nailed it. Nice job. Four times the time. Thank you. Andrea Papa George uh Hunter Perry Kay Casey Huffman uh Natalie uh Natalie Zanotti okay hold on Natalie Zanotti Natalie Zanoviev that's what it is there we go Thomas Smith Janice Hill Alexandria Roland uh Reagan Schalke uh Thomas Smith. I said that.

Samantha with no last name. Brendan Ables. Andrew Weigand is back, or Weigand. I know I'm pronouncing that wrong. I'm doing my best. Susan Brandt, Adrian Thomas, who donated under Censorship Works, which is hysterical. But also, her husband got a new job, so congratulations. Hey, congrats.

Thank you. Pong Sott, Mike Palma. Yes. Tegan Bakers. No, that's not it. Damn it. I don't know what I did there, butats. Thank you. Pong Sot, Mike Palma. Yes. Tegan Bakers. No, that's not it. Damn it. I don't know what I did there, but it's not Baker. It's Baker.

Just Baker. Eamon Clements, Aaron Johnson, Jesse Hartman, Lance Robillard, Desiree Josephine, Carol Braun, Carol Braun Sweet. Oh, Carol Braun donated. Oh, yeah. She used to donate a lot, and then she just came back. Thank you. She wrote something really, really sweet. Oh, that's why you wrote Sweet next to it. Thank you. Thank you. Carol Braun., and then she used to donate a lot, and then she just came back. Thank you. She wrote something really, really sweet. Oh, that's why you wrote sweet next to it.

Thank you. Carol Braun, thank you. Allison Morris, Whitney Gregory, Michael Bretz, Joe Von Kennel, Yassine DeMiner, yes. James Fraker, yeah. Allison Speltz. Why do I got to talk myself into it? Pete Cowley, Eric Langenacker, Michael Chase, Haley Gottfried,

Stacey Rushworth, Clay Thorson, Charles Carpenter, Gary Howard, Rishi Deshpande, and his wife, Shannon Weaver. Wow. I think I got it. Jesse Lortz, John Erickson, Under the Sea Fabrics, Brian Dennis, Caitlin Enright,

Stephanie Peterson, Amber Bennett, Mackenzie Parrott, Leroy Walker. That's what it is. I saw his name and it sounded like a football player. Tara Marico, Jaina Wellhouse, Jess Cox, Gina Miller, Karen Not-A-Grim-wis uh mindamoya reynolds andrea with no last name uh derrick shaw uh james martyr that's the yeah yeah explain that jessica mckinney uh alice uh ashley vo uh christopher hart brad peters jordan moser uh leo leo sacamandi leo? Or is it Lou? It's probably Lou Sacamandi. Okay. Andy Renaro. Anthony Renaro and his wife. Hey, Antony.

Or his girlfriend, Zoe. Thanks, Antony and your girlfriend. Appreciate it. Zoe Badnasek. Oh, go buy that nice lady some linguine with clams to take her out for a nice night. What are you doing? Oh, Bednasek. There you go.

Okay. Sek. Bednasek. Christina Lauridsen. Lauren Demerath. Jesse Pitts. Donyell Leonardis. Kenya Green. okay sec bed in a sec uh christina loridsen lauren demirath uh jesse pitts donyale uh leonardis kenya green uh big rig oh big rig rick and and the homies down there in uh at homestead in florida oh cool thank you guys thanks guys and they were the ones that said that they're all guilty yeah

i'm in i'm in i'm in a lot of trouble trying to pronounce this. I'm in Aklagagi. Aklagagi. I'm in Aklagagi. Wow, that's a good name you got there. I'm in, you're killing me. Stephanie Huron, Brent Madison, Susan Gable, Billy Johnson, and Jackie Edmiston. You guys are fucking incredible, and I'm terrible at reading. The best goddamn people in the world.

Thank you guys for everything you do for us, for all of your just your generosity, for whether it's money or you send us gifts or even if you just, you know, tell your friend about it or you tweet about it or you give us a review on whatever platform you listen to. And then the time you take every week. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

And then listen to the show. Thank you. We appreciate you guys hanging out with us and being on this incredibly weird journey of funny murder. So thank you guys for that. What if you wanted to tell Jimmy about his funny murder? How could they tell you, Jimmy? You can find me at Wisman Sucks, W-H-I-S-M-A-N Sucks, on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. And stop asking why that can't why I do.

Look, I don't care about me. And I think that it's hilarious that people take themselves very, very seriously with their with their so and so's comedy, you know, like Twitter handles and such. I don't like me. And I'm just being honest. It's just a fucking self-deprecating comedian joke. It's so much easier just to... If you were a comedian, you'd understand.

It's just easier. That's what it is. Where can they tell you they like you? And mine's kind of the same thing in the opposite. Mine is, go fuck your mother. Mine is, at Jimmy P is funny, because I'm like, hey, fuck you. There, how do you like that? It's kind of a sarcastic thing.

There, you want to know I'm a comedian? There you go, asshole. Who cares? So, at Jimmy P is funny. You can follow me on there. Or copy and paste my last name from the show description, because you won't spell it right, and it's not really worth learning. I had to learn Charbonneau.

You don't need to learn Petrogallo. Let's all just relax and chill the fuck out and keep coming back week after week. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. back week after week and until next week everybody it's been our pleasure 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.