Small Town Murder - #118 - A Strange Fun in Lake Havasu City, Arizona

Episode Date: May 9, 2019

This week, in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, a man with an incredibly troubled past lets it all out over the course of a night. The violence is shocking, but what's even more shocking is the casualness of the killer both during, and after the attacks. Will his incredibly harrowing background sway the court to let him live, or will he let out some of the oddest last words that we've heard? Along the way, we find out that a jet ski is a bad sign for a grown man, that some people just need a reset button, and that torture is considered legally heinous!!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 Lake Havasu City, Arizona, a man's troubled past catches up to all those around him as he spins out of control over the course of one harrowing and awful night.

Welcome to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigal. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today. A very exciting day. We're pumped.

We're going to announce tour dates on this show right away. We're going to do that in the front here. Try it in our house cleaning section of all of that. Very quickly, we'll get into everything else. Thank you for your reviews and everything last week. We appreciate it. Those reviews help on iTunes, on Apple Podcasts. They help drive you up the charts, so they're really important.

So if you haven't done it yet, please get on that. If you feel like it, give us five stars. It doesn't matter what you say. It's not for our ego. It's just for business, really. So do that. We appreciate the hell out of that. And any platform you listen on, go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all of your merchandise needs and all of your tour dates, which we're going to put on there.

The tour dates are huge. Also, listen to Crime and Sports. Really listen to Crime and Sports. We've been saying it lately, and it's very true. It's almost better if you don't like sports because we're going to make fun of a lot of it. I like sports, and I don't remember. That I like that. Because we're going to make fun of a lot of it. I like sports and I don't remember. That's the thing. That's the thing.

Also, if you want to be a producer, we have a long list at the end of the show of amazing people who are our producers who we love dearly. And if you want to do that, you can do that very easily by going to patreon.com slash crimeinsports or head over to PayPal. Use our email address, which is crime in sports at gmail.com to make a one-time donation those are on the website too along good lord what else is that do we love you uh there's lots of stuff merchandise and the shit in your hand tour dates here those papers that's those are tour dates in my hand right now let's do this quickly before we

start off the show here uh we will buzz through this it's's starting off July 18th at the Tampa Improv in Tampa, Florida. July 19th in Orlando. There. August 2nd in Columbus, Ohio. Look at us going to Ohio. August 3rd in Cleveland, Ohio. We are hanging out in Ohio for two days. What the hell is

going on there? August 15th is the Funnybone in Omaha, Nebraska. It is not Lincoln, so I'll go there. Please do not tell me to go to Perkins when I'm there because I will lose my mind. That's a redirect also because we're supposed to be in Des Moines, right?

Des Moines, and there was a date thing, so we're going to be in Omaha instead of Des Moines. So sorry, Des Moines, some other time. We'll get you soon. Yeah, drive somewhere better. You understand. Come to Omaha. You're used to it if you live in Des Moines, I have a feeling, so it's fine.

August 17th, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Of course, can't wait to go back there. That was a lot of fun last time. September 13th, San Diego, California. Coming back to Cali.

September 14th, L.A., of course. September 26th, Raleigh, North Carolina, somewhere new. September 27th, Charlotte, North Carolina. Carolina, somewhere new. September 27th, Charlotte, North Carolina. So we'll be hanging out down there. September

29th is the Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia, where we were last time. It's a great theater, so come on back there if you were there last time. New people, come on out. October 10th, Pittsburgh. Another new place. Can't wait for that. Pittsburgh. October 11th, Philly.

Yeah. That's going to be fun. Different venue. The Fillmore this time. Oh, great. We loved, obviously, the club, the comedy club. The punchline there is amazing. It's fantastic.

It's just not big enough. We didn't want to do a bunch of shows, so we'd rather just go to one. We're going to do one. Yeah, but we can't wait. Keep going to the punchline, because those people are great. It's great. It's a great club. Yeah.

Top notch. October 13th. It's a great club. Yeah, top notch. October 13th, Washington, D.C. October 24th, Kansas City, Missouri. Definitely new there. October 25th, St. Louis, Missouri. My goodness. November 7th, Houston. November 9th, Dallas.

December 6th, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Let's go to Wisconsin in December, Jimmy. That's a smart idea. December 7th, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Let's go to Wisconsin in December, Jimmy. That's a smart idea. December 7th, Chicago, Illinois. And we are adding, there's a couple more that the dates are being worked out for after that. Salt Lake City, Denver, Portland, and San Fran. I know those are our normal places. So we'll be going there, too.

We'll add those on at some point. We're going to announce on social media uh may 13th which is monday tickets go on a pre-sale may 15th and 16th and then they go general everybody sale uh may 17th that's how that works so without further ado let's get into the disclaimer and do a damn show about murder what do you say let's do this uh this is a comedy podcast yeah we're comedians obviously um you know we're going around the country it'd be boring to just watch somebody dryly tell a murder story diatribe we do tell jokes the stories are completely real there's nothing made up for comedic purpose or anything like that they don't have to be that's the thing

they don't have to be embellished because the world is a crazy place and we make fun of it what we don't do is we don't make fun of the victims or the victim's family because we're assholes but we're not scumbags 100 that's how this works otherwise there's a plenty around that to have fun with with a murder because there's plenty of stupidity and panhandle behavior and everything else murder is like uh good sex uh unless it's about your mom it's so much fun to talk about exactly exactly i was gonna say or like pizza but's about your mom, it's so much fun to talk about. Exactly, exactly. I was going to say, or like pizza, but then the mom thing threw it off. So let's stick with that.

Stick with that analogy. But if that sounds good to you, you're going to have a blast because we're going to have so much fun. If that does not sound good to you, true crime and comedy should never go together. That's what you think. Then you're not going to like the show. So have a good one. But you might want to give us a chance anyway. But if you're anybody else and you want to have a good time shout it out from the rooftop from out your

car window stand on your desk and above your cubicle and shout shut up and give me murder let's do this let's go on a trip jimmy okay what do you say we're in alabama last week old jasper alabama before you fill out your marriage bingo card there for bizarre for her yeah that's that's a crazy one. By the way, I found another case we're going to do where a woman has like 11 husbands, which is amazing. I can't wait to get to this. And shocker, some of them end up dead.

Surprising. Here, though, we're going to stay close to home here. We live in Phoenix, so let's stay close to home and go over to a terrible place that I would never visit. Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Yeah. Let's do this. The goddamn Spring Break capital. It Havasu City, Arizona. Let's do this.

It's an awful, awful place. It's just old people and drunken college kids. There's no in-between. And they all hate each other. And I wish they'd have a big battle royal to the death, basically. A steel cage death match, let's say here. So it's in western Arizona,zona right on the border of california it's in a little panhandle that juts out there's no way of denying that shit it's right over there by kingman oh it's bad stuff yeah it's no good here uh about three and a half hours away from us in

phoenix here five and a half hours to la about three hours and 15 minutes to uh williamson arizona which is episode 92 our last, which exists because of you. Yeah. And I believe was that the one? No, no, that was the other one. That was the one where the guy died on Cave Creek or almost died on Cave Creek. That is not the case that John Oliver was just talking about on last week tonight when they brought up one of our cases on last week tonight. Jeffrey Landrigan, who was, I believe, the one before that, the Arizona case before that,

where we discussed a lot about the lethal injection drug and the fact that's you know it's illegal and there was a big controversy of how they got it and they will state wouldn't talk about it john oliver did like 20 minutes on it on the show and mentioned the case and everything like that and i was like nice job a year late great great work you're a year behind us yeah good job Good job. I like that. Very nice. Yeah. And I think ours was better anyway, but his was pretty fucking funny. He always is. Good stuff here. But this is in Mojave County. Zip code 86403.

Area code 928. It's a big area, 46 square miles. It's all up and down this lake here. Motto of the town, quote, we swear it's not the middle of the desert. See, there's water. And no one's buying that shit because it's not the middle of the desert see there's water and no one's buying that shit because it's a dump it's still yeah it's a fucking dump i'm sorry probably sure couldn't save it nobody can save it it's terrible i'm sorry his abs i was gonna say daisy fuentes not even daisy fuentes could save it nothing not gonna happen in her big bushy

eyebrows she couldn't even save it i thought you were going to happen. And her big, bushy eyebrows. She couldn't even save it. I thought you were going with tits. No, no. Let's go with eyebrows. That was impressive. Her tits aren't bushy. I wouldn't say that. They're big. They're big.

They bush out a bit. Other parts of her are probably bushy, I'd imagine, just based on her eyebrows. But anyway, history of this town. By the way, nowadays, this town is kind of a little bit out of our population range. But when our case took place in the 80s, it's not. right in there it's just well this place is blown up in population like arizona well no it's arizona it's the same thing like phoenix from 1990 to now is like a 200 population boom and there it's the same thing but there's shit going on here there's nothing going on there no no confident that mtv changed that flagstaff is the same thing. That's 200% up since I've been looking at it.

Arizona, basically every place in Arizona that's not like a tiny little weird desert. Like Williamson? Like Williamson. Yeah, has had a population boom since Arizona has, basically. The community of Lake Havasu City started off as an Army Air Corps rest camp. Did it really? Yeah, this Army Air Corps is pre-Air Force. Right.

It's what Archie Bunker from All in the Family was in. I was in the Army Air Corps. He's always talking about that. So it was a rest camp for the Army Air Corps. Wow. That's all it was. It was called Site 6. So they just landed there?

Yeah. They just hang out. Yeah. It's between, you know, it's before the ocean. It's between this base and that base. Okay. So they would- You can't stay awake for another hour to get to L.A.

That's it. No, they called it Site 6. It was during World War II. This was on the shores of Lake Havasu. In 1963, a guy named Robert McCulloch, I'm not sure how you pronounce that. Let's go with McCulloch. It sounds stupider. He's the owner of McCulloch Motors.

He was flying over Lake Havasu looking for a place. He was looking for a good place in the ocean, in the lake, to test outboard motors, outboard engines. Yeah, for boats. Yeah, I need a big open space where there's no, like, rock sticking up and you can see it from above. So he was doing that. And while he's doing that, he was looking around. He thought that the land, this was like late 50s. I said 60s, but it's late 50s.

He thought the land around there, he goes, you can build a city around there. Oh, boy. There's some water. Look at that. He goes, why? Who wouldn't want to live out there? I mean, people live in the desert without water. This is fucking water.

We can get people here. So he purchases 3,353 acres of property on the east side of the lake. 353 acres of property on the east side of the lake. And this was apparently later, that area was transformed into what they call the island now. I don't know what that is because I would never go to Lake Havasu, but it's there. Now, they plan for a few years, and then he acquires another 13,000 acres of federal land that they're not using anymore because there's not a world war going on, so we don't need this desert. You can have it.

Like squatters rights or something? Or he traded them a beaver pelt? I think so. Just a beaver pelt and a couple from Blazing Saddles, a couple of the ball and paddle games, I think he did. And they were like, yeah, fine, great, take it. Yeah, this barren shithole desert plot. Enjoy.

All yours, pal. Yeah, $13,000? Tell you what, we'll give you give you 13 000 for the price of 10 what do you say make your fucking deal downtown judy brown would be there he had a feeling kurt loder and everybody that's right man uh they made it a legal entity in 1963 the city wasn't incorporated until 78 but uh in 1964 they had one not road, one unpaved road into the city. Really? That's all there was.

In what year? In 1964. Wow. One unpaved road. That's unbelievable. It was basically a path. It's an unimproved road, so just whatever. So he needed to get people there.

And he's like, how the fuck do I get people here to buy things when there's one shitty road into town? Yeah. Where are we going to take them? Oh, no, no. Fine. When we get to the end of this bumpy, shitty dirt into town yeah we're gonna take them oh no no fine when we get to the end of this bumpy shitty dirt road and this isn't nowadays with cars with good shocks

you're taking somebody in a 1962 something fuck it's bumpy yeah so uh no one wants that shit basically so he decided to take them by air charter and fly them over and they're like see look at that down there you want to buy that right and people bought a bunch of shit wow uh yeah it was people from colder climates, mainly. Obviously, they were coming from either to retire or to, you know, to wait out the wall. Yeah, do the whatever. Yeah, do the winter. He took 2,700 flights and brought 137,000 potential land buyers there.

Unbelievable. In between 64 and 78 and sold a shitload of land in 1978. That was the last parcel of land sold. And then that's when they incorporated. How about that? So it's goddamn crazy. They're famous for having the London Bridge there. Yeah, obviously.

London Bridge, in case you don't know, was built in the in the 1830s and span the River Thames in London. in the 1830s and span the river Thames in London. And then it was dismantled for some goddamn reason and brought to the middle of nowhere in Arizona in 1967. Store that shit in your desert. No one knows why it's a, it's a reinforced conquer. Imagine the shipping on that. I know.

Like think about that shit. I don't want to order like a jacket cause I'm like, that's going to be expensive on shipping. It's heavy. Imagine a fucking bridge to ship that shit. So, uh, he this mccullough guy purchased it from the city of london how much did he get oh it wasn't a gift no fuck no he bought that shit yeah oh no he bought that shit it was uh uh he bought it for 2.5 million dollars in 1967 money my so very fucking expensive as a matter of fact too because he needed something

to say hey look the london bridge it's because the london london bridge was falling down that's the problem falling down falling down and he said you know what i'll take it bridge has one job to stay up and he was like what's that not fall i'll take it i buy low and i sell high said it's he is the king of buying shit nobody wants. Yeah. Plots in the desert, bridges that are falling down. Nice fucking job, asshole. He's a great businessman.

He's a fucking hoarder. He's a genius. Dead cats all over Lake Havasu City. Anytime you pick a rock up, there's a dead cat under it that McCulloch had stored under there. Holy shit. He's out there popping tags all day you know it man jesus christ so it took until 71 to complete the bridge and then they were all excited about it here uh they had the the stones were shipped to lake havasu city uh cost 2.7

or 2.5 million to buy seven million dollars to ship that's not worth it it's not worth it three times the value to ship ship to ship it. To ship it. Yeah, like I said, imagine shipping it not only across the ocean, but then across the entire country also. Did he buy this on eBay? You gotta think he did. It was just like a, he's like, ooh, $2.5 million.

I hope that son of a bitch doesn't outbid me. Shipping $7 million, deal. He's like, you know what? That's kind of, that's fair. That's reasonable. He put in his zip code calculator and he's like, come on. Come on. Are you serious?

Seven million? All right. What if I had it shipped? Oh, it's only 6.9. Never mind. Whatever. Unbelievable. He also gifted the city of London, England, an acre of land in Lake Havasu.

That's where the gift came in. That's the gift. I knew there was a gift. He just said also as like a thing, you could have a thing of land. They wanted to use, London used it for, they wanted to use it for a visitor's center.

He gave them one acre? An acre of land. An acre. That's like a gift. Here you go. An acre of barren desert. He could have given them as much as he wanted. All of that.

Who cares? No one wants it. It's fucking garbage. It's supposed to be a 20% tip, you cheap fuck. See where it's all tan and hot out there where no one wants it. See where there's no people. You can have all of that.

We don't care. Watch out, though, because everything out there, if it's breathing, it's poisonous. So watch the fuck out. It'll bite you and kill you. Enjoy. Snakes, bugs, birds. It's all fucking bad. Spiders.

When you want to know where the property ends that i gave you put your hand over your eyes there and as far as you see when it when the when your vision starts rippling that's the end of it and as far as you walk just keep keep updating it for that yeah uh yeah so uh uh it's it's fucking it's it's weird uh so uh the london bridge is the second largest tourist attraction in Arizona, which I did not know. Behind the Grand Canyon? Behind the Grand Canyon.

Get the fuck out of here. Grand Canyon is one of the top tourist attractions in the world. Right. It's obviously the biggest one in the state because there's nothing else here. Right. That's number two. That's number two. Well, I guess what the fuck else is there to see?

ASU girls? Yeah, I guess. I'd rather see that than the fucking London see that you can see that on any porn site i guess that's all of them they're right there they're all that's all they are on those that's that's 20 years it's just been it's might as well it's like an as it's basically asu social media is those far fucking gross porn sites of like audition bang bros and browsers whatever the fuck yeah shit like that i know them all but you don't i don't have as much inside info i'm not as i'm not as up on it as you are

yeah so i'm not i haven't been single from recently enough so uh so yeah people are going there for some reason i don't know why uh hey look at that london bridge wonderful now we're in the desert now what do we do uh yeah it is it is also one of the 20 initial nominees for Best Arizona Attraction. But, you know, there's a Grand Canyon. So it's never going to win. And ASU girls. And ASU girls and stuff like that. It's in the top 20.

In the top 20, yes. So by 1981, they had 17,000 people. And now there's like 52,000 we'll talk about. So there's been a steady influx. It has the 95 that was featured for MTV's Spring Break, like you're talking about. People go there for boating, obviously. Home to the International World Jet Ski Finals. Oh, boy.

So douchebags abound. A lot of white sunglasses on the back of heads and things like that happening on that day. A bunch of fishing tournaments, boat regattas, the Western Winter Blast Pyrotechnics Convention. Wow. Let's blow some shit up. A convention of that. A convention of people blowing shit up. How is their civic center not burned down?

How is the whole state not burned down with these people uh people that are from here and have lived here uh michael bean the actor uh johnny ringo oh my god johnny ringo from there he's from i already lived there one of the two uh i'm not sure uh a few people like that nobody nobody to a former widow of uh Hefner. Oh. Miss Playboy December 2009 is from here. Which one? Crystal Harris is from there. In the 80s and 90s, a director here directed three softcore Cinemax 2AM skin flicks here. I probably saw them.

Which is nice. Savage Beach was one of them, which sounds familiar from the Cinemax. Guns and Hard Hunted. With a Z? No, just with a Z. It's 1990, so pre-Z. But, you know, blonde women with fake boobs that don't move at all from 1990. Even though they're humping like crazy, their boobs are just staying in the same place.

So, yeah, a bunch of other stuff here, too. A lot of stuff gets filmed here for some reason. Piranha 3D was filmed there. It's so much here, which is obviously a remake of the cinematic masterpiece Piranha from 1978. Obviously wonderful.

A lot of stuff here. The great food truck race was filmed here. Season 6. That's a... Oh a oh okay i get it they're not racing the food trucks it's like a food thing obviously you race from place to place serving it's gotta be some shit out of me i have no idea kind of what i don't know if they see how fast these fucking food trucks are let's see how you make that gyro while you were driving 96 miles an hour down the interstate pal pal. Left turn. Watch out, bitch.

That tzatziki is going to be all over the floor. I found a resonant review here, and it is not glowing. No, there's not a lot of glowing reviews here. One here, quote, I've lived in Havasu for three years now, and all I can say is all caps stay away unless you're white, older than 60, and don't want to do anything with your life. This is a highly racist town, which is interesting. White people will openly talk down on brown-skinned people. The public education is absolutely horrible. As everyone knows, Red for Ed was a big deal in Arizona.

Havasu has large class sizes with less than quality teachers and i'll get to their education in a second there's also one charter school which rates terribly overall and no real private schools you can uh comes to activities unless you have a boat or a fishing license there isn't much you could explain the high teen pregnancy rate here uh if you have teens beware you could see a lot of you see a lot of single moms coming out of the high school and shopping with their kids They're coming out of the high school With their kids

Yeah That's interesting We'll go to the same school If you have a slow pace of life Where there's no progress Or opportunity Come to Lake Havasu So

One star Okay That's you know There you go Not happy It's pretty vicious It's pretty vicious That's a guy that is pissed

With what Eric Neese sold him I believe so Pauly Shore. God damn you, Pauly. Damn you, Jenny McCarthy. The fucking weasel. Hey, now you vaccinate your kids. In 2008, Forbes magazine ranked Lake Havasu City, quote, the least educated city in America.

Wow. In America. The whole thing. The whole country. Using information from statistics on the area which encompasses the county comes up last in the number of college graduates living in the city. That is in the entire country. Impressive. If you're a mouth breather and you enjoy the sunglasses on the back of the head and you're that sort of person, Lake Havasu is for you.

Take your shirt off, put your flip-flops on get yourself a jet ski and fucking head to havasu get the lobotomy on the way no one will notice it's hard to find a weirder person than the guy that owns a jet ski it's yeah i can see you renting one and having a nice little day unless you're like one of these just crazy rich guys i don't care i mean if you've got a huge boat and then you got like your jet yeah yeah but that's your prized possession yeah and your car sits in your driveway but your jet ski is in your garage on the trailer yeah you're that's the pinnacle of white trash pinnacle of white trash alone jet ski in a double in a two car garage that's a weird dude now uh population wise here uh uh it's we'll we'll do like 1980 15 000 people here our story takes place in the mid 80s

and there's about 20 000 people here right now it's 53 463 people up 120 since 1990 that's a lot of racism that's a lot it's a whole lot uh median age 53.1 it's about 15 years older than the average and it's an old town uh more females than males, but it's pretty close there. 32% of this city is over 65 years old. That's way over. It's usually like maybe 18, but it's 33%. It's crazy. Every demographic for 45 years old and under is way under what it should be.

And everything for older is like off the charts way more than it should be. Well, right there explains why the college educated is lowest, because those that generation fucking didn't go to college, which they fucking should have because they could afford it. Right. Listen to an old person talk about college in the 50s. And they're like, you know, we went it was like one hundred dollars a semester. And you could you could work, you could do like three shifts down at the fucking kitchen there

and it would pay for everything. And I was like, what the fuck? Why didn't all of you go? No, it's like you could, three houses for the price of fucking going to college. Now you gotta work three shifts a day.

Yeah, my daughter's 17, so this is a very touchy subject. She better not like sleep. Yeah, she's fucking, damn it, I'm like, you really want to try that hard in school really come on no i'm just kidding uh so anyway uh the married population much higher here as we're going to get with a lot of older people they're moving in

couples it's 58 percent uh higher divorce rate also though and a higher widow rate you're going to get with older people uh most of them don't have kids. All the with children demographics are lower because they're old people. Race of this town is about 82% white, 0.31% black. So not very black, as you're going to find in most rural Arizona towns. Not a whole lot of black people. 1.07% Asian, which is more than i expected and 15 hispanic which is almost average uh religion in this town 22.5 religious the old

people are never religious they either forgot or they at this point they're like what come on i've seen everybody i know die everything else get the fuck out of here with that quit breaking my fucking balls what are we doing my ex-wife's uh uncle was religious his whole goddamn life yeah and they get older like he just watched his wife die of alzheimer's and he's like fuck god that's that's what happens i don't even care if he exists if he could let somebody the love of my life die like that fuck yeah exactly it's pretty impressive 0.1 percent uh jewish here so not a lot going on there 0.1% Jewish here, so not a lot going on there. 0.3% Muslim. As far as politics go, about 22% Democrat,

about 73% Republican in the last election. This is about what you'd think for Blake Havasu. And Arizona. And Arizona in general. Well, Arizona's a little closer than that. In the civilized areas.

Well, I mean, overall, it's usually within about 5% either way. But in places like mean just overall it's it's a it's a we're usually within about five percent either way in places like williams oh it's it's fucking yeah it's gonna be yeah so it's one or the other uh now uh unemployment rate here is a little bit high 5.3 percent higher than the norm but not outrageous uh median household income in the in the country it's about 57 and a half thousand dollars here it's about 47 000 so a little bit lower the jobs, it's about $57,500. Here, it's about $47,000. So a little bit lower. The jobs here, there's some construction and things like that.

It's kind of touchy. Retail trade, that sort of shit, like tourist type thing. Like accommodations and food services, three times as many as normal. So that's kind of what it is here. It's either you're retired or you're building a retired person's house or you're selling them food hospitality industry or that's it yeah cost of living 100 average regular you know par whatever uh cost of living here is 105 uh 105 out of 100 so not that bad uh median home cost housing is 130 so that's a little high especially for ari. That's high. Median home cost here is $270,800 in Lake Havasu City. A lot of the houses are between $200,000 and $300,000.

And if we've convinced you, the only thing for you to do is to move to Lake Havasu City to do nothing for the rest of your life. We have for you the Lake Havasu City, Arizona real estate report. Havasu City, Arizona, Real Estate Report. Your average two-bedroom rental here, it actually seems like the way to go. It's about $817, which is way under the norm for the nation. I found a condo here. It's a three-bedroom, two-bath. It's like a house, but it's attached. So it's, I guess, a condo, even though it's an attached house.

1,200 square feet. 125,000 bucks. Needs some work, but it's cheap and workable and you could do something with that. I found a four bedroom, three bath, 1,500 square foot house here. It's nicer. It's kind of updated, whatever. $219,000.

So not too terrible. Did you say four bedroom, three bath? Four bedroom, three bath. And how many square feet? 1,000. Okay. So not too terrible. Did you say four-bedroom, three-bath? Four-bedroom, three-bath. In how many square feet? That's 1,500. Good Christ. It's cramming it in there. Those are 10... Those are small rooms.

Five-by-five rooms. Yeah, those are some small rooms and three-baths, too. They're cramming them in there. No closets. Those are now bathrooms. Put your shit in the shower. Found a three-bedroom, three-bath, 1,800 square foot. Really nice, right by the water.

Really sick pool. Sweet stuff. $509,900. You're going to pay for location in Havasu. Things to do here. Good Lord. There's the Water Lantern Festival, where they literally just put a bunch of fucking candles on the lake. I've seen it.

I don't know who collects those candles. They all sink to the bottom. Sit on the shore and wait for them to wash up that or they sink eventually and now there's like four feet of just discarded lanterns down there yeah that's what i think they're trying to do eventually they have a they have a bridge that they don't need so now they're going to build a reef of some kind it's for the turtles i don't know we don't have turtles that's because we don't have a reef. The fuck do you expect? How are we going to have a reef for fucking turtles with no reef? It's for the trout that we have to stock because this is a natural lake.

Because somebody filled this with a hose. Right. That's why. So it's like they do all the lakes out here. They also have the Chillin' and Swillin' Beer Festival. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Which, let's just say, self-explanatory.

The Chillin' and swill it's literally just sit around and drink beer there's no yeah it's a bunch of lonely dudes with a jet ski that's pretty much it that they open the garage it's that day they got it all polished up the day to not be lonely you know it uh crime rate in this town what we're interested in the important thing here uh property crime is slightly below average. So it's right pretty much on the money, though. Very close. Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery,

and of course assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is about half the national average. How about this? So these old people don't have the energy to murder each other, apparently. They're too busy working on their fucking boat. Yeah, they're too busy working on that jet ski.

That damn thing, the throttle's not working. Nothing ever right for christ's sake i ran into a rock it's all straight up i gotta touch up the paint that's the worst they put a two-stroke motor in those and a two that's the fucking the most unreliable motor on earth for anything and they threw it's like your lawnmower it's the same fucking no that's a yeah that's a no that's the weed whacker that's a weed whacker yeah that's where you want to buy your engine to die too in the middle of a deep lake when you're just bobbing up and down and over the fucking life preserve run oh this is great i'm gonna swim a mile in the shore now this is fantastic when you have a jet ski and that's all you have you deserve that life

in the 112 degree sun and because it's lake havasu and you shouldn't be out there just be out there bored as fuck look there's water disappointed it's still hot letu and you shouldn't be out there. Just be out there bored as fuck. Awful. Look, there's water. And not disappointed. It's still hot. Let's talk about some murder. Okay. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide

when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star

cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy.

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

And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal or you love to hop in the way back 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 and the wondery app or Podcasts. Okay, we'll get into this. This one's a disturbing. There's nothing about this case that isn't disturbing. Put it that way.

That isn't a little weird, a little off, and definitely fucking disturbing and uncomfortable, we'll say. Let's do our best because it's a crazy, it's a, some of the things that went on here, it's weird, it's telling, some of the things that went on here. It's weird. It's telling what people say during certain times. And when they're under pressure, like what someone will say under pressure of a certain situation.

And this guy never fails to say something crazy at the time of just a statement needed. It's always like, did he say that? It's fucking bonkers. Is he just a dude that's afraid of public speaking? No. And he just panics? No, no, no, no, no. He just comes out with a line where you're like,

someone would have wrote that for an asshole, and he just said it. Great. Let's talk about this here. Daniel Cook, let's talk about. Daniel Cook here. We got to go all the way back to 1961 when he's born, because we're going to give a kind of short history of his life. To understand what happened, you have to understand the person, where it came from.

You have to understand how a monster was built here. This is one of those things where we need to watch the construction of the monster. This is one of those things where we need to watch the construction of the monster. Frankenstein's on the fucking table, and we can't just see him when he's singing Putting on the Ritz with Gene Wilder. Like, we need... Yeah, I know. Whatever. But we need...

That guy has bolts in his neck. All right. We'll take you back. Exactly. We need to show you the whole process and when the top of his head's unscrewed and all that shit. So, he's born in Chicago, July 23rd, 1961. Daniel Cook. Now, he's born three months premature.

And that's for a reason. His parents are Gordon and Wanda Cook. And they're monsters. They're from a lineage of monsters. They were treated horribly. And this is just shit rolling downhill. Got it. Onto shit.

As you know. It's the white trash cycle. It's the white trash cycle. And worse, this isn't even a white trash thing. This is just shit rolling downhill onto shit. It's the white trash cycle. It's the white trash cycle. And worse, this isn't even a white trash thing. This is just abuse cycle. Abuse cycle is a cycle. And you have to make a conscious effort to fucking break that shit and have all sorts of counsel. There's a lot that goes into breaking abuse cycles, as you very well know.

It takes one person. It does. it take one person and then that person teaches their kids how to be good people and then they know no different it's exactly that's the thing unfortunately none of these people were that one person in this at all uh now while wanda was pregnant with daniel here uh she continued to drink which in 1960 that wasn't that was no, but she drank heavily. Oh, yeah. That's different.

Ladies would have like a martini, you know, around the martini hour with a couple of smokes, you know, at night or something. Drinking all day. A couple of drinks. She's a fucking alky. She's just pounding while she was while she was pregnant and was never treated by a doctor while pregnant either. Was just like, it'll come out eventually fuck prenatal thing i budweiser nah i got well back then i mean whatever you still had to get checked out to make sure everything was going okay heartbeat and all that sort of thing

she was like i'm sure it's fine i keep getting fatter so it's working must be working yeah either he's getting bigger or the i don't fucking know something or i don't know i got something growing in there i'll tell you what a baby a tumor something's in there i don't know uh so yeah uh not treated while pregnant uh she drank heavily uh uh that was one of the reasons why they feel like he was born prematurely uh another thing is his father uh great guy gordon cook here uh beat the holy shit out of his mother while she was pregnant continued to beat her unmercifully over the course of her pregnancy and uh you know he was born with uh what they thought might have been a little brain damage uh in here uh this guy's life is

just a fucking harrowing he's born three months premature and he's healthy he's healthy wow i mean apart from a little bit of knock around it turns out yeah and the fetal alcohol nowadays that's fine because that happens a lot we have better medical care but in the 60s that's a that's you pulled you pulled one out there that's that's pretty good yeah that's not bad at all i would say blessings yeah yeah it happens so uh he man uh as even a baby his father burned him with cigarettes jesus christ i mean this is this is as bad as it fucking gets uh uh his mother his mother molested him like that's the type of deep-seated who do you trust after that yeah and this is the i mean for a father to molest their kid it's really out of the fucking bounds of

everything but for a mother to do it it's a whole different ball game psychologically you know just just i mean trust aspect because the mother is the one that carried you for nine months you you naturally have a more you have and mothers have a bond for their kids where they're generally for a mother to do it she has to be profoundly fucking damaged like profoundly that's not a normal you know it's just a different thing so extra damage it's extra the things that had to happen to her ungodly uh now he would say later on quote my my relationship with my mother was sporadic and distance and distant one of the reasons she said she hated me so much is she said that i reminded her visually of my father oh jesus so

this he can't help that no obviously you can't help if you look like your dad uh but uh no way to take care of yourself so you got to stay in this house that's the thing and that's what happens here he protects his mother uh because it's all he's got it's either that or where the fuck else is he gonna go and as a kid you feel like well you don't know any better you're like well it's you know it's that or nothing right this is great i guess not great but uh uh he's later on when he's asked how many times his mother abused him he said seven eight nine he wasn't sure something in that range uh they asked why didn't you tell anyone he said quote i didn't want to lose my mother right which is an obvious answer that a very, that a child would give and a child would feel.

It's hard to, it's hard for, you have to ask that question. Oh yeah. Yeah. But as soon as you blurt that out, you have to know that whatever's coming right back at you is not going to answer that question. I feel like you asked that question to see if he was threatened into not saying anything or were you coerced into it or did you just, did you, were you afraid psychologically? That's very important. Why didn't

you say anything is an important psychological question. And as somebody that has it happen to them, your instinct is, are they asking me if I participated on purpose? It's such a defenseable question. It sucks. And he didn't say, like, you know, I was embarrassed,

which would be a different type of psychological telling. He said I didn't want to you know i was embarrassed which was it would be a different type of psychological telling uh he said it i wanted to i didn't want to lose my mom which is a totally different where else am i gonna go that's almost like that he was like outside of the abuse by that point right like it wasn't even he's already removed himself from exactly where it's like personally thank you that's what i mean it's a weird it's a really weird thing and i've read this guy i jesus christ i had to join it like three different websites for this case three fucking yeah we're this case is now costing us like an extra 60 a month in subscriptions to things just from this case or i had to sign up for shit i found i i have like

a psychological uh court ordered psychological 14 page profile psych work up on him that's just fucking bonkers that uh there's a lot of this is kind of where it comes from uh now uh uh his jesus christ man this is goddamn bonkers so uh he said he wouldn't didn't want to lose his mother his mother ends up giving him and his sister to his grandparents just kind of gives them up uh uh his grandfather would tie him to a chair for punishment and also sexually abused his sister. Kid can't get a break. Yeah. Well, where do you think his mom and dad came from? These people.

These are the last people you send them with. Yeah. That's the thing. It's Jesus Christ, man. It's fucking horrible. The things that happened to this kid. We'll just go over a few things here quickly. His grandmother died, so he and his sister ended up moving back in with his mother, who

by then had remarried, and shocking, didn't marry a nice guy. Surprising, was looking for an abusive asshole like this guy's father and like her own father. So the new husband beat the shit out of him, the other kids, the mother, everybody. The sexual abuse would continue. Now he's got stepbrothers to sexually abuse him and his sister as well, including his stepfather. This is the worst trilogy ever. It's bad stuff. Yeah, this is worse than Lord of the Rings.

It's fucking terrible. Don't even fucking tell me those movies are good. I challenge a human being. I don't care if you say you love them. I'll want to watch you sit there for three and a half or eight or 10 or 12 or however fucking long one of those movies is and not fall asleep. I fucking challenge you to it. I challenge you.

Tell me it's riveting. I dare you. When they turn those fucking lights on in the theater, half those people are wiping drool off of their chins when that came out. I loved it. It was wonderful. Oh, it was great. And then they went online and told everyone how great it was, even though I didn't see

fucking half of it. Bullshit. So sorry. Sean Astin's got a second wind of a career. It was worth every second. Maybe that's why I don't like it because I hate Rudy and it makes me want to fucking want to punch him. The other fuck is terrible, too.

Yeah, but Sean Astin, I'm like, you little fucker fucker you little bat stop trying to play football nobody wants you you son of a bitch you fucking bastard go play for a state school why do you got to play for notre dame maybe if you went and played somewhere you could have got some actual fucking playing time and that stood around like a jackass all the time terrible plot it's a terrible idea the whole plot is is white privilege no the whole plot is man just sacrifice anything that you could do well for the greater good of this giant entity that doesn't give a shit about you except for five seconds that made you feel good otherwise who gives a fuck and then you can wear the notre dame jacket for the rest of your goddamn life no he should have went somewhere else and played he could have went to a shitty

little school go to could have went to like even somewhere just go to illinois state you could have played what are you doing you know the hell is wrong with you so sorry all right now that's enough of that of uh 90s and 2000s movie talk aston brought it about you know what it is his fault fuck him sorry lord of the rings more thank you see i haven't seen a single second of it either and i refuse i'm not trying no when you're trying i i tried to watch it and then i went jesus this is terrible and uh i can't watch it it's so fucking boring this is fucking stupid yeah well like i get it because the books are one thing that's the books are a separate thing we're not talking there's books this is where this guy's yeah jesus christ

there's books i'm out and uh i quit already they're long um but the books are a separate thing we're not talking about the books you like the books good for you that's fine the movies are something different i i tried to watch the uh with with riff tracks which is mike nelson for mystery science theater those guys you know do audio tracks over movies and they're fucking hilarious because they're making fun of these movies i couldn't get through a half hour of it with people making fun of it wow that are hilarious that's a bad movie that's how fucking boring this movie is it does not matter it's so bad so uh yeah bad stuff so anyway back to cook here uh his mother uh also suffers from several mental disorders uh At one point when he was a kid, asked him if he would sit next to her in bed while she overdosed on pills and killed herself.

Like, will you keep me company while I kill myself? I'm in. Which is an odd thing to ask your child and probably psychologically damaging. It'll fuck you up. A little bit, I would imagine. Unless he's at this. How old was he? Because at this age, he might be ready to just be done with her.

Yeah, he was like 12. Yeah, he might not might be ready to just be done with her. Yeah, he was like 12. Yeah, he might not be. No, he was still like her. Yeah. So then afterwards, his mother would always try to attempt suicide. It would happen all the time. So then his stepfather would blame him and his sister and beat the shit out of them for how dare you make your mother want to kill herself.

It's not his fault because he's being an abusive lunatic. It's the kid's fault obviously uh yeah uh now his friend he's got a friend here that he met in the fourth grade that all through his fucked up troubled life somehow this guy remains friends with him in a weird way the kind of a disconnected way like this guy has a normal life they don't hang out every day and do weird shit or anything like that but he's somehow always kind of checked in with cook every once in a while a kid with a big heart that's just yeah that there's a problem but exactly doesn't recognize the problem doesn't know what to do about it or anything like that but he's like man i'll check up on my friend daniel

here because he's always all fucked up yeah and he sticks with him all the way through this whole thing which is crazy uh he says quote even though i was young i could tell dan was neglected like even the kids knew it like they knew it if if the other kids know there's a problem you know what i mean i had a friend that was the same way i knew that we all had that we all knew kids like that we all knew kids that you could tell yeah they're abusive or just being neglected or you just tell something was off and uh i spent the night at his house once oh that's the worst that shit wasn't good there that's the worst i've looked him up on social media since then he exists nowhere and i just hope his parents didn't kill him or something dude we've all he's probably in jail right we could be we've all spent the night at

that house where you get there and you're like oh i shouldn't have spent the night here i want to go back home and it's weird and they have like an older brother who's terrorizing you and like the parents are fucking mean and it's creepy brother that pooped in the tub the kid's super scared of his dad for some reason you're like it's weird man yeah those are not cool bizarre houses bizarre houses so uh he could tell he was neglected everybody could uh just before he turned 15 his mother cook's mother here uh hands him over to the state of california says don't need him anymore here you go all yours uh so now he's custody of the state so now they're in california they're in california that's where they ended up uh he ends

up going to the mckinley home for boys in san dimas california oh sweet jesus uh which obviously these are never these are terrible places terrible. Let's 60s and 70s. They don't even watch them. They don't think about it. Once he was there, he was absolutely abused worse than he was in his entire life. He said it was around twice a week, depending on how careless I was. So abuse was punishment for different forms of abuse for punishment for different infractions. for different forms of abuse, for punishment, for different infractions.

One of the persons here, a guy named Howard Bennett Jr., who is a house parent at McKinley, ends up serving a 214-year sentence in prison for sexual abuse of the kids that are underneath him. Of every kid there, probably. Of everybody that he's ever been in contact with. Fucking jerk-off. Fucking horrible people. Yeah, he said that, he said that he the cook said

that he would have other boys abuse him physically sexually any way they that this guy deemed basically uh they they you know it was it was punishment for not following rules and shit like that uh he said whoever vetted and hired that guy should be in there too yeah they didn't vet them back then it was just anybody who wanted to work there. They didn't do background checks back then. Or if they did, it was like, give me three references. Oh, he's OK. Sure.

If they didn't have a computer background check in fucking 1975 of, you know, any kind of federal registry or sex offense registry or even just anything. I mean, there's no background check on the questionnaire. There should be. Why do you want to work here? And then when they fill that out, hit them again. Now, there's no background check. On the questionnaire, there should be, why do you want to work here? And then when they fill that out, hit them again. Now the real reason. Yeah.

Why the fuck? What the fuck do you really want? Why do you want to work with little boys? What's your deal? And it's so sad, but like, it's sad to be suspicious of people, but I have always the little league theory where I'm like, no one who, who you should have to force someone to be a little league coach. Anyone who's excited to show,

anyone who's excited and shows up a half hour early with orange slices, be fucking leery of that guy. But there's also people who are just good people, and then they look like shit next to these people because you can't tell the difference. Yeah, because they all look the same. You don't know until the molesting happens. That's the problem.

Up front, they both are there a half hour early smiling with orange slices. Who the fuck knows what their intentions are you know some of these people really just want to make sure that kid has a nice even swing could hit the ball to right field that's all they're looking for and then some of them are looking to diddle them one of the guys has specific plays drawn up for one little boy because he's good at it and the other one has it because he wants to spend more time with him because he wants to fuck him that's the thing and a lot of times it's it's both for these people. They might be, you know, let's just use a coach as an example.

Use a coach and they might actually help kids and do all that and be really good at the coaching aspect of it. But then they prey on the two weak kids on the team that they know have problems and won't fucking tell on them. So predators are fucking disgusting people, basically. And as you know way better than I do uh about that and my grandfather was a scout leader and that poor guy's got that stigma but yeah he's going to camp with kids and yeah and there's plenty of dudes that did that shit that did terrible things my grandfather think christ is a fucking hero yeah no it's true and it depends on i don't know and i don't want

to fucking get into this too much with you and make you uncomfortable, but I know you've discussed this on the show plenty of times before. But, you know, the fucking, I don't even know how to phrase this to not be hard. The time I was fucked, go on. The dude who diddled you, who was this in relation to you? Okay, so I don't want to go too far into that. Don't go too in. Just a basic general. It's a family friend.

Okay, that's what I meant. A relation or a family friend or something like that. It's always somebody close. Somebody close that's trusted enough to be around a kid. It's very rarely a boogeyman that breaks in in the middle of the night. Very rarely. It's so rare. That's rare.

It's always a few. Because there's grooming involved. Exactly. You can't groom someone. Because you've got to trust somebody. Exactly. It's either a violent blitzkrieg attack or it's a trust building and you generally don't live to tell that story exactly that's the thing there

okay so yeah this is anytime it's that it's always worse i feel like so uh uh so jesus christ that's why i have a hard time trusting people and that's why i don't like people don't fucking blame you it's very hard to take somebody's word when that person gave me his word too and it hurt well fuck man that's i think that's understandable for anybody out there jesus christ man uh so at this point he's in special ed classes also and it's not for intelligence it's based on behavioral things he's's got behavioral problems. He he also when he was before he went here, he's before he was in the home before his mother gave him up this last time when he was there with the stepfather. They said he was treated that him and his sister and his sister backs us up or treated completely differently than the other kids that the man had. Like they were it was like a Cinderella situation.

Like they were not treated like parts of the family. They like oh you two don't belong with us you two stay over there uh so it was bad a lot of uh physical abuse uh a lot like i said he had the guy molested his sister bad stuff here uh so basically at this point he starts doing uh some drugs as a teenager because once he's like 16 and he's in and out of this home and shit this is when he's going to start looking for ways to kind of mask this this this shit here so it's drugs it's alcohol it's anything he could get his hands on basically he said it was anything that would slow my brain down is the way he put it uh he ran away from the home several times the mckinley, as you would if you're being abused constantly.

He this he's this starts in January 1976 and then just goes on and on with all of these these attempted runaways and things like that. His discharge from the home also says about him that while he was in the home at age 15 they circumcised him for some reason why we don't not like they didn't like come in the middle of the night and do it it was a medical procedure but for some reason he that late i don't know if this was a remember that i don't know if this was a religious thing or if this was a like we're gonna fix you up type of thing or maybe you couldn't keep because you got to take care of that shit otherwise yeah i don't think oh yeah yeah you get infections and shit there's another way that we differ yeah i don't like the the whole business up now i whatever now i'm kind of a conspiracy theorist that it's it's a fucking racket the doctor charged you to do it then they sell it

to a skin bank it's gross yeah there's a whole thing there but also i don't know my dick doesn't look weird so i'm happy about it. Mine does, and I don't care about it. But as a kid, you have to fucking do so much to it because you're constantly dirty. My dick doesn't look like a chewed-on cigar, so I'm happy about that. Mine looks like a soggy joint. Like a soggy backwoods. I wish it looked like a cigar.

A backwoods cigar, I'm talking. Like a pinner. The backwoods look like I'm talking. That looks like a pinner. The backwoods look like they're hand-rolled and fucking messy. That's what I mean. It's like shit hanging out of the front. It's all uneven at the front with fucking tobacco and semen hanging out of the front. It's got whatever's in your boxers stuck to the tip of it. If we could get any grosser with this episode, I think we have.

We need to put a disclaimer for disgustingness at the top of this shit here wow uh so uh either way though it's the reports say that this bennett guy who is the main the main awful abuser uh was the one who instructed him to have the circumcision so i don't know if this was for sexual purposes or for cleanliness or for religious or for just some sort of weird control. I'll control your dick to the point of how much skin is on it. I'll go a step further. That guy shouldn't know that he's circumcised or not.

No, but he's fucking, yeah. But he knows. He probably shouldn't anyway. That's my point. He should have never seen these boys' dicks at all, ever. There should be no knowledge of what's on the end of that guy's day no no well back then it was considered you know fucking sandusky fine to shower with a boy you know what i mean for some reason like i don't know what the fuck everyone was thinking back then so bizarre uh they were so afraid of

gayness that they were like no one's. I'll shower with a boy right here. There's no such thing as gay. I'll prove it by any grown man here can shower with my son right now. Son, take your pants off. What do you think of his uncircumcised cock? Show him your foreskin, kid. Give him your opinion. Yeah, okay, we'll circumcise him.

It's crazy. So he ends up in a few, he ends up leaving finally and ends up the home and ends up in a few different foster homes before finally, finally, finally ending up with some decent people who aren't complete monsters who take care of him. Treat him like a human being and a member of the family and try to completely turn his life around. This is Lisa and Tom Moss. And the damage is done. Damage is done, but at least they can teach you

that not everyone in the world is horrible. There needs to be something, because plenty of people have this exact upbringing. This upbringing is not uncommon. Not at all. And not all these people end up on our show. We'll just say that. Some of them listen to it.

Some of them listen to it, which is great. That's so much better than outward, because some people get help. It i mean you need there's a lot a lot that goes into this shit but he ends up with these people and they need to be praised because people like this are fucking saints they've take for decades they took in foster children and they were always good to them treated them well dozens of kids were raised by them and are better people because of it and people that do that are fucking saints because people who are raised like this poor guy and end up you know and never end up in an environment like that they don't have the chance to see that people are

humans they end up dead in that house where the abuse is happening that's the thing they end up there or they end up killing themselves or it happens uh at christmas time in his first year there they gave him a camera and they said he cried uncontrollably uh for 20 minutes and wept because he never got a present this thing ever he never got a present like that before nobody gave him shit and you know he was allowed to just be a person and have that uh so this was right after he was discharged in december of 1977 is it 16 years old uh so i mean jesus christ it's hard enough to be 16 so uh the reports of the summary also said that he would do a lot of self-harm he dislocated his thumb and would do it on part like he would hurt himself on purpose he re-injured it several times

to where they're going farther they thought it was on purpose uh he would he broke his thumb at one point on purpose uh would cut himself would starve himself uh things like that uh he spent time all over in these foster homes but finally when he ends up with tom and lisa moss things get a little bit better uh 1978 school records show that he lived with the mosses at that time uh when he attended high school. He ends up withdrawing from school in 1979 to move to Arizona, is what it says in the papers. He was 17 years old there. Now, obviously, when he's with the Mosses, he never sees his family. His real family never sees them. After that, he ends up in the uh uh in the uh army reserves okay he joins the army reserves

which i mean he's trying to find some place he belongs with some structure where he could you know try to fit in i guess um he's so tempered by by abuse oh you can't hurt this guy that is the army boot camp is a picnic compared to what he's been through at At least if he messes up, no one's going to fuck him. No. You know what I mean? Beat the living shit out of him. No. Don't run him.

Yeah. Great. Fine. That's nothing to this guy. That's a fucking walk in the park. Love it. Love it. No, you're not going to be behind me while I'm doing them?

Fucking no? Wonderful. I'm not going to push up into your thumb. You're not going to rape my sister, are you? Okay, great. This is fantastic. Love you, drill sergeant. And three meals a day.

Because that was the other thing they said, is he didn't get fed properly as a child. They said whenever he did get real food, once in a blue moon, the mother would give him cottage cheese and fruit that was healthy. And it would make him throw up because he doesn't eat fruit. He doesn't eat food. He eats shit food. So, yeah yeah it's fucking sad so uh anyway he uh he uh eventually attempts suicide while in the reserves and they end up discharging him uh for that and uh this is when he kind of wanders around he somehow he ends up in

in uh in wyoming uh for a while here he's arrested a bunch of times for public intoxication between 1979 and 1980 in Wyoming. Deadwood or something? No, Wyoming. Cheyenne, not South Dakota. Yeah, it was somewhere in there. Who the hell knows? There's nothing in Wyoming now. I don't know what the hell was there in 1979.

How could they even bust you wandering? There's all space. It's you and a sheriff. That's it. He found the.002% of the state that had people in it and fucking had to wander there. Anywhere else. And enough for police to be around. Anywhere else, it's just you and the bison.

Go crazy. Be as drunk as you want. So, yeah, when he was in the Army, he was in Fort McClellan, Alabama, and he would be written up for consuming alcohol. So he wouldn't really stay in the rules also. He would be written up for consuming alcohol. So he wouldn't really stay in the rules also. In 1980, he attempted to kill himself by overdosing on several different medications there.

There was, you know. And that was in the Army. That was in the Army. And they said in his, he was honorably discharged. But in his papers, they said that they had no doubt that he would attempt suicide again. And that this isn't a good environment for him. God, no. Yeah. I don't need that guy.

Yeah. No good here. After in a battlefield that he's shooting and they like, fuck it. And you shoot yourself or the guy next to you or. Yeah. Either way, not helpful. No, not helpful in what they need him for. So he's returned to Idaho at this point.

He returns to Idaho to live with an old foster mother of his, not the Mosses, a woman named Barbara Williamson. It's at this point that he drank really heavily in August of 1980. That's when he ends up going back to Wyoming again to look for work because, you know, where you go where there's no people. That's where the work is. there's no people that's where the work is so uh he uh he remained in wyoming with uh with a woman named den or a guy named uh dennis ward and then uh he ended up driving a truck for a while and then he ended up being fired in november of that year uh 1980 for alcohol abuse because you know when you're trucking you don't want to do that you can't be drunk no that's kind of important that's the one first thing you know how to drive a truck are you drunk those are the two questions they ask you in 1980 that's all there was that's it right you're on meth that's

fine good i said i said are you drunk are you drunk we need you on meth how else are you going to get the load there yeah obviously here takes do you need to borrow some speed because i got a bunch otherwise you know whatever but drunk the glove box fuck no right if you are drunk take some meth it'll really level you out you'll be fine you can hit that trail do it up man uh so uh yeah he uh he ends up being fired because of alcohol abuse uh so at the end of 1980 and so he's got no job uh three days after he loses his job he is uh admitted to a county hospital in wyoming sweetwater county hospital for attempting suicide uh through an overdose of sleep ease which i assume is a sleep over the counter shit sleep medication conico or something yeah it's terrible it's the opposite of trucker

speed whatever whatever the opposite of trucker speed is that's what that is instead of truckers they got i gotta get trucker speed and then sleepy so I can go to sleep once I stop. He was also abusing alcohol at the time, too, while taking all the sleepies. So that's a problem here. And then finally, December 1st, 1980, he gets out of the hospital for the suicide attempt and then ends up going right back in for a psychiatric hospital now. So he's hospitalized. At least he's getting help. Needs the help.

He's being treated there. It's at this point that he describes having blackouts from alcohol. Not only that, just having blackouts in general in his timeline of events. He described having, quote, little or no self-esteem, views himself as worthless, and he said he used alcohol to soften these feelings, which is why people drink. That's why we drink there, I would imagine. He also

admitted to being hospitalized on eight or ten occasions for alcohol related reasons. So he's a binge drinker. He becomes, he says he drinks too much becomes ill and he can't take care of himself and he becomes you know kind of a mess and this is what happens so he kind of gets arrested okay almost on purpose uh they also uh they uh uh they talked to his foster mother there the barbara williamson who said he had hang-ups about uh he had hang-ups

about his mom still and he still talked about needing his mother's love and shit like that. He still never wrote his mother off. That's how different that connection is. Also said that he left while Cook lived with Williamson. He left several times to go visit his mother to try to reconcile with his mother, only to return heartbroken every time because she didn't give a shit. He also said, they said in therapy sessions, though, he would not admit that his mother doesn't want him. He wouldn't admit it. He'd say, no, no, no, it's not that.

He would always have excuses. He would make excuses for his mother. This is crazy. It's fucking crazy. So they said that he would need her love and he would always try to give it one more try and it would never work out, obviously. His mother said the doctor ended up speaking to his mother at one point. And in his notes, he said, quote, I've never talked to a colder, more heartless person

in my many years of social work. The social worker said that about his mother, about Cook's mom. Never talked to a colder, more heartless person in my many years of social work the social worker said that about his mother about cook's mom never talked to a colder more heartless person and this is a man that deals with cold heartless people in my many years of social work unbelievable so i mean that's she's not a good person that's bad shit you know what else you haven't mentioned this entire story yet this is a man in his 20s and you haven't said one time his girlfriend nope uh he ends up finding women but he has problems with sexuality he has he's not sure of what he is who he is he's he's yeah this is all this really is me that's what i say with a lot more it's all really normal thoughts here normal psychological things that happened from the fucking upbringing he had

he uh he he continues to try suicide attempts over the years uh he sees uh you know all sorts of mental health professionals for depression for his alcoholism different types of psychosis he has temporary kind of altered states of reality and things like that, alternate senses of reality. He does get his GED on January 8th, 1981, which tells you exactly how easy it is to get a GED. This guy in his complete, we just described what's going on. He could still sit down, hasn't been in school in years, and fucking get a GED. That's how easy it is. The other part of what the army will take, they'll take fucking everybody. That's the other thing, because he didn't have a GED.

Yeah, because I have a GED, and it was the easiest fucking thing in the world so anyone who doesn't have a diploma or a gd you're just either lazy or the dumbest fuck alive one of the two because it's easy super easy so uh on uh on january 20th 1981 he ends up being released from the wyoming state hospital after they find that he's not a danger to himself or others. He's good now. He's fine. Everything's fine. They said that he was reported to have participated in much of the treatment. He's reported as cooperative.

He's diagnosed with alcohol addiction and a passive aggressive personality with antisocial features. There you go. The summary also said that he was returning to idaho to live with barbara williamson uh so he returned there goes to idaho lives with that barbara williamson he does odd jobs and uh works for the forestry department for a while he's just trying to find his way i think at this point he's in his man he's like 22 he's in and out he's got you know been discharged from the. He's in and out of the hospital. Not a lot of...

Several suicide attempts. That's what I mean. He's not going to go get a job for a Fortune 500 company and start working his way up the ladder at this point. He's just trying to stay, you know, get a paycheck here. He was also drinking, though, at the time. And he would continue to see a psychologist and a social worker, though. So he's making an effort. He's self-medicating, but he he's making an effort he's you know he's he's self-medicating but he's

still you know making an effort so uh at the end of 1981 december 11th uh he ends up checking himself uh back into an idaho state hospital now he was consuming too much alcohol and he tried to kill himself with a shotgun but he couldn't reach the trigger uh so he's a little guy that is a huge shotgun right uh his girlfriend had broken up with him three or four days prior to this and he went into a tailspin and tried to kill himself and uh that whole thing and so he ends up going into the hospital though otherwise so that's smart anyway i understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife. Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier.

I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you the official Jinx podcast. We'll be revisiting all six episodes of part one and watching along with part two as it airs on Max, starting April 21st. Bye-bye.

The official Jinx podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched.

He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people, with a touch of humor, I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great, a dash of sarcasm, and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal or you love to hop in the way back 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 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. He ends up being, he's, okay, I'll tell you exactly how tall he is. He's up being he's okay, I'll tell you exactly how tall he is. He's 70 inches tall, which is think about it. Six foot

of 72. Yeah, well I was going 60 inches is five feet. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so we went the opposite way. So yeah, he's 5'10". When he checked himself into the hospital, he weighed 127 pounds. That's a little guy. That's so skinny.

That's sick. That's insane. The 127 pounds at 5'10". I was 5'3", 120 when I graduated high school, and that was amazing. 5'3", 5'10". Yeah. I mean, Jesus Christ, I can't even describe who you are. That's so skinny.

Yeah, you need to be rescued by allied describe who you are. That's so skinny. Yeah, that's, you need to be rescued by, you know, allied troops at that point. That's fucking horrible. You could be adopted if you just had flies in a distended belly. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, people are going to plead for you. He was living with her and, you know, referred to her as the Williamson lady as his foster mother, although she wasn't legally a foster mother. She was just a lady who was taking care of him. He's a goddamn adult. although she wasn't legally a foster mother. She was just a lady who was taking care of him. He's a goddamn adult.

That's the other thing here. So he ends up, about three months go by, and he leaves the hospital against professional advice. The reason he leaves the hospital against professional advice, what would make you, there's certain things that can draw people away from a situation like this. Sometimes it's just a snap. Sometimes a lot of different things he leaves to get married um what who there's a lot of questions there um what is she doing i'll give you one guess who she is yeah uh she works there you bet your ass she does yep she

is a staff member at the hospital damn it girl so this that she's a monster too now because you this guy needs fucking help and instead she's taking him out of the hospital and she knows he needs help she works there for christ's sake and uh yeah so not great uh so he ends up it's a woman named laura he ends up uh leaving to get married to laura and uh yeah so um not good She's an enabling asshole. Yeah, yeah. She needs to look back at conflict of interest. Fuck, man. I don't understand. Well, I guarantee you. She caused him harm.

Yeah, that's definitely against the rules, I'm sure. I would fucking well say so. And then for him to leave and marry her, I assume she was fired for that. So a week later, though, after he leaves to marry her, he's readmitted to the state hospital for an attempted suicide. So a week goes by. He became depressed after he was unable to find employment because he's like, they got married. Now, he had this like he had a manic swing where he was up and he's like, we're going to get married. I'm going to get a job.

We're going to fix this life. Fix it. We're going to have a nice little thing and pretend like none of this ever happened. Because if we make a nice little house for ourselves and we're this, none of that happened our little house protects us protects my mind from everything and that's not how it works but that's how people think that's how your brain works and he's in life weeds that are taller than he is oh he's trying to he's trying to attack them all in a day and a half he's like let's just knock it down you know in a week later he's like i didn't fix it well fuck no you didn't fix it Your wife weeds are two months worth of work.

No, no, his two-stroke is not going to cut that down. He's kind of fucked there. That unreliable shit, the reeds are bad, the fucking mixture's off. He's fucked, so it's a fucking mess. And in a week, he couldn't fix it all in a week, and he was like, that's it, it's over. Didn't do it in a week.

He tried to uh uh overdose on laura's medication uh which was he took 30 uh mice myceline myceline d tablets i don't know if that's like musculine muscle relaxer i have no idea my soul my s o l i n e d tablets i don't know what that is uh they see him. He goes to the hospital for that. They said he feels, the report there says he feels depressed and suicidal even when he's sober. They said that he can function at a high level for a period of time, but as soon as any stressful situation occurred, he'd become angry, depressed, and he would try to kill himself. That's how this works. That's how cyclical depression works he's mentally ill yeah you think you can fix it and then the challenges approach and then you can't and when you add alcohol to that also you're just magnifying everything by 10 good you're making it a fucking mess so it's a goddamn mess it's shocking that as

much professional help as he has had he doesn't recognize this when it happens yeah well yeah he's mental health that's meant that's the problem that's how you know it's a it's an issue here uh so he also uh he said that he had periods when he was very impulsive and would act without thinking they they found you know in him uh march 22nd 1982 he jumps over the door watch table like the table there that they watched the door of the place. You know, like you see. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to check people in and out.

He jumps over it and left the hospital running toward town. So at that point, Laura had withdrew $4,000 from her bank account and purchased Greyhound bus tickets. That's an expensive. You could have flown for that much. They're going to go down and they're going to have cash in their pockets. And he's discharged the next day. They buy the bus? Well, they could have bought the whole town they moved to.

They moved to Kingman, Arizona, which is a shitty... You can buy... Well, then you could have bought all the meth in Kingman. Now it's way too much. But then, all the meth in Kingman for four grand. So they moved to Kingman together. And shockingly, you know, it's way too much but then all the meth and kingman for four grand uh so they moved to kingman together and shockingly you know it's surprising you figure there's some people you look at and you're like well if they can't make it what hope do i have and i feel like this is that kind of

couple if uh if a mentally disturbed alcoholic horribly disturbed person and the abusive fucking care worker who fucking ran away with them and let them check out of a hospital. If they can't make it on the run, who can? What chance do we have as people, Jimmy? Never mind. I do. I do see. Abandon your partners.

It's not going to work. I do see his angle of a mental health professional is what he's marrying. Yeah. So he feels safe and like she can help. And I'm sure she was in some sort of position of trust and she treated him well so he felt like he could trust her and this is horrible uh yeah so they eventually break up yeah you know obviously so she's gonna go you're fucking nuts yeah and i'm so am i right and i need to go find they're both

nuts we both need somebody normal i'm gonna go find mine you find yours enjoy uh so they uh he spends time in and out of hospitals while he's here also uh you know he doesn't doesn't stop his behavior i mean but he always seeks help that's the thing he'll always seek treatment he always seeks help like he knows that much he knows the reaction of i do this and then i gotta seek help you know and that will make me feel a little bit better so at least least he's got that. Some people don't even have that. So he's got that. But that doesn't help with his behavior. So, yeah, he ends up there at the hospital.

He's admitted to Mojave General Hospital for suicidal behavior. One thing. Fucking county. Yeah, it's bad stuff out there, too. Yeesh. He's diagnosed again with the same passive-aggressive personality with depressive and behavioral episodes. September of 1983, the next year, he's admitted to the hospital based on a suicidal gesture, and he's given a diagnosis of schizophrenia and alcohol abuse.

There you go. He's so fucked up they can't even nail down a diagnosis ever because it's almost shifting from time to time. But the first one was just so loose of a definition. He's a little, he's kind of a dick. He's antisocial. He's got some problems. That's basically what they said. I don't know.

He's kind of a pain in the ass. Talk to him. You'll see. That was, no. Let's get specific on this and see what the fuck happened. Anti-social is just people that don't like to be around people. That's all that is. That's not actually.

No, but I mean, that's anti-social medically is aggressive. It's not a, but it's an aggression. It's not just sounds more just, it's not a good description of what that is. I'm not social, but I'm not anti-social. You know what I mean? No, no, no. Anti-social is aggressive completely against being social i am you are anti-social but i'm not anti-social that's the difference see that's what i've taken out on society it doesn't sound like well it's just english words yeah yeah medical whatever they need to give it

a better word i would say so i fucking agree sound right it doesn't yeah i totally fucking agree because people say that all the time i'm really antisocial it's like you're actually not you know what you're talking about this is the last time you cut the head off yeah i haven't seen that lately i'm checking your watch no okay you just don't want to go to that fucking work party you don't want to go to happy hour and fun no that's not the same as being antisocial team building exercise did you shoot everyone in their cubicles no well that's antisocial behavior not just not feeling like going so he's admitted the next year to the hospital for inflicting wounds on his left forearm with a razor blade as well so it's it's kind of uh not not a true attempt to the suicide they don't think

it's just uh it's a cry for help it help. I can't remember the exact medical term. There's a medical term for it. Superficial? Just wounds like that? Not the wound type. It's a certain... Oh, it's a medical description of it? Of what psychologically that is.

It's not a suicide attempt. I can't remember what it's technically called, that kind of cry for help. But he is then a few weeks later, he's hospitalized and given a diagnosis of acute psychosis and alcohol ingestion because he's drunk as shit. Three days later, he ends up being readmitted for alcohol overdose. They rule out a head injury and anything like that at that point. They said he doesn't have a head injury and anything like that at that point. They said he doesn't have a head injury. At some point in 1986, he becomes romantically involved in a relationship with a woman named Barbara who he met in Kingman. So bad right away. Meets a woman in Kingman.

Run. Barbara had two children, Becky and Sean. run uh barbara had two children uh becky and sean uh uh they uh he really fell in love with barbara right away it was all like he did with anybody who would kind of give him the time of day uh he he uh you know he he had problems but she kind of was okay with it which is weird because she has two kids she'd kind of go along with it. But in March of 1987, she breaks up with him. And that precipitates quite the fucking downslide of his personality here.

He has a calendar that counts each day that she's gone without her, like this many days without Barbara. This many days without Barbara. Yeah, he's kind of uh obsessed like a prisoner trying to get out of prison yeah like slash marks on the wall he writes her letters uh uh he expresses the love for her in these letters and he says that he's

doing everything he can he got a job at bob's big boy yeah if you're not from the west coast bob's big boy is a burger fucking restaurant with the giant fat kid on the thing with the burger. It's a California thing. It ended up being BJ's later. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's owned by the Rally's and Checkers and they all own that shit. Oh, that makes sense. I think they're all. A Rally's kid with Checkered shit on it. Yeah. I think they're all the same company now. But back then, I don't think they were. But he said that he got a job at Bob's Big Boy and that he's trying his best.

And he's advancing in his job, he says. He's making advancements in his job. And he's trying to convince her he's a worthy guy to have around. Look, I can do things. I can make burgers well. I'm a functional member. That's it. The letter says that both the letters say all he wants is to be with her and her children as a family that's all he wants is to be a family and have a family uh uh this

goes on for a couple months uh the one dated july 2nd talks about i'm doing great at bob's big boy and everything's wonderful this is july 2nd 1987 now july 17th 1987 it's a friday uh cook quits his job uh enough quits his job at bob's big boy after his boss his boss makes remarks about barbara because he's obsessed and he keeps talking about her i'm just trying to get barbara back and all this barbara put the just drop him in the fire jesus we don't care he wants slices of tomato. That's it. Shut up. Two slices of tomato. Hold the Barbara. Fuck off.

So, yeah, apparently his boss told him to leave his problems at home, and he got pissed off and quit. He said, look, I'm tired of hearing it. It's fucking none of us. We work in fast food. You think any of us are happy? We are all miserable. We all have missed opportunities. of hearing it it's fucking none of us we work in fast food you think any of us are happy we're all miserable we all have missed opportunities we all have loves that are unrequited because who the

fuck wants to be with us we're covered in fucking mayonnaise and hamburger grease the whole time shut up and be like everybody else was it it's an i remember that place being like a 50s kind of kind of yeah i wonder if there was a barbara ann burger oh i'm sure every time that came barbara and he's like i hate the beach boys i'll fucking stab them all he's just crying every time every sobbing did they order a barbara and god damn it god damn beach boys fuck brian wilson leave your problems at all yeah so uh he ends up quitting though and uh uh he uh and his calendar notes at that point. He writes on his calendar, Barb and kids gone March 3rd, 1987. He writes that under Saturday, July 18th.

He's just writing the date they left on the calendar at that point. They break off the relationship. Apparently, they were planning on moving in together. That was the thing, and then she broke it off. He's on his own. So he ends up, he finds a place to live. Old cook here, Dan Cook. He finds a guy named John Matsky, who M-A-T-Z-K-E for reference.

John Matsky is a fellow big boy employee. Hell yeah. And so while he's working at bob's big boy he gets an apartment with this guy it's like fuck it you know whatever a roommate so they get a two-bedroom place that they call they're gonna that's gonna be their party place they say because you know yeah swinging when you get home from the big boy yeah once i wash the stink of fucking fried grease off of me i'm gonna get down like a motherfucker tonight oh wait no i make three dollars an hour never mind how do i afford this apartment holy shit not a lot left for partying not a lot left over here so uh yeah uh and also living with them is a guy named carlos cruz ramos you said two

bedrooms two bedrooms oh boy he sleeps on the floor carlos cruz ramos he is a uh he also worked at the big boy and he is here illegally from nicaragua so he's just trying to lay low uh real low real low like on well yeah right down on the ground level in case they look through the windows i'm not here yeah no shit so uh yeah he quits his job like we said this is right before his birthday too was born in July here. So he said that he couldn't take the criticism of the boss telling him not to bring his problems to work, which is just a pretty basic one. He wasn't really just ragging on him. He said, can you stop?

Just don't bring your problems to work. Make your fucking burgers and go home. Who cares? So instead, he stopped taking his anti-anxiety medication because he said the side effects weren't okay. Whatever the side effects were, the main effects were to have him be able to lead a life where he doesn't end up in a hospital every other week. So helpful. Remember that part where you wanted to be a functioning member? I'm sure that stuff contributed to that.

A little bit. So July 19th, Sunday comes around. This is in Lake Havasu City. They're living in this apartment in Lake Havasu City. Cruz Ramos had just moved in there. He just needed a place to stay, so he sleeps on the floor, like we said. Now, this day, July 19th, 1987. Now, pickets, it's Lake Havasu. It's hot as fuck.

It gets fucking hot there. It gets hotter there than here. It's way hot there. Death Valley is by there. Yeah, it's hot there. It gets hotter there than here. It's way hot there. Death Valley is by there. Yeah, it's smoking hot. So we're talking a hot day. July in Arizona, there is no reprieve. It's just hot.

No. So this day, over the course of the day, he and his roommate, Cook and Matsky, have drank at least two cases of beer each. Or two cases of beer total. They drank at least a cases of beer each or two cases of beer. Totally drank at least a case each 48 beers. So there are at least 24 beers deep each into this whole thing. Also, Cook has taken 40 milligrams of Valium, which with that much alcohol. That's a lot.

I don't know how you're standing. That's a lot. Oh, that's how he's standing. He's also been taking meth the entire weekend. That's how you stand still after you've taken booze and Valium. You're on a shitload of meth, which shows you how fucking crazy meth is. Even that much Valium and booze can't take you down if you're on that much meth. Think about that shit.

That's amazing. That's a shitload of Valium. That's what I'm saying. Those are like eight to ten a piece, I think. That's almost an ad for meth. You could be fucking crammed full of Valium and a case of beer. You snort this, you'll be at work. You'll be driving a truck in two hours.

Don't worry about it, buddy. Holy shit. So, yeah, they're doing all of this. Obviously, the Valium and the meth and the alcohol are all going to do a horrible little hell dance together in your brain. And God knows what's going to come out of it. It's going to be fucking ugly. That's the worst hokey pokey I've ever seen in my life. That's a forbidden dance indeed.

Wow. Talk about turning yourself around. So this day here, they're both Matsky and Cook are both using crystal meth, obviously. So they're both using meth the whole weekend, all that sort of thing. The day, Sunday, Matsky says he hadn't used meth that day yet, but he's unsure if Cook had used meth because he'd been in his bedroom with the door shut. So who knows what he was doing in there? Could have been doing anything.

Obviously, when I see a door shut, I assume there's meth use on the other side of it oh obviously it's weird when i go to a hotel i know one thing he was crying about barbara i don't know what else he was doing yeah imagine this guy's roommate just a constant barbara jesus christ that's why he had to drink and do so much meth just to be able to hear about barbara for all that fucking time that guy hates the name barbara he goddamn hates it uh so uh uh the guy's not sure though on sunday if cook was doing that but this matski does know that cook has not slept in five days five five days so i'm gonna assume he's been doing meth this day because if you take that much booze and valium after being up for four days you will go to sleep yeah fucking period so

unless you take a bunch more meth then you you're awake. On that fifth day. Oh, baby. So, you know, this is all meth behavior, obviously. Very common in this area of Arizona. Very common behavior. Northwest Arizona. This is not uncommon behavior. So he, yeah, a lot of alcohol and everything like that.

Jesus Christ, that's so much beer to a case of beer. You'd have to feel so gross. A beer buzz. Oh, God, Jesus. In the 120 degree heat. A beer buzz alone is not a fantastic buzz. It's whatever. You can get drunk.

You can get drunk. But the amount of fucking bloat and shit you feel because you have that much beer inside you. Oh, it's terrible. It's horrible. Imagine the shits this guy was taking. Oh, dear Lord. Jesus. Eating Bob's Big Boy and drinking a case of beer. If you're going to drink a case of beer, just drink a fifth of fucking whiskey. Yeah, yeah. Make it

easier on yourself. Just so much. So this Sunday, Matsky's at work at Big Boy. He comes home that afternoon to start hitting up the beer so they could do a bunch of beer. And he hasn't, that's what I mean.

He hadn't done meth yet that day. He's been at work. So, uh, uh, cook at this point, when Matt's gets home from work, cook is on a five day meth binge,

all hopped up on booze and Valium and everything. He tells this Matt ski, he says, look, Ramos, I know he's got a lot of money. He's got money in here and, and we should take it.

Oh, floor guy has money. Floor guy has money. Well, he's not paying the rent money. He's got money in here, and we should take it. Floor guy has money? Floor guy has money. Well, he's not paying the rent. I don't know if he has some sort of Nicaraguan currency or something. He's socking it away? He's socking it away. Now, what we're thinking of is a lot of money, and what he's saying is a lot of money are really different.

Vastly apart. Yeah, we're talking 90 bucks. That's a lot of money oh boy not he's got you know four grand stashed in a fucking like laura in an envelope under his fucking sleeping bag he's got 90 bucks like that's all he's got nicaraguan can't even afford a fucking greyhound ticket at this point no no no not at all yeah he's he's stuck there so uh uh he says that he wants to take it so about 6 p.m cook tells matsky look take ramos upstairs be like hey tell him uh because matsky has a balcony in his bedroom in his apartment he

says tell him the view is really awesome from up there and be like oh come out check the view out it's really cool come up and have a beer and check the view out so he says you know get him out of his room or get him out of off of his floor. So get him off the carpet. So Ramos, you know, shrugs and goes upstairs. Sure. Someone says they're going to show you the view. You go look at the fucking view. So they go up.

They look at the view. Ramos is like, the fuck are you showing me this for? It's ugly. Right. It's this is not a good view. It looks worse up here. It's worse. Yeah.

That's just a strip mall down there. Down there. I only see a little bit up here. I see all of it. I see all the stink. So they go downstairs, Matsky and Ramos back downstairs, talking about that view. Man, wasn't that spectacular? Oh, the sunset.

My God. Can you believe it still looks like shit up there? It's orange and purple. It was majestic. So when he gets downstairs, Ramos discovers that his money pouch is missing. He had the money in a little pouch there and he says his money pouch is missing. Where the fuck's my money? So, uh, cook says, I don't know.

Check around the house. Why don't you check around here? Look upstairs. Maybe it's upstairs. Who knows? Did you leave it up on the balcony? Did you just take it up there and drop it and then forget 10 seconds later? You know, so the guy goes, all right.

And he didn't see it anywhere else. So he said, maybe it's upstairs. So Ramos goes upstairs all right. And he didn't see it anywhere else. So he said, maybe it's upstairs. So Ramos goes upstairs. As he goes upstairs, once he heads upstairs, Cook grabs him, grabs a hold of him. Okay. Matsky rips up some bed sheets at this point. They start tearing up bed sheets. What?

Which if someone grabs you and you hear sheets tearing, you fight as hard as you can because bad things are happening. Run in place yeah until you let go that's just keep going kick punch bite do whatever you have to do because bad shit's about to happen to you uh so uh ripped up some bed sheets and they tie this uh ramos to a chair in cook's bedroom yeah they tie him to a chair reservoir dog style at this point here ramos knows the money is with them now i think now he figured out that the that the the pouch isn't up here or it is but he's not getting it back right one of the

two uh so uh uh while this is all going on now cook punches ramos and starts uh taunting him in general just being a dick yeah and you know talking shit to him and being a fucking asshole. Yeah. So this is before he ends up taking Ramos and putting him in the closet. Okay. Okay. They put him in the closet in the chair. Yeah. So they and they said they did it so they could look through his other possessions. Why couldn't they do that?

He's tied to a chair. Yeah. We don't want to do it in front of him. We turned him around. Super weird. Hey, come on. What are we, schmucks here? So they do that.

They rifle through his other shit and take whatever they want. Now, while this is going on, Ramos escapes from the closet. Oh. Because he's got two fucking crackheads tying him to a goddamn chair. They're not good at this. They work at Bob's Big Boy. They're not fucking kidnappers. You know what I mean?

They're not mafiosi here. Right. They're fucking burger slingers. So this guy escapes and fucking takes off good he starts running uh busts out of the closet runs down the stairs tries to get out cook tackles him chases him down tackles him and drags him back upstairs how is he doing this with his meth frame it's meth meth strength yeah uh so he reties into the chair imagine the struggle it would take i can't to be retied to the chair after that you would man i mean you'd have to shoot me you got to do it one limb at a time and you know you'd have to shoot me you'd have to

there's not enough people to hold all my limbs there's only two dudes oh i'm long and shit i'd never get a hold of me i'm little and i'll get out oh yeah i will be punching with whatever arm you're not kicking and yeah you only you can only hold one at a time that's it man and you need two to tie a knot one's tied and then there's two of you there's still a free limb absolutely i'm punching i'm doing what i head button i'm doing what i have to here so uh uh this is uh wow this is fucking crazy crazy shit so uh uh this is the kind of weird shit here he is all hopped up on meth obviously uh he's kind of uh he's got like a almost a delusional state is what is said uh by uh matsky at this point he's kind of going into an illusion of delusional state

uh he's yelling at ramos and now he's he's he's like accusing him of things for no reason like uh at one point he is uh matsky says that cook's telling him he's telling ramos to take them to his leader and he's he's yelling at him accusing him of being a nicaraguan spy and he's referring to Oliver North, which if you don't know who Oliver North was, Oliver North was an army colonel who was doing a guns for hostages thing. I'm sorry, he was arming the rebels.

The whole Iran-Contra thing. There was guns for money to fund rebels, but it was all below, wasn't above board. It was all on the down low. And Reagan knew about it and pretended he didn't he was like i don't know i don't know where i am even what are you talking about and uh north ended up being the guy that took the hit for it uh because you know he's the highest ranking guy a colonel is the one who could trade with two foreign countries and shit so uh it's a

big giant 80s mess but basically it's a big like government military conspiracy bullshit so to create a coup under under yeah yeah there's the the whole nicaraguan thing so because this guy is nicaraguan he is accusing him of uh he's referring to oliver north and the cia and accusing he's accusing ramos of like being involved in this fucking spy ring and asking him who the leader is and what's your cia contact for this and that he works at bob's big boy your government doesn't even know i'm in this country i sleep on the floor i'm here illegally i'd have a bed if i had that much backstory barely speak the language not much yeah he would have at least a cot i feel like if he was a cia sponsored spy here uh, this guy keeps doing that.

Now, this Matsky guy, while this is going on, he's like, what the fuck? We've strayed from reality here. We were just going to rob this dude. Now you're saying he's a spy and Oliver North is involved. This is getting fucking weird. He's like, why are you talking about that little homeless kid? What are we doing here? What are we doing here?

He's a spy. He's taken. Okay. So there's a lot of non-reality based shit so anyway uh cook and matski at some point i don't know if they get bored or what but they start beating ramos with a metal pipe and a stick just taking shots here and there and then interrogating him more about his you know obvious cia connections to the nicaraguans and the Sandinistas and all this different shit. Your town review was spot on. They treat brown people like shit here.

I would say so, yeah. This is actually the welcoming committee. That's the thing. This is what they do if you have a vowel at the end of your last name and you want to move to the town. Or an X or a Z. Or an X or a Z. So a metal pipe and a stick. or an x or a z they're an x or a z so uh a metal pipe and a stick and uh they also burn his chest stomach and genitals with cigarettes oh jesus no he's done nothing this poor man he's done nothing

all he's done is sleep on their floor he's done and he had 90 like he had nothing he's done nothing to them to cause this whatsoever to burn his ah and Ah, fuck, man. And his chest and his stomach. It's all bad at this point. So at one point here, Cook cuts Ramos' chest with a knife. He slices him like one of those. So Matsky bandages him up while he's sitting there. He fucking stops the bleeding and bandages him

and puts a fucking pad on him and tapes it down and fixes him up like Jesus Christ. This is a bit much, sir fixes him up. Like, Jesus Christ, we can't have a bit. Yeah, it was. I thought it was weird when you were burning his dick with a cigarette. But we can't have him bleeding all over the carpet now, too. I have a fucking security deposit here. What are you doing? Ninety bucks ain't going to cover it.

You know what I mean? You want to make a profit on this guy or what? He'll lose our fucking security deposit. OK, that's terrible. Bring $90 out of him. Come on. It's still upside down to $10. What are we doing here, guy?

That's fucking terrible. That is the worst thing we've ever said. I think it might be. I think it might be. But that's the sad part. You want to make a profit on this? Let's hope that's what they were thinking. Right.

That's the thing. Or at minimum. I hope that's what they were thinking. Or at minimum, this is not what I got into this for. Yeah, exactly. So Matsky puts a bandage on it, stops the bleeding. About 9.45 p.m. So this has been going on for over three hours. Oh, Jesus.

Of this guy being tied to a chair. Matsky goes, I got to go on a beer run. We're out of beer. I am thirsty. I am just parched after all this. So he goes to the Acoma Stop and Shop to buy beer. Now, he returns to the apartment. First of all, to go on a beer run in the middle of torturing an immigrant for no reason is a very strange thing

to do right i just an odd move i don't know usually you don't go on beer runs in the middle of that so he's gone for like 15 20 minutes he comes back in you know he what do you think he what's the scene he walks into now jesus so now cook's been alone with him oh my is it like scar face he's probably got maps up on the wall going where where are you? You're bringing the troops up through here. It's actually way worse than that. And it's worse than Scarface. He walks in as Cook is sodomizing Ramos. No.

He is having sex with Ramos. That's against his will. How do you get to there in 20 minutes? He said, beer run. I'm fucking this guy. So that's too far. is like a walking in in pulp fiction in the middle of the gimp situation you're like what the fuck is happening man that's what was going on here it's fucking crazy so that is a great point too why didn't uh

obviously because it wasn't in the script uh but why didn't bruce willis freak out a little harder when he saw what was going on a lot he should have really freaked out what is this yeah unless you just saw that five minutes ago that's that's a jarring oh my god this is clinton should have written that shit in imagine this guy comes in with two 12 packs yeah two 12 packs opens the door and sees this oh no um wow i forgot my my ninja i'm gonna go back again and yeah oh jesus so uh that's not it though he not only sodomized him he had used a mini stapler yeah oh what to do what this is this is as bad as as you think it is to staple jesus christ to staple this man's foreskin to the chair oh jesus to hold him in place you know

so it's easier don't you move bostitch to the chair what the click to the chair sodomizing him so uh matski walks in and like anyone would say what the fuck is going on yeah as a nor anybody even if you're not normal anybody would say this is a kind of outside the realm of fucking oh boy 90 bucks we were gonna rob this guy remember what is happening what the fuck man you got foreskin stapled to my grandmother's chair yeah so he sees this i'm sure it was already furnished this place with old motel furniture absolutely but thinking about it that's a great way to keep me in one place that's the one thing yeah he's thinking i'll give him that he's pretty good you know he

thought he went from a to b to c yeah i need him in one place i'd like him not to move that right there we go that's gonna work right there so he says you know what the fuck's going on. Cook's response to him turns to him in mid fucking mid coitus and says, quote, I'm having fun. No, no, you're not. I'm having fun. What the fuck? How the fuck? Okay.

Again, there's a lot to unpack constantly here, but the rest of it aside, let's say you're Matsky and you're okay with everything else you're even okay with the fucking sodomy and the ball staple and the foreskin stapling and everything you're totally okay with it he said i'm having fun at that point isn't that where you go okay i'm out this is this is not what i signed up for what are we doing next you're doing casino thing hands up i can't do it anymore i'm gonna go drink in the parking lot this is fucking crazy this is your apartment now uh forever i'm not coming in here ever again i'm having fun oh boy the fuck you want for me he

said it like that like with a shrug i'm having fun i think he said i'm having fun or did he like or did he like fist pump i'm having fun i'm did he like fist pump? I'm having fun. I'm having fun. Like he's on the back of a fucking, like he's on a jet ski. A lonely fuck screaming. One hand on the handlebar, one fist up in the air. Woo, big thing of water shooting out. Woo, no life jacket on. I don't give a fuck.

I just picture he's like, I'm having fun. What? You never did this before? Yeah. What the fuck, man? Don't knock it till you tried it. How do you have fun? Yeah, how do you have fun?

Fucking boring people around here. Wow, what a scene. So around 11 o'clock p.m. So this has been going on for hours now. Way too long. Way too long. Any amount of time is way too long. Too many this has been going on for hours way too long way too long any time amount of times way too long but uh they too many lines have been crossed like at some point you got to get to a

line and be like too much i think we've gone a little too far right uh this is bad we should let's not tell anyone about this so uh so matsky now matsky's the one that tells cook that they can't let him go now. They're like, well, we can't let this guy go. Now? You know. When we robbed him and tied him to a chair, we could have been like, hey, motherfucker, don't go to the cops.

You'll end up going. They'll ship you back to Nicaragua. They could have fucking threatened him with that if you just took 90 bucks and tied him to a chair and slapped him around a little bit. Once you've stapled his foreskin to a chair and fucking raped him. James, there was a. There was a. It's over. There was a stopping point in between oh but the cigarettes yeah yeah even that even that's like dude i feel like the cigarette burns yeah you could have still yeah you could have still probably sent him on his way without his money and he wouldn't have said anything to

anybody just to fucking not make any waves and not get kicked out of the country once you staple his foreskin to the chair yeah i'd rather be in nicaragua at that point no one's i'm not being sodomized while i'm stapled to a chair at that point fuck it you know what maybe the states maybe the united states isn't all it's cracked up to be at this point they said the streets were paved with gold i'm not seeing that let's just say that fuck this place i'm just gonna say i'm not seeing that let's just say that fuck this place I'm just gonna say I'm not seeing it let's just say that I don't see the value in freedom I'm not seeing the yeah I think it's overrated

let's just say a little overrated so uh yeah I'm not seeing it so Madsky tells Cook we gotta kill this fucking guy so Cook rather than going really you think so or I don't know he goes well let's kill him at midnight the i don't know he goes well let's kill him at midnight the witching hour what he had a that's what i mean he's always has like this

like like he's like he has a response locked and loaded already in a situation where you would need a second to think about it yeah he's right on top of shit these two yes men together yeah he said we need to kill him and he goes midnight witching hour let's fucking do it like having fun yeah we're having fun fucking peel it off so they continue they so what do we do it's been we have an hour until midnight well we can keep torturing him i guess that's fun so they keep torturing him for another hour they don't even just leave him there or just kill him then and have some fucking something they torture him for now killing him was matsky's idea matsky said we can't let him go and you know ramos is like fuck no let's kill him at midnight yeah or not yeah yeah we got some time so uh uh they continue to torture him until midnight uh at midnight matsky attempts to

strangle ramos with first a bed sheet and that doesn't really work too well fucking hard you have to really yeah you know whatever wrap it up and then he grabs a pipe which again doesn't really work too well. It's really fucking hard. You have to really, you know, whatever. Wrap it up. Wrap it up. And then he grabs a pipe, which, again, doesn't really go around, so you can crush a windpipe, but it's kind of difficult to do a strangle job. A fucking piece of rope, a string, a clothesline, something, you fucking idiots. You've got two. They can't even do this right. You also got two pieces right there that create a garrotte, you fucking jerks.

Try that. Yeah, something. Let's not get into it. I don't want to coach him in this. I'm just saying saying i don't think these two are going to figure that out really like this poor fuck to be done fast jesus uh so being tortured eventually matski places ramos on the floor uh places the pipe across his neck and stood on the pipe until he until he dies that'll do it he just stands on it well eventually he'll stop'll stop fucking breathing. And it took a long time. A long time.

Minutes upon minutes. Two, three, four. He didn't die until around 1215. Oh, Jesus. They started at midnight trying to kill this man. Afterwards, they threw his body down the stairs. That'll get rid of it. Yeah, they threw the body down the stairs.

They had to bring it downstairs. Why carry it? Just roll him down the steps. And then they stuffed him into Matsky's closet. I don't know why they had to move rooms. You know, Cook's like, I can't have my, you know me, I'm kind of a clean freak. I like to keep my space. I just like to keep the floor empty.

You know what I mean? I don't want a lot of stuff on it. So we just keep them in your room. That's a pretty impressive place. It's got an upstairs. Yeah, two bedrooms. Yeah. Not bad for two two bob's big boy

employees in kingman not too fucking shabby yeah so uh uh so around 2 30 or 3 a.m now uh another person arrives at the apartment a kevin swaney yeah he's 16 years old a co-worker at the bob's big boy he works there also with them and And this is fast food. You get teenagers mixing with people who are in their 20s and just can't fucking get their shit together. 16, you should be working at Bob's Big Boy. You have nothing else. You don't have any experience. 25, you should not be working there anymore.

You should be further than this. Yeah, he was like 28 years old working at Bob's Big Boy. Unless you're managing it, get your shit together. So no offense if you work fast food, but you know you need to get your shit together. That's your goal what the fuck i'm telling you this for it's a 16 year old or a nicaraguan uh illegal immigrant job it's not for you not for you yeah you should you should do something else so uh uh he arrives there now at first he knocks on the door uh for i guess it's like the hangout place you can go drink beer and if you're 16 this place i can go

drink beer smoke weed they'll hang out it's older dudes thatout place you can go drink beer. And if you're 16, it's a place I can go drink beer, smoke weed. They'll hang out. It's older dudes that can hang out in there and drink and just got off work. So he ends up, they tell him to leave. They go, no, no, you can't come in. You got to leave. But then eventually, Cook calls him back and says, no, it's all right. You can come in.

And calls him back and says no it's all right you can come in and calls him back into the apartment uh so cook at this point tells the swaney kid kevin swaney that he has some drugs cook does that he wants to get rid of and uh and he pushed a couch in front of the door of the apartment like we don't want anybody getting in here while i break these drugs out you know like people are just going to know it the police have a sensor that's going to go off. They're out. They're out. Kick down the door. So he does that. So he pushes the door in there. It's at this point that Cook and Matsky tell Sweeney about Ramos. They go, we got a dead body.

Yeah. We got a fucking dead body. We've done some shit. We've done some shit. So Cook takes Sweeney upstairs to show him to do whatever and then shows him the body. him to do whatever and then shows him the body and then finally when they return from the when they return

from seeing the body Cook told tells Matsky to get bindings in a gag it's not good at that point Cook then forces Sweeney tackles him forces him to remove his clothes oh no yeah they tie him to a chair Matsky

asks Cook what the fuck he's going to do here. They're not on the same page as far as their plans go. Like, they just got him to a chair and he goes, what are we doing? But why do we have a naked teenager tied to a fucking chair right now? As anyone who's not as even if you're sick, you're not as sick as him. You're going, um, this is not what I'm thinking. And especially you've seen the stapler action before. So Cook says, I'm just i just want to talk to him so we can't talk with our clothes i mean we can't talk you know in the living room with my clothes on you can talk at any point uh so

the uh matsky told cook that if he's gonna torture swaney he doesn't want any part of it that's he goes whatever he did the other whatever. But if you're going to fucking do the same thing again, I don't want any part of this shit. I'm fucking done. So he just, rather than forcing him to release him or figuring out what to do, he just goes, I don't know, I'm done. And he goes in the living room and goes to sleep. What?

Leaves Sweeney in Cook's room with Cook tied to a chair naked and goes to sleep. Wow. Which, wow. Yeah, about 4.30 or 5 in the morning now, a couple hours go by. Cook wakes Matski up. Oh, sweet Pete. When he does, Sweeney's still tied up to the chair and alive.

And Cook tells Matski, okay, so I sodomized him real bad here. So I got to kill him now, obviously, because, you know, I did the same thing I did to Ramos. And, you know, this is a problem. So Cook takes a sheet and and wraps it around his neck. And they take finally figured out the garage theory. They work in tandem to pull one side of the sheet until finally, apparently, Matsky's end kept slipping out of his hand and he couldn't figure it out. So Cook at one point said, this one's mine. I got this and uh put

sweeney on the floor and just strangles him uh you know the old-fashioned way just with his hand just strangles him down uh yeah so then uh they take uh sweeney's body up and they put him in the closet with ramos they're stacking fucking bodies like like cordwood at this point yeah had no this was not a plan no this was not this guy was flipping. Had no, this was not a plan. No. This was not, this guy was flipping burgers 12 hours ago. He did not know this was his evening. Oh, boy.

This is crazy. So they put him down there, and they, you know, stretch. Oh, man, it's been a long day. Let's get some shut-eye. And they just went to sleep. That's nighttime. That's the day.

That's it. Yeah, it's morning. Let's go to sleep. Two people, and then they go to sleep. They go to sleep. It's been a long day. You know what I mean? It it's a lot of strangling i've sodomized two guys against their will it's a lot of stapling yeah it's been a lot it's been a lot i finished once i'm sleeping teenagers and immigrants this is i'm sure more than that uh so uh uh that afternoon they wake up you know rested uh matski goes to work for about two and a half hours

before he leaves early because he was concerned about what Cook was going to do in the apartment if he wasn't there. He's like, I'm going to come home. There could be five more people there. He could have a sodomy line going on. I have no idea what's going on. So he gets home.

When he gets home, he sees Cook. He's just hanging out. So they go to a bar and drink for a few hours. They still got people in their house. Oh, dead in the closet. They're in the closet, though, Jimmy. Out of sight, he sees Cook. He's just hanging out. So they go to a bar and drink for a few hours. They still got people in their house. Oh, dead in the closet. They're in the closet, though, Jimmy. Out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, but a few hours, you're going to have some problems.

No, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. Once somebody's dead in the closet, they're dead. They're gone now. That is true. They're forgotten. Their memory's gone. The cops aren't looking for them. They're in the closet.

They know. They'll never smell again. Come on. No, it's all gone. Especially in a, I mean, I'm sure, I don't know what their electric bill they could keep but in the lake havasu summer heat i bet they didn't keep their house at 70 fucking degrees no uh because good luck with that shit so yeah this isn't i feel i feel like there's an evap cooler going on here this is not i guarantee it this is an evap cooler with a window air conditioning unit there is there is a home depot uh bucket full of ice with a fan blowing on it pretty much and

two bodies in the goddamn closet so uh about 10 30 p.m they come home all day they go drinking yeah 10 30 they come home to the complex and there's a guy named byron watkins and some other friends of theirs by the pool at the apartment complex so they kick back by the pool for a while hang out with their friends have a couple of beers, cook, and then Matsky now invite their friends over. Come on by our place. Rather not. What the,

first of all, wouldn't you avoid having anyone in your apartment at that? Oh, it's filthy in there. There's just bodies everywhere. There's foreskin on the chair. Damn it. Sorry.

We spend too much time together. That happens every five episodes or or so we just jump at the same joke so uh what are you gonna do skin all over the place foreskin everywhere stapled to all the all the seating there's nowhere to sit there's foreskin there's foreskin stapled to everything it looks like we had a balloon party and cut them off the i wouldn't eat at that table so it just gets bad so uh they uh uh invite the friends over uh whatever they come they come over the next day the next next morning uh matsky shows watkins the bodies the guy from the pool well it smells we have bodies we know yeah i don't want to say when you open the door i smelled it so this watkins guy being a sane person he says you can go to the fucking police yeah he tells

us matt you gotta go to the fucking police dude you can't have body this is this is fucking next level crazy like a sane person who's not on meth for five days right has finally entered the fucking picture to say whoa t let's take a timeout here. What the fuck is going on? So, yeah, he's like, this is crazy shit. So, Matsky and Watkins go to the police department, and Matsky gives a full, detailed videotape confession to the whole thing. Tells him everything that happened,

his involvement, doesn't pull any punches. Zero chance of getting away with it. He's just like, listen, guys. I don't even know what's going down. My best chance is for me not to be the one who's the ringleader the problem that's it yeah basically blame blame the bulk of this on someone else which it was him i mean yeah number two number one was you that's the other thing he did say we can't let him go now so that at that point it was the end of it so uh yeah he goes there officers end up responding they go to the apartment about 4 50 a.m and arrest cook and find the bodies obviously

uh now cook said still there oh still there they haven't done anything with the body two days later they're gonna take them uh he was sitting there they had no plans of what to do with him either they're just stacking them uh so uh uh they asked they gave cook miranda warnings and he still had something to say though he says quote we got to partying things got out of hand now two people are dead you know math is the gatorade of murder yeah that was it like we've said over and over uh you know their slogan and then he said quote my milk my roommate killed one and i killed the other he's just real casual and then he said all right that he admitted choking swaney to death with his bare hands and then he said i don't want to talk anymore about

it though you got what you need i told you what's going on here this is giving me a lot of anxiety yeah i got a lot of stuff going on so july 21st 1987 uh here this is two days later or the next day after that cook and matsky are both charged with two counts of first-degree murder, including there's death penalty shit here, too. It's a death penalty-eligible crime, which we'll talk about. A guy named Claude Keller, who will come up again, was appointed to represent Cook. They indict him, obviously.

All that goes down. They need to give Cook some psychological evaluations. They look at his records and go, whoa, okay, let's find out if he's sane or not. He's a little foreskin short of a whole dick. I would say so. He is definitely, he's definitely fucking one foreskin short of an entire fucking package. Let's put it that way. Never mind a dick.

Just the whole package and balls and everything else. So, yeah, he has an evaluation here this is for the specific purpose of determining his capacity to understand the court proceedings and whether he can assist in his defense and that sort of shit here uh so uh they evaluate him the same psychiatrist evaluates both him and matsky which is kind of a procedural procedural no-no because you're not supposed to. Is it like a conflict of interest? Yeah, you're not supposed to have the same psychiatrist examine co-defendants. Yeah. Because it can, you know, you can whatever.

One can say something about the other that could fuck up your judgment. Or you can convince, that's the word I was going to say, convince one to say some stuff about the other. Yeah, you never know here. It's supposed to fuck was going to say. Consider convince one to say some stuff. You never know. Yeah, you never know here. It's supposed to fuck up the the the whole thing. So the the it wasn't a matter of opinions, though. This was a matter of like just they were just facts. So he says that Cook was obviously goes over his whole as a whole history of sexual abuse and mental abuse and physical abuse. They talk about a time when he was molested at a greyhound station apparently somebody raped cook at a greyhound

station at gunpoint when he was a teenager shit which is the that's the only is there a any place up forever that's that might be worse than mom. It's worse than anything. That's almost worse than being on a Greyhound bus and being raped at the station. It's almost worse. Almost. I mean, you can't smell that bus bathroom, so it's a little better, but it's not much better. It's still bad stuff. They also report in this report, they talked to him about drugs, and then he drank a case and a half of beer and did a shitload of meth for five days before this went on.

This is going to be so sticky. Uh, it's very, they conducted a IQ test and says he has a 91 IQ. Okay. So, which is pretty, uh, well, it, it, uh, 92 totals, 90. That's, that's average. It's right in the average range. 90 to one 10 is perfectly average. Okay.

Cause I was thinking one 10 was. No, no, no. Anything over one 10 is above. Okay. So 90 to one 10, you're in the average range 90 to 110 is perfectly average okay because i was thinking 110 was no no no anything over 110 is above okay so 90 to 110 you're in the average range so there's nothing wrong there he understands what he's doing he's not you know anything some of these people i look at some of these cases and it's like he had an iq of 58 and they executed him i'm like i can't do that fucking case i'm just gonna get angry fucking execute Fucking execute people who don't know. That deficient? They don't know what they're doing. So, yeah, they said that he was competent to stand trial. He's able to appreciate the difference between right and wrong and that sort of thing. They said that he has a second evaluation that says his mother had bipolar disorder.

And his mother has been sober since 1983 is the claim there they talk about his drug use apparently it's literally anything he can get his hands on they think that he has a lot of tendencies that are borderline personality which would be a seems more accurate than the passive-aggressive horseshit or whatever. They talked about all the medical records, all the different times he's been in the hospital. They said that he blacked out for many events during the weekend and that he lacked normal inhibition

and was more impulsive and shit like that, but still sane, they say. Now, October 30th, 1987, Matsky enters into a guilty plea and an agreement to testify against Cook here. The trial judge here sentences him on this afterwards. We'll get to that.

We'll get to his sentence afterwards. Just keep that in mind, okay? He's got a deal, though. Yeah. And Cook here, Cook's investigators and his counsel here uh they attend to the whole thing and we'll talk about that they try to make a big stink out of his sentencing so uh there's a court hearing january 4th 1988 they says that he's competent to stand trial all the examinations and all of that so april of 1988 he cook files a motion to waive

counsel and have his counsel appointed as his advisory counsel as he would like to represent himself perfect because obviously when you work at bob's big boy and got a gd and uh you know so much more you know the law and you should probably just take it on your own hands to represent yourself fucking idiot so uh yeah the uh they fuck it jesus christ he says to the judge and this isn't bad for him if you're amenable to my waiver of counsel i would ask that you that you not appoint mr keller as my legal advisor uh mr keller has worked hard for my defense cares about the outcome of my trial my personal beliefs is that he cannot advise me according to my defense so So he's like,

I'm going to represent myself and I don't want this fucking guy next to me too. And the judge should fucking say that is absolutely your right, sir. That's fine. Knock yourself out. Yeah, go ahead. Well, the, the, he asked the cook, then asked the judge for some other lawyer to be his advisory council. But the judge said that, uh, that guy's not available. The only other guy who's available is this guy. And Cook said, no, I won't take him. So they said, well, you're running out of fucking choices, Chief. You got about three choices, and you've

rejected two of them at this point. Listen, Goldilocks, you better pick one that's just right. I don't know what to do here. So then they also go into a lengthy explanation of the perils of self-representation and the whole thing and cook says nope still want to represent myself i know all that shit and i'm straight i'm good thumbs up brother i just gave jimmy a big thumbs up things are good i'm straight so uh uh yeah the

court found that cook voluntarily knowingly and intelligently gave up his right to counsel they grant his motion and appointed the same guy that he didn't want, Mr. Keller, as his advisory counsel, because there's no one else. So, yeah. So, December 16th, 87, the state files a motion of, this is before this, state files a motion to preclude evidence of intoxication, to make that so he can't use that as a defense. He can't be like, I was so drunk, I stapled an immigrant's foreskin to a chair and raped him that's a hell of a story that's a let's very drunk yeah and even everyone in the jury's been drunk before and they're all going that's

not what i do when i'm drunk i don't drink enough just eat weird shit and fall asleep on the couch i don't fucking wow i don't party like this guy parties you can my kids toy box and go to bed that's it they find it the next day and i go that is weird maybe we have ghosts so uh yeah so at a hearing here uh he didn't oppose the motion no he said quote what the prosecutor prosecutor brings up in his motion basically does not even apply to my defense your honor he's not going to say i did it and i was fucked up his defense is i don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Not me. Just that's his defense. Don't know what you mean. That guy that said that and the people that came in and saw the bodies in the closet and

everybody said, I have no idea what you're talking about. Not a fucking clue. So he he says he they also reiterated to him before the trial that he can't use drinking or drug use as a defense. And he says, I don't plan on it. that he can't use drinking or drug use as a defense. And he says, I don't plan on it. He said he elected general denial and alibi theories as his affirmative defenses

and reiterated that he did not want to present evidence of drinking or drug use. He claimed in his opening statement that he, quote, merely repeated the detective statement. And I asked for an attorney as I had nothing further to say. He basically said, the the attorney said so you raped him and killed him and he went i raped him and killed him and that's his defense it's my cousin vinnie yeah it's literally my cousin finney goes i killed the clerk i shot

the clerk like what are you talking about that's but he's not a fucking wise-ass guinea from new york that asks everything like a question so i don't buy that at all he's an idiot with no direction in life that does this shit yeah he said basically he went so i raped and i raped an immigrant and fucking stapled his foreskin to the chair i'm not talking anymore that's the way he said it went down real sarcastic guy that's how he is here all right so uh yeah no that's not that's not actually uh what's happened here. He denied confessing. He denies all that shit. Obviously, detectives talk about their contact with him and the fact that he wasn't being sarcastic. Cook attempts to discredit the detective's testimony that Cook confessed to killing him by asking about, it's so weird.

He asks about the circumstances of the statement and why the statement wasn't taped, videotaped. And the detective said that Cook's confession wasn't taped because Cook invoked his right to remain silent. And then he just popped out and said it. He goes, well, that's not, you know, those are different. We weren't prepared. Yeah, he didn't say, I'm going to give a statement now. Okay, let's turn the camera on. He said he wasn't going to talk, so we said, all right, cool.

And then he just started talking. Exactly. Are we're gonna start the tape in the middle of it yeah so at this point cook approaches the bench and uh moves for a mistrial and the judge goes you're really not good at this are you you're not a lawyer are you just saw that on law and order one time you know that's not happening you don't get a fucking mistrial here so uh the trial judge denies all of that uh finding that his testimony was, you know, fine. And it was a proper explanation for why he wasn't taped. And Cook needs to shut the fuck up and move on, basically. So in his closing argument, Cook attempts to argue that he was not at the apartment at all, tries to blame Matsky and Watkins, the guy from the pool for the murders.

He says that he couldn't tell the jury about any party in his apartment stating quote mr matsky stated in testimony there was a party that night at the apartment i couldn't tell you i don't know and uh later on he said at no time did any of the officers ever state i confessed to killing someone which he that's not even true uh so yeah he uh and then he argued he argued a lot about matsky's motive to lie. Well, yeah, he killed them both. Of course he's going to blame me. Now, the prosecutor said that Cook failed to tell defense witnesses. And basically, he told everyone that he did do it. He told people that he was going to have to establish an alibi and all that sort of shit.

There's jailhouse snitches involved that heard him say that. an alibi and all that sort of shit there's jailhouse snitches involved that heard him say that uh also the prosecutor says that he that cook has something to hide because he covered up this is just one of those things it's the 80s and people aren't cool with tattoos he has a big dagger tattoo on his forearm which doesn't look good if you're in a murder trial uh so he covered it up with a big band-aid is what he did So the prosecutor calls him out for that and says, see, he covered up his dagger tattoo with a large bandage. What else isn't he fucking telling you? He's obviously trying to show, you know, hide who he is. What, he had a job interview, sir?

Yeah, come on. What do you put a long sleeve shirt on? That's something you could do. That's the other part. He showed up as a lawyer with a short sleeve shirt. Problems. She's playing overalls on. I haven't seen the trial, but we're lucky he's got fucking clothes on. He may not have had a shirt on at all. That's what I's probably had overalls on i haven't seen the trial but we're

lucky he's got fucking clothes on i had a shirt on at all that's what i mean just overalls best counts as a shirt your honor so my nipples is covered absolutely man so uh the prosecutor said well matsky made a videotape statement and we heard continuous cross-examination of the detective of why the defendant didn't make one he didn't make one because the defendant was the one that cut off the interview if he had made one you would have had the statements we got uh we got to partying a little bit and then things got out of hand my roommate killed one and i killed the other i killed kevin you would have heard the same exact statements uh in addition the prosecutor here says uh talks about the witnesses to the crime saying quote there were only four people there at the time of the deaths.

Two of them are dead. One's in prison, and one is a defendant. Because Matsky had pled guilty. The prosecutor followed this up by discrediting his alibi defense, saying that he had an alibi witness, and the guy who was his alibi witness

was in jail at the time. He was in jail that day. And he said, you know, that guy couldn't have been there because he was in fucking jail that day. so clearly you weren't hanging out with him dummy that didn't work out that shoots your whole fucking story bad shit yeah and then he also says uh uh john matsky doesn't have anything to hide this man does then he talks about the forearm tattoo which i think is just fucking bullshit bullshit distraction but it's one of

those and he played video games with violence it's just stupid it's the 80s yeah uh that we wonder what else he had covered up that's what they said but we don't have to wonder long we don't have to wonder hard because he's done a poor job of covering everything else up is what the prosecutor says and then law and order started and so he said uh uh when he says matsky's a liar he's not no man would uh no man uh would uh uh would basically put himself into the degree that he didn't know uh you know that he wouldn't lie and say that fucking what he said basically he's it happened incriminate himself so hard that's that he wouldn't have shown up there it's not like they arrested him and then he said all right fine i was a little bit but it was mainly him he went there and went holy shit there's

bodies in this guy i don't know what the fuck's going on it was a different thing uh so uh uh while all this is going on cook makes no objections to the prosecutor saying any of this nothing uh uh he tries to have a mistrial at some point here in the end and they said no stupid you still can't have a mistrial and he goes oh sorry try again tomorrow so there's also a juror issue here uh the state began to present its evidence the jury granted a motion to the prosecutor to excuse a jury for cause apparently the the jury uh had tried to talk to the prosecutor and ask questions uh he said he approached him and asked if it was proper for me to speak with him and the prosecutor said no and then he was going to wait and see and the guy said well i'll talk to you a little bit

later and then the guy tried to like approach him again and then uh uh i guess there was this guy had uh uh this this juror had talked to uh co-workers about the case and had talked about a bunch of like a bunch of basically that she was talking about the case to the co-workers about the case and had talked about a bunch of like, a bunch of basically that she was talking about the case to co-workers and all that. She said that she didn't think it was a well-organized trial and that some of the witnesses made themselves look as if they didn't know what they were talking about. And she was just saying a bunch of shit

that would disqualify her as a fucking jerk. She hates this trial. She hates this trial, yeah. She has a trip to be on and this ain't where she wants to be yeah that's she that's the thing uh they asked her like about the photographs and she was talking about the crime scene photographs and shit like that and she was just kind of liking the attention of the whole thing and uh so they end up tossing her out good and they just have the remaining 14 jurors to pick 12 out of there uh so uh the court uh uh they do

their jury instructions here they uh they inform cook that uh there's no that he did not include any lesser uh included instructions or alternate jury shit like you didn't say uh instruct them on second degree you didn't say instruct them on anything you just said fucking let it fly yeah so cook didn't object to a first degree murder instruction uh using knowingly as a required mental state so he didn't object to that all he had to do was knowingly kill this guy and he's guilty of first degree murder so he fucked up good there they didn't he didn't set himself up uh he ends up requesting the second degree murder instruction because matski had pleaded guilty to second degree murder under the terms of the plea bargain but he doesn't ask for special instructions on certain

things so uh the judge concluded there's no evidence to show a lack of premeditation and denied his request to give second degree murder jury instructions so he says no it's first degree or nothing fuck off so uh jury uh july 6 1988 jury begins deliberations at 2.07 p.m. 3.23 p.m. they come in with their verdict. Okay. Not very long. That was already good. About how long it takes to fill out paperwork.

Yeah. In a death penalty case we're talking about here. Oh, Jesus. Death penalty on the table here. Yeah. That's why they give him the first degree with the aggravators. So they find him guilty on both on all counts first degree murder he's fucked basically we'll get to the rest in a second uh cook here files a motion for further

mental evaluation now he says he's crazy yeah uh yeah he says he wants the judge to reconsider he says there's mitigating circumstances with the the mental stuff that he wants to that he wants to put forth during the sentencing to try to not get you know the death penalty uh at sentencing august 8th 1988 he cook declines to present any evidence to the court nothing nothing doesn't say i'll give you a character witness i'll fucking say i'm not a bad guy cook what are you doing here's my medical records of my fucking childhood and everything else. Nothing. He just goes, whatever. I'm fine.

He complained that he was not given proper access to the Mojave County Law Library at one point. But then he stands up to the court and he says, quote, the only sentence I will accept from this court at this time is the penalty of death. Your honor. I have nothing further. And he sat down. Fucking kill me. Now he wants the death penalty uh uh so the court you know looks over all this shit uh they find uh uh they find

aggravating factors uh that he killed ramos for monetary gain and to cover up a crime and that he uh murdered ramos and swaney were done in especially heinous cruel and depraved manner which i would fucking say and that multiple murders were committed in one kind of scheme. That'll do it. Those are all death penalty things. So he's got three of them. Zero mitigating factors for him. He presents nothing.

Who gots? As we would say here. He's got plenty to bring out. No. And the judge even brought up, the judge said he considered his prior history of mental illness, suicide attempts, mental problems, and all that shit. Weren't you raped, sir? He said he found, this is crazy, the judge found that there was no connection

between Cook's prior mental problems and the murders. There's a giant connection to it. He did the same thing people did to him. It's pretty clear. It bowed it right up, sir. He was tied up and burned with cigarettes and raped. It's all pretty clear. Yeah, it's pretty boated right up yeah he was tied up and burning cigarettes and raped and it's all pretty clear yeah it's pretty clear uh the court found zero mitigating factors to offset the aggravating factors and uh they sentenced him you sir may fuck off uh death penalty yeah for the murder 21 years for kidnapping 21 years for sexual assault and 21 years for burglary so death plus 63 years

that's tough that's fucking rough uh yeah uh once in prison he begins to receive regular psychiatric care and becomes fucking a little stable yeah uh he becomes pen pals with a bunch of people he's one of those guys there's a woman named uh elizabeth mcowett in england oh god damn it who writes with him for a long time uh uh she says quote we have prayed with him and tried to comfort him in his distress and fear fucking we we his for her whole family oh boy and discovered that actually daniel has been comforting us and every letter he writes to my children nope to my children loony bitch uh to my friends he asked them to pray for me and and and for them to help me through this dreadful time where does that even

come from he raped and murdered a 16 year old so write letters to my kids what are you doing no stay away from my fucking kids uh yeah apparently she started uh by she started corresponding with another death row inmate who decided that he didn't want to write to someone overseas. She's in England. I don't want to deal with that. So Cook said he took over. He said, I'll fucking write to her. I got nobody to write to. So he did.

He says, quote, she says, he asked about my boundaries pretty early on in a very mature way. So we started out and then friendship went from there. Wow. What were your boundaries? I want specifics. Well, like, you know, what do you, can we talk about family? Can we talk about this? Or do you just want to talk about the world?

Or what are you comfortable talking with a fucking horrible murderer about? Do you want foreskin pics? Yeah, I can send them. I got, I got, I can send you the foreskin. I got it in an envelope. I got it. It happened when I was 15. It doesn't look't look great but i'll show you that's a little old by now it's a little ratty it's like a sunroof you know how it goes he said i noticed early on that elizabeth was not a looky-loo a person who writes death row prisoners just to see what life is like on death row uh quickly losing interest and stopped writing uh she said

he said elizabeth gave me her word that she would not leave and would stay with me for as long as I wanted or needed her to be in my life. That was a huge promise to make and keep when given to a stranger that you know nothing about. But here we are, and not only is Elizabeth still beside me, but she is still needed. So he talks about that. not only is Elizabeth still beside me, but she is still needed.

So he talks about that. Uh, uh, he says that, uh, she, he doesn't want, she offered him a gift,

extend him stuff. And he said, quote, gifts in my past usually meant that I would soon be required to do something. I neither like doing or wanted to do. So he takes that as, I don't want to take anything. Then another inmate says,

fucking, Hey, you're going to offend this lady. He's got a nice lady trying to send you gifts and shit. You should probably accept them and whatever. So he said he accepted her gift, and he said nothing was required of me, so I trusted her, basically. He said that his main thing was, quote, she wasn't angry with me, which surprised the heck out of me, as usually a lie was greeted with hate and violence. I was being introduced to a new kind of interaction with people. I was learning that it was okay to trust some people a little bit.

She offered to host a birthday party for him, even though he's not there, at her house in England. So this is what we're talking about. Yeah. She says, quote, He told me he knew he had his own birth mother, but he also told me that I showed him the qualities that he would have wanted in a mother and said that if he had been able to choose a mother he would have chosen someone like me so i became his chosen mom and dan became our chosen

daniel so this is all weird like an empty chair at the birthday party with foreskin stapled to it with foreskin stapled to there's no candles it's just a cake with foreskin on it jesus christ so there's the cupcakes with foreskin so it fits you know what i mean it's not just sitting in the middle of the cake that was better i think we made it better so uh on the appeal uh his lawyers uh he accuses his lawyer that was with him hanging out there of being drunk and incompetent uh he said he was forced him hanging out there of being drunk and incompetent. He said he was forced to represent himself because of his drunk, incompetent lawyer. He said his attorney did no investigating, no theory of defense, no plan for mitigation. And he said that Brett smelled of alcohol is what he said.

So they said, we don't really have any evidence of that. He brings up, I want to say it's like 33 points of error on this whole thing 33 we're not going to go through it all here but it's uh times he asked for a mistrial and then yeah drunk lawyer everything from error in denying a sixth amendment right to choose counsel and all that to error and refusing to grant a mistrial over prosecutor comments error and dismissing a juror and refusing to continue the trial to allow him to secure additional witnesses. Shit like that. It's all sorts of shit.

He says that finding Ramos's murder was for monetary gain, which fucking the whole point of it was, let's steal his money. That's how it started. So his thing was they didn't start out saying we'll kill him to get his money. Well, you robbed him and then it escalated. So once you're robbing himbing him anything that happened to him if he tripped and fell and

hit his head by accident as you were stealing money from him that you just robbed him and you just killed him basically if you do that if you're robbing someone and they die you killed them that's murder he died in the course of your in the commission of your robber yeah like the liquor store analogy we give at the beginning of the show often that's not lately sometimes depends on if i have time no time we had the tour dates you gotta fucking hustle in the beginning gotta get into the show by five minutes so uh yeah he he all sorts of uh he's saying that matsky's testimony was coerced and he's then he's saying he was lying on the other half he doesn't know what he's doing here but there is a lot a lot a lot of

uh uh applying for re-hearings and being denied this and that uh the u.s supreme court denies his petition at one point uh files for federal habeas court habeas relief in 1997 uh here uh he has 21 claims for relief there he's's got a lot of time to argue. And one of the things he says was his request to represent himself was not knowing, voluntary and informed, even though they said, hey, you shouldn't do this. And he went, oh, no, I got it. He said that he wasn't competent to represent himself.

Well, who the fuck knows that but you? Like, you said you were. So, I mean, what else do you want like i don't know that's we went by your word you stood by it you're the you you insisted you had the most to gain or lose out of this so we figured that you would know absolutely it's one of those things uh basically even he even said the trial court erred in finding the murder of ramos was cruel heinous or depraved he agreed no no. He thought they erred in that. Oh, really? He thought that. That's one of his

points of appeal, is that he thinks the killing was not cruel, heinous, or depraved. It was humane as shit? He tortured him for fucking eight hours. You were having fun. Having fun. Raping him and fucking torturing him here. So, you know, they deny all this shit. Tell him to go fuck his

mother, basically. Which is bad timing, because this is one of the few cases where he actually did uh june of 2000 he goes on a hunger strike in prison uh the fact that he didn't die tells me that he eventually gave in yeah didn't quite work out 2007 john matsky's released from prison no did 20 years he got sentenced to 20 years, did exactly 20, and released. Wow. 2007, released from prison. He moved to Tucson, the only place worse than prison. Yeah.

So. Wow. Look out, Tucson. There you got a good guy walking around. Killed two people. Yeah. Well, at least one for sure. And was part of the other.

20 years, Tucson. Enjoy. 20 years is all you get you got 20 this dude got the death penalty and he got 20 unbelievable i mean i do think that uh you know our guy here cook was a little more enthusiastic about the whole thing but still 20 years and he's out 20 fucking years uh so then there's a clemency hearing here killed a child oh it's a child 16 absolutely uh paperwork fire filed by him he says that he's a seriously mentally ill individual because he endured a childhood replete with

sexual and physical abuse he describes the horrors that he suffered uh everything that we discussed in the beginning uh he talks about uh he said that alcohol he said that uh his mother would beat him and then fondle him to make him feel better. Quote unquote, shit like that. Talks about all the sexual abuse everywhere that he's ever been. Talks about the Greyhound station. And then he talks about being raped at a Greyhound station, which was just as harrowing as going to the Greyhound station to begin with. So after they hear about all of this, because all of this, because he didn't cook, didn't present it at court, wasn't in all the trial reports.

So the prosecutor doesn't know all this shit. So the prosecutor who was hit, the guy who prosecuted the case at the time, Eric Larson, he said to the clemency board quote had i been informed of this mitigating information regarding dan's severely abusive and traumatic childhood and his mental illnesses i would not have sought the death penalty in this case he says if i knew that because i mean you say oh he had a bad childhood people do that oh so what so did i no one had that childhood that childhood is beyond the pale like that's worse than that's the most abuse every Every place he went until he was 16, he was tortured and tortured. 16 years of life feels like for fucking ever. Oh, God. Jesus.

50 years. And then pepper in being abused the whole time. The whole time. So, yeah, the the the fuck, man. The the the family Sweeney family was listening on a speakerphone here. He said, my sincerest apologies for the pain my actions have caused. I wish you all nothing but good from here on. His lawyer asked him if he wanted to live.

He said yes. The lawyer said why. Why? That's a good question. Yeah. He said, I think I can do a lot of good for people, for a lot of people in prison. He says that he could get an education if he wasn't on death row and he could become a counselor for other prisoners calm down chief

you get counseling first yeah uh then the swaney family had a short chance to address the board uh there and uh uh one of the brothers said that a lot of people suffer difficult childhoods not everyone grows up to be a demented child molesting killer. True, but not that childhood. His sister, Sweeney's sister, said the last 25 years have been torture for the whole family. Daniel Wayne Cook shook my trust in people. Her brother, the brother here, said that Cook, quote, needs to be gone.

It's too hard knowing this guy is alive. So, yeah, Cook's brother here here i'm sorry uh swaney's brother kevin's brother kevin swaney's brother jesus said quote we were all in foster care and we were all abused also it's time for him to make peace with his maker his maker is not mine he needs to make peace with his maker so he's just a piss that's a pissed off dude here. They hate him. Yeah. The board votes that no commutation or reprieve would be granted. He said that he understand Cook's childhood was tragic, but, quote, it's no excuse to visit on another what has been visited upon you. Yes, that's also true. March 2011, a Ninth Circuit U.S.

Court of Appeals rejects his appeal on shortcomings in his defense during trial and sentencing because he insisted on representing himself. He tried to appeal for ineffective assistance of counsel. And we're like, that's you, stupid. Fuck off. You can't look in the mirror and say it's my fault. Fuck. If that's your fault, then so is the fucking murder. Sorry, bro.

Yeah. Execution is delayed on April 5th, 2011. A week away from it, it's delayed. The Supreme Court ruling came down 24 hours before he was set to die. They win it saying they wanted to look into further the claim that he didn't have effective counsel. They wanted to look into that further, and then they went, oh, no, it's good. Never mind. You're fine.

Go ahead and shoot him up. But it got him an extra year and change wow uh his execution dates pushed from april 2011 to august 2012 august 8th 2012 is execution day yeah uh yes it is uh florence it is in florence absolutely last meal time yes last meal it's been so long Oh, it's been so long. Yeah, it has. It's been a long time. He chooses eggplant lasagna. Why? Why? Why did you do that?

You're about to die. Have a piece of veal, sir. What are you doing? You are veal. What do you care? Don't feel bad for the veal. You're fucking veal. Eggplant lasagna, garlic cheese mashed potatoes, roasted Brussels sprouts, broiled asparagus, ice cream and

root beer. It's not bad. It's a weird meal. I feel like it's just a bunch of things he likes, not necessarily a meal that goes together. Yeah, that's not something he's tried somewhere and was like, that's the one I want. You know, I'm going to go out on a limb here, and we've said a lot of bad things about this guy, but I don't think he'd be good at planning a dinner party. I'm just going to say.

I mean, I get that that might be harsh, but I don't think he's going to be very good at it i'm just gonna i'm just gonna say i mean i get that that's a might be harsh but i don't think he's gonna be very good at it i don't want to go to his house it's a terrible one and they don't say what flavor ice cream i couldn't find out they just said everywhere and everywhere it just says ice cream so they get him out there they get him on the gurney uh he's a little freaked out by the whole thing he's kind of crying and shit like that he's not real okay with this type of shit. His final words. Wow, are these a fucking doozy? This is what I mean where he had the one thing. I can't remember what he said at work.

And then he said, I'm having fun when he's, you know, the guy asked him what he's doing. He has something he'll come up with on the fly here. Final words. He says, wow, he's better. Dude, it's amazing. He says, quote, I'd like to say sorry to the victim's families. I know that's not enough. And then he pauses for like three seconds and says, where am I?

And then he says to my lawyers, thank you. Takes another pause, pause and then says, quote, Red Robin. Yum. I'm done. I love you. What? Red Robin. Yum.

That's what he says. He did. He quoted. He basically said, yo, Carol Taco Bell. I'm out of here. He What? Red Robin Yum. That's what he says. He basically said, Yo, Carro Taco Bell, I'm out of here. He said, Red Robin. He said, To my lawyers, thank you. Red Robin Yum. I'm done.

Love you. That was his final words. Wow. Red Robin Yum. I'm done. He went with the slogan. He just had it stuck in his head. What was that?

He was like, I don't know. Red Robin Yum. But that's on the spot. Did he say yum or did he go yum no i he just said yum like in the conversation red robin yum i'm done that's what he said like fucking just like he needed to get it out i wish he would have said pocket robin uh no shit that would have been amazing bars that would have been great that would have been fucking great was this 2015 2012 okay uh there was still some

execution drug shit going on here but we won't get into that because listen to the land lander gun episode yeah and then if you still want to know more you can i guess listen to john oliver talk about it but we did it better so uh yeah he uh they they're his family the swaney family's there and the one brother had fucking he he was he said quote i felt sorry for him he said what did uh what he did was brutal and wrong for a lot of years i used to hate cook but the man i saw lying there in that gurney was scared uh what he did was really wrong and a lot of years i used to hate him i mean i do hate him the man i saw in that gurney was scared though by no means am i advocating what he did but at the same time no one should have to die alone he didn't get closure he he feels

terrible on it no he feels fucking awful this guy wishes that guy would have been drug in there against his will yeah kicking and screaming well the sister jumped in and said why kevin did that's all i have to say and she walked away so they were actually arguing with each other uh then his other brother here said his views are not mine. He said, for me personally, he's always been with me, but it doesn't consume every moment. I can't. This doesn't mean I love him anymore. Talking about his his brother and that sort of thing.

But he's saying that he didn't mind this whole thing happening here. They chose the left the left arm. this whole thing happening here uh they chose the left the left arm uh he gulped several times and uh his pupils got wide toward the end which probably means he wasn't fucking unconscious when the shit was going on see that episode of the drugs don't fucking work uh but anyway that was it uh you know he is pronounced dead uh on august 8th and that is a tale that is a tale of bad fucking things happening to people leave it to a woman to have the best last words though of like the the family you know what i mean yeah like the other brothers like don't listen to my pussy brother we don't feel the same way but the other girl's like i don't know our brother didn't get my brother didn't get that

and then she dropped the mic and walked out of the fucking room peace out bitches pow and leave it to my brother bitch slap something stupid that's coherent. No shit, that dumb fuck. So, yeah, that is the story of Daniel Cook and Kevin Sweeney and Carlos Ramos, Cruz Ramos, and Matsky, and Lake Havasu City, Arizona, everybody. Lock your doors, Tucson. Lock your doors, Tucson.

You guys have a murderer around there. Well, many of them. It's Tucson. But that's I assume that's where most murderers go when they get out of jail. He's not the worst person in Tucson, probably. Oh, God, no. Not even probably not the worst person on his street. He lives in an apartment complex.

The guy in three F is worse than him. Like he's got this is Tucson, man. So, yes, that's that. If you enjoyed that story, you're a sick bastard. But you're also our kind of sick bastard. And you can tell us all about it by going over to iTunes, whatever the hell it is, Apple Podcasts,

the purple icon. Give us a review. Five stars would be wonderful. Just doesn't matter what you say. You can say you're following instructions, following directions. It doesn't matter. It's not for our ego. It's really just to drive us up the charts. So that would be greatly appreciated if you could do that other things follow us on social media why don't you we are at uh we're at murder small on uh on twitter we're at small town pod on facebook and

at small town murder on instagram you can catch us there uh go to shut up and give me murder.com for all of your small town murder needs including including tickets to live shows, which are not on sale yet. Do not say, where are the tickets? Why aren't they on sale? Not yet. That's why they're not on sale yet. We just want you to know where we're going. We want you to know where we're going.

They will be on sale next week. Pre-sale the 15th. Full sale the 17th. So look out for that. And thank you for being interested. We're excited to do all this shit. It's going to be great. Yeah.

So please come do all that. Check out the merchandise. merchandise buy a t-shirt wear it to a live show if you want to be an even bigger superstar a wonderful human being who we could not do this without you can do that extremely easily by going to patreon.com slash crime in sports or heading over to paypal and using our email address which is is CrimeinSports at gmail.com. Or you can get to both of those right from ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. That is true. God damn it, that's convenient, isn't it? That said, damn it, Jimmy, I think I need to hear the people.

I need to hear the wonderful people. I need to hear their names. Sing them like a song from the top of the mountains. Hit me with it, Jimmy. This week's executive producers are Sarah McCormack, Leah Egan of the Egan Sisters. Oh, fame. Neelu Ross and Johnny up there in San Francisco. She's a bodybuilder.

She's a badass. She's cool. Robin and Jake Anderson, Travis and Chrissy Saunders, who've been with us forever. Yeah, you guys are awesome. From Salt Lake, right? Oh, gee. Salt Lake City, baby. Laney Eagle.

I missed her birthday. Sorry, Laney. Hannah. Hannah. what is it? Oh, it's Hannah Power. And then Neil Patel, the Sinister Minister. I kind of, I don't know. I just like that he's got himself a little nickname. Sinister Minister.

That was a wrestling manager, Sinister Minister. Is that what it is? Maybe that's what it is. It was with ECW. He had some other AKAs that I didn't write them all down, just Sinister Minister. I'm good with that either way. Other producers this week are Nadine Carter, Christian Lopez, Robin Durbin, Casey Salestrom, Cooper Critchfield, David Guessing, Nicola Elliott, Mike Toms, Carissa Wilson, Shanna

with no last name, Ashley Robelia, Lynn Cornell, Madeline Bebler, Paula, shit, what is that, Salamanca? Yeah, that's, oh, that's an Italian girl. That's what that is. I'm sure of it. TJ McCollum. How you doing, sweetheart? TJ McCollum, Avriel Peach or Patch or, nope, I'm not getting it.

I'm sorry. Miller Hines. Good try, Jimmy. And he made a bunch of memes for us last week. Thanks, Miller. Appreciate it. Mcanon02. I don't know what oh that's just

like a a screen name or whatever okay okay didn't have a name it just said m cannon o2 well we appreciate you right uh nora uh uh shit about about ham no that's not what that is uh abitram uh autotram no what did i do i like when you I got it. No, I have no idea what we're talking about. I'm sorry, Nora. That's awesome. Katie Combs, Liz Allen, Harry, no, Hazy Nelson, El Bertone, Kim Riley, Shannon with no last name, Kimberly Stoltman, Andrea Papa George or Andrea Papa George, Nicole Holtzmark. Did I say that? No, Nicole Holtzmark.

That's what that is. That's two different people. There was Kimberly Stoltman. That's what it was. And Jade Osborne, Christopher Saliop mark that's what that is that's two different people there was kimberly stoltman that's what it was hey and jade osborne christopher saliup is that is that what that is i think i don't fuck kate with no last name uh susan york duquette uh samantha different diff and daffer that's an awesome name it sounds like the name of a candy yeah like like a like a fun dip it's a different daffer it sounds like the name of a candy. Yeah, it does. Like a Fun Dip. It's a Diffendaffer. It's like the knockoff Fun Dip, or the Good Fun Dip, we'll say.

You know what? You're the Good Fun Dip lady. Fun Dip is the knockoff of the Diffendaffer. That's right. Yep, that's right. Alexis Tompkins, Benny Nielsen, Amanda Petrovito, Lindsay Roloff. I wrote a really terrible way of whatever your last name is. Larry Butterfast, Alex Capel, Casey and Tricia, Jenny Wallace, no, just Jen Wallace, Peter

Falconer, or Falconeer, Stephanie Miller, Tenley Pocket Robin Cotton, Hayden Stouffer, Caitlin Taylor, Nikki Ritterhoff, Timothy Young, Auntie, Liz Brunner, Andrew Paulson, Jeff Watts, Kristen Otero, Simone with no last name, Kristen Otero, Simone with no last name, Daniel Blagio, Crystal Lamb, Andrew Batters, Norman Sather, Matt Sledge, Ali Cannon, Hannah O'Mary, and she donated twice. Thank you, Hannah. Oh, thank you so much. Danielle Hansen, Brad Peters, Fran Scholl, Becca with no last name, Amanda with no last name, no, male Lady Autumn, John Walker, Cal, what did he say? he's a vet thank you so much cal thank you he wrote us something like insanely nice and i forget oh you know what it was he we help him with his ptsd no fucking shit appreciate you brother because they don't help but we do

thanks for sharing that with us brother appreciate that man uh neil campbell jack smith samantha golden page and parker no page park Paige Parker and Jordania in Texas. That's what that is. Rebecca McDonough, Karen Edgen. Hang in there. Brendan Ables, Jesse Hartman, Katie Case, Jana with no last name, Karen Weiss, Frankie and Skippy. I think those might be dogs. Maybe they're people.

Maybe. I don't know. Patch is a bitch. Sorry, Patch. Brittany Hart. I don't know. Patch is a bitch. Sorry, Patch. Brittany Hart. Yes, that's what that is. Patch getting the what for. Yeah, I know, for no reason.

Liz Vasquez, thank you, and thanks for the gifts you send, Liz. You're terrific. Yeah, thank you. Dana Grayson, Tyler Gwill, Stephen Schnell, Jason Fuller. Those are like a bunch of dudes. That's our OGs there. Dana Grayson, Jason Fuller. John Deere.

I think that's Deere. D-E-H-R. That's Deere, right? I think so. Yeah. Or Dare. Dare. I don't know.

Ryan Shank. Gary Howard. Thanks, Gary. Carol Braun. It's been a while. Hey, thank you. Since we've seen you. Thanks for coming around.

Really? Travis Diarmente. No, Diarment. Fuck. I don't know if I was supposed to put an E on that. James Price. James Price. Sinfully Delightful, Clean Eating.

Ashley Levittai, Roxanna Hernandez, Stephen Crumley, Victoria Saunders, Amber Thunstrom. That's what that is. Guy Rillo, Troy Lindsey, Hannah Bragg, Damian Barney, Jana Gilbertson. Gilbertson. That's what that is. Mike Kennedy. Every time he donates to him, I'm like, take that, Mike, you fucking twat. I knew you liked us.

Yeah, and it's not you. Not the Mike that donated to us. You're not a twat. You're fantastic. Every time you do it, I say, that's my dude. Yeah. Whitney Gregory. Kurt Van Hook.

Rachel Stora. Hannah O'Meary. That's the one that donated twice. See? I knew it. Callie Shinkunas. BT Bullitt. They donated to somebody else, and we're hoping that we

would say their name first. So I hope that we got it. Hey, hopefully we threw it down. Bang. Deal with that. Amanda Barry. We come out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I don't know.

No, the recourse. Abdul John or Jan. Rosala. No, Rosalba. Rosalba Avalos. RMPChicagoagoevents.com. They do weddings and proposals and shit like that. Go get married.

There you go. Crystal Walker, Kelsey Groesbeck, Eric Langenegger, Rebecca Hart, Casey Huffman, Sandra Gaither, Annabelle's House, H-A-U-S, but Annabelle Blue is the one that donated. Thank you. Thank you. Katie Ives, Angela and Justin Miller, thank you both. Ashley Veo, Stephanie Smith, Reagan Shalkley uh jibbs trash and treasure in wisconsin i don't i don't know what that is visit them go find them sounds neat uh jordan bennett jennifer

castle stephen rude allison morris and all of our patreon supporters thank you all so much we see you thank you you amazing bastards we we appreciate you i, honestly, I can't tell you how much we appreciate you. You really are the fucking heroes of the show that keep this bad boy going. So thank you for everything that you do. And what if somebody wanted to tell you all about their Pocket Robin t-shirt? Jimmy, how could they do it? You can find me at WismanSucks, W-H-I-S-M-A-N sucks, on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. And it's really becoming overwhelming.

It really is. And I really appreciate it and I like the struggle. So thank you guys very much. Where can they overwhelm you? You can get me at JimmyPIsFunny or just copy and paste my last name from the show description and save yourself a little bit of trouble of trying to figure out how to spell it. Do all of that.

Follow us and keep hanging out and keep coming back because we're going to keep coming back. can't fucking stop us god damn it you can't by the way next week bonkers fucking case great absolutely like this not even close this was ridiculous yeah it gets worse next week it was crazier crazy it was too real it was pretty a lot of weeks i tried to just like people ask me how do i how do i deal with this and listen to the story. Since the one in Baraboo, I just disassociate. And this is just all a silly thing that you made up. This week was too real.

Yeah, this week there's a lot of connecting real shit there. It's feels. Man, well, until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Hey, Prime members. You can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts.

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