Small Town Murder - #12 - Murder & Worse in South Lake Tahoe, California - Part 2

Episode Date: April 5, 2017

This week, we return for part 2, to the small town of South Lake Tahoe, California, where a man honed his twisted fantasies, and eventually acted on them, drawing the attention of the nation to this town of ski chalets, and trailer parks. Along the way, we learn how long the FBI will watch someone who may, or may not have underage hostages. How much money a crazy person thinks he'll need to flee from justice. And the horrible things you have to do to get your high school gym teacher to want you to be executed!!Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!!Please subscribe, rate, and review!Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!Head to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder!For merchandise: crimeinsports.threadless.comCheck out James and Jimmie's other show: Crime in Sports Follow us on social media!Facebook: facebook.com/smalltownpodInstagram: instagram.com/smalltownmurderTwitter: twitter.com/MurderSmall Contact the show: [e-mail] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week, we head back to South Lake Tahoe, California for part two of this tragic story. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody.

Welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! We're going to get some closure. Let's get some closure. Part two. Thank you, everyone, for joining us this week. My name is James Petrogallo. I'm here with my co-host.

I am Jimmy Wissman. We're excited to be here this week with you. Thank you guys so much for all of your iTunes reviews this week. That is so big. We cannot thank you guys enough. It helps us out tremendously. You're doing amazing work for us. Thank you guys so, so much. We really, really appreciate it and encourage you.

Please, if you haven't, please get on iTunes. Give us five stars. Tell us whatever you want. Tell us you like puppies, and we're happy to take the credit for that. That's fine. Tell us anything you want. I don't care. We are very, very thrilled to be here this week to conclude this story that we started last week.

Sorry to leave you guys on such a cliffhanger, but, you know, we had to. We ran out of time. The amount of anger. I know. You were upset about it yourself. You were like, no. Yeah, what are you doing, James? Don't do this to me.

Didn't you see the time? We're running out of time. It's like when you're watching a TV show. I know. This is going to be to be continued. It's going to be, no, damn it, they can't possibly solve this. There's too many plot points to go, so of course it's... There's a commercial break. Damn it. This is not going to work.

This is not going to work, but we are here, and we are excited to do this. Just want to give you guys a little heads up. Just a quick couple of things here. First of all, you should be listening to our other podcast also, Crime and Sports. Please listen to Crime and Sports. You do not have to be a sports fan. No.

It's us making fun of criminal athletes. Who doesn't like that? Who doesn't like that? It's a really good time. So don't worry if you don't know anything about sports. That is not the point of the podcast whatsoever. So please do that. Also, if you really like us, beyond even an iTunes review like us,

and you want to help us out a little bit more, you can go on patreon.com slash crimeandsports. That's like we said, our other podcast, all that money goes to us. If you want to make a donation, that would be terrific. And we would appreciate it like more than you can imagine. Help me get James some goddamn health insurance. That would be nice. Otherwise, otherwise, the five stars would be excellent and just listen and hang out with us.

And we're happy with that. Terrific. Before we get started, I would like to make a slight disclaimer, as always. This is a sensitive subject matter. This is a comedy podcast. Terrific. We are comedians. We're stand-up comics. This is a comedy podcast. So we promise you we never, ever, ever intend to denigrate or disrespect the victims or the victims' families. It's never our intention. We're not assholes. The comedy from this comes from a little bit of making fun of small towns, which is just fun, good fun. We're just joshing. We're just kidding.

That's it. It's either that or we're making fun of a complete pile of human garbage who did a horrible thing and deserves it or bumbling of a court system or a police force or something like that around the whole thing that's that's where the comedy comes from so but we understand if you feel that true crime and comedy do not have any place together we completely understand that and we part ways say thank you very much please unsubscribe it's been nice and don't stick around and then complain that that it's exactly what we just told you it was because that's what it is so if you don't like it go away okay thank you but that out of the way

without further ado without further ado you're so exhausted so angry in the first place it just makes me crazy i gotta tell you but that's fine that's fine this week also special disclaimer this week is especially a little bit – Holy shit, it's going to get crazy. It's a little creepy this episode this week. As you've heard, if you listened to last week's episode where we left off, you would understand that it is totally creepy because we have a gentleman who is going around in South Lakes, Tahoe, California in May of 1987, going around to these modeling agencies just to catch everybody up, do a quick recap. He's going around to these modeling agencies just to catch everybody up, do a quick recap. He's going around to these modeling agencies. He finds a modeling agency that will provide him with teenage girls that he says are for an anti-drug commercial.

So that is Mabs Martin, a 69-year-old owner of Showcase Finishing and Model School. And she brings with her her friend Dorothy Dottie Walsh, her 67-year-old friend, along to this shoot with – Dottie and Mabs. Dottie and Mabs, their 67-year-old friend, along to this shoot with Dottie and Mabs. Dottie and Mabs, two nice older ladies. They're sweet ladies. They take these two girls, Alicia Toma, age 14, from Reno, and Monica Burge, age 12, from Sparks.

They take them to- They're so young. They're so young. They take them to South Lake Tahoe to meet with the gentleman who they believe is named Mark Bloomfield to shoot this commercial. And where we left off was they arrived. They met with him. They arrived at his trailer in a trailer park, which should be red flag number one.

And he tells them to go inside, and the girls can get changed. He's got a back room. They enter a back room. They open it up. They see the walls are wood, like plywood. Lined with pictures of models. Lined with pictures of models. Not a single mirror to be found. Not a single mirror to be found.

Not a single mirror to be found. And they think everything is quite suspicious at that point. And that is where we come in right now. All right. All right. So they enter the room, as we said, Mabbs, Dottie. The girls are in front of them. The girls walk in.

They seem confused. Mabbs and Dottie are at the doorway. They walk in. They turn around to Herb Coddington, who is the guy they believe is Mark Bloomfield, also alias Gary Sarno, from calling that one lady and trying to lure her to a shoot, I guess, talking about her daughter, which was disgusting. Anyway, so they turn around. They see him.

They look puzzled. As nothing is said, they look puzzled and he immediately punches with a blackjack in his hand. Wow. Like like an old time mob guy. Yeah. He was like a little basically looks like a doorstop. Yeah. A little heavy doorstop. He smashes 14 year old Alicia right in the jaw. Oh Jesus. That's his first that's his first action here. This is we're five minutes in six minutes and this is brutal. And the kids already punch the kids already punched in the face. A poor 14-year-old Alicia. She falls back.

So then he turns to Mabs, the 69-year-old woman who owns the agency, and begins punching and pushing her toward the ground and just basically pummeling this poor woman. He then tells everyone to shut up. Herb, he tells everyone to shut up. Orders the old ladies, well, not old ladies, but compared to the young girls – orders the older ladies onto the ground and ties them up. Holy shit. That's what he tells them. This got super real.

Yeah, he tells them he's going to tie them up. Now, Mabbs Martin, she protests the whole thing. I would hope so. She's trying to talk her way out of this. If she's just like, yeah, this will do it, then I'd have some more questions. Yeah, terrific. Where would you like it? Back or front?

Right. These poor people. This will do it. Then I'd have some more questions. Yeah, terrific. Where would you like it? Back or front? These poor people. And so he basically tells her, look, I will kill the girls if you don't get on the ground.

That's his thing here. Now, before we go any further, too, you have something that is really, really relevant about this story that I'd like you to share with people. Right now? Yeah, go ahead and do it right now because later on it's going to be weird. Okay. So I have a young daughter. Yes. She is six. Adorable little girl. She's adorable. She's. Okay. So I have a young daughter. Yes. She is six.

Adorable little girl. She's adorable. She's amazing. She's the light of my life. I love her to death. She's beautiful, and everybody always tells me that she should be in modeling. And a friend of mine, and she found in a group on Facebook, somebody was looking for child models for, I'm not going to say the company's name, for a kid's toy company that's very,

very well known. And they were looking for children to model. The winner gets, you send pictures in a contest, the winner gets to shoot. So my daughter enters. My wife enters. She Googles the people that have the pictures up or the ads up. They all come up clean, whatever. My wife's very, very, she doesn't fuck around with people that are going to be around.

She's very thorough, obviously. She's a good mom is what she's like. Yeah, you should be thorough. So, she Googles the people, they come back clean. She emails, sends some pictures, or she emails and strikes up the conversation. They signify this is a legit opportunity.

So, my wife sends pictures. Now, cut three weeks later, my wife gets an email notification that my daughter won and she's going to get the photo shoot, whatever. So she takes the ad. She goes. At no point, nobody had jet black dyed hair and looked like they were in disguise. And no punches were thrown or anything.

Everything's good at this point. So far, everything's fine. So my wife goes, does the photo shoot. Everything's great. My wife said the pictures were amazing and she couldn't wait to see them. So three weeks later, no, two days later, we get an email from the man who had hired the people to a Facebook post saying, thank you for doing the shoot. I got my cut as the finder fee. Thank you so much.

Blah, blah, blah. Look forward to working with you in the future. My wife's like, who the hell is this guy saying thank you? So she Googles him. He's a fucking level two sex offender who was convicted of molesting, systematically torture and rape of a 12 or under victim. Obviously, I'm not going to give the actual case in the files. My wife went into a fit. She was crying, terrified, sad. So she called me and we Googled the company back, called the company back, and told them what had happened.

And they had no fucking clue. Amazing. Because this guy owns his own business. They didn't do a page one Google search, though. Not one. They had no idea. They had hired him for several shoots before. Let me ask you.

When you Googled him, was it like on page 12 of it? Did you have to dig deep? Fucking first article. First article. Very first thing. That's what I'm saying right there. Unbelievable. And that was through

legit people too. So that tells you people. And this guy was not at the shoot. Be careful. And I wasn't at the shoot either. But the man emailed my wife and said he likes to be at the shoots to watch his quote unquote my children work. The most vile disgusting email we've ever gotten. And thank Christ he was in another state at the time on some other shoot. But the man got fired. The company that we called gave him our information as the people that made the complaint. Unbelievable.

So this sicko, and he judged the contest. Unbelievable. He found the sexiest fucking kid. What a dirtbag. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And I felt like a failure as a Unbelievable. Oh, my God. Unbelievable. What's going on? And I felt like a failure as a parent.

This shit happened two years ago. Yeah. Two years ago. That means this is still going on today. And he started this company because he couldn't get a job as anything else. Because he's a sex offender. Right. Exactly.

So he had to go start his own company. And he fucking did it with kids. And this is 30 years after what we're talking about here and it's still happening today so if you think this shit is just like a dated uh occurrence no it's don't even think that be careful this could happen to you tomorrow if you have a beautiful child it's not even a beautiful child any child it doesn't matter yeah they're sick sick people absolutely no this is that's horrible so that that was really germane to what we're discussing yes i really wanted to get that out to kind of give you guys a – Thanks.

I'm glad I got to shoot that one out. That felt good to say out loud. The people need to know that that's a thing that exists. I know people still know child molesters exist. But the fact that even with a simple Google search, some people don't do that. And I'm never putting my child in any ad ever, ever again. No, you never know who's with these people. That was close enough to ruin it.

You never know if they end up in a trailer, in a room, in a soundproof room in a trailer with plywood walls. I told you 16 to have a job. Let her work at a fucking donut shop. I don't care.

Just not Dunkin' Donuts. Yeah, not Dunkin' Donuts as we found out from episode two. Sex offenders be the manager. Episode two. James Cater, it happened. Sorry, Dunkin' Donuts,

but stop hiring sex offender managers who are literally going at the hospital for sex offender treatment. That would end up being murderous. Insane. It's for criminal sexuality.

So anyway, back to this room. This is the – thankfully not the ending of what happened with your child, but you never know. It could have been. It's the sad part here, and that's why we're kind of doing this. It's kind of one of those things. You told me that story last week, and I went, oh, my God, and I found this story. Why don't we talk about that? Well, it happens, and it scared me. And I was like, man, maybe people need to be more aware of that sort those things. You told me that story last week and I went, oh my God. And I found this story. Why don't we talk about that? Well, it happens and it scared me.

And I was like, man, maybe people need to be more aware of that sort of thing. And I don't know. So anyway, Martin is protesting. Like I said, he threatens to kill the girls if she does not get down on the ground and submit to being tied up. Dottie at this point, Dottie begins to beg for her life. She's saying, please don't kill me. Mads is saying-

That's what you do in those situations. Well, Mads is saying, take us, don't hurt the girls. Oh, what a hero. She's a hero, this lady. I mean, she really, she's like, don't hurt, just take us, do whatever you want to us. Not for nothing. She's 69. She's led a nice life. She's led a nice life.

But still, you know, I think she's got a nice Chrysler Fifth Avenue. She's doing well in life here. She's enjoying it. She's enjoying her life, and she's actually trying to sacrifice herself. She says that she'll give him any money that he wants and he responds with i know you will yeah which is scary that's desperate that's a scary that's a scary statement to live and he's like i realize you're desperate and i don't give a shit no and a 14 year old alicia at this point has some money in her pocket so he hands she hands it to her i mean you're just trying to give whatever you can

to get this guy to stop her bazooka jo Joe money. Anything. I mean, who knows? She probably got money. Her parents probably gave her money for lunch or something because they were stopping. She's got eight bucks in her pocket. She's like, will this save my life? Yeah, here you go. And he's a scumbag. Unreal.

So Herb, at this point, Coddington puts a pillowcase over Mab's head. Oh, Jesus. And from there, this gets bad, he tightens a zip tie around her neck, the flex cuffs that we talked about before that don't, once you tighten them, they don't untighten to cut them off. So she zips that around her neck and she says that it's too tight and asks him to loosen it and says she can't breathe. And then she just gags and can't breathe and falls over sideways and dies right there on the floor in front of everybody, choking to death, which is not a great way to go.

And it's probably to be a little traumatic for the girls, I would imagine. Just ruined three lives if they exist after this. Oh, Jesus. So, yeah, she falls over. Now Herb orders the girls to lie on top of the older woman's legs on the ground so he can tie them up, presumably. He uses flex cuffs, the same thing he used to kill Mads. He uses them to tie their hands and feet, to bind the girl's hands and feet. He puts a jacket over Alicia's head and a pair of shorts over Monica's head.

Monica's 12, by the way, which just sounds so much younger than 14, even though it's not. That sounds so young, 12. It's amazing what those two years do for, like, maturity of their brain. Yeah, I have a 15-year-old daughter. I know, like, she's way different now than when she was 12. Exactly. It's just a different thing. At for maturity of their brain. Yeah, I have a 15-year-old daughter. I know. She's way different now than when she was 12. Exactly. It's just a different thing.

At 12, they're still like a baby. They're still a baby. At 15, they think they're adults. Granted, they're not, but they can spit some pretty important information out. So now they're tied up, and Dottie is pleading for her life. She says, please don't kill me. Let me live. And she says, I have a heart problem.

I don't know. She's just digging for whatever. I don't know why that would make him want to let her live anymore. But Herb tries to get her purse. She's holding her purse in her hands like Sophia from the Golden Girls. And he, I don't mean to make fun of it, but I mean, she's holding her purse. Anything, right? Try, whatever.

She's holding her purse and he's trying to grab it and she won't let go good for her like she's holding on to her purse well it's probably i don't know if that was the right move because then he hits her repeatedly on the head until she basically falls over unconscious bleeding out bleeding on the carpet um then he leaves the room when he leaves the room the girls are covered but they hear dotty vomiting and they hear you hear her thrashing around and hear her vomiting. Hear her dying. Hear her dying. Well, she's hit on the head and I think that made her throw up because that happens if you have a pet injury.

He returns with the flex cuff and puts it around her neck and strangles her too, Dottie. Wow. So now he's got both the ladies are gone and the girls can hear gargling noises as she's dying, of course. They're traumatized. They've heard horrible, seen and heard horrible things now. It's probably worse maybe with your sight being obscured. You can't see it. You're imagining what you think is there.

Which makes it much more horrible. You don't know if that's coming at you now either because you can't see. So it's horrible. A little later they hear, in the next few minutes, they hear a lot of moving around by Herb. They hear plastic bags being jostled about. And about 15 minutes later, they hear the sound of bags being dragged on the carpet. Wow. They didn't think the older women were in the room anymore.

So you can do your own math there as to where the older women might be at this point. Cleaning up maybe? Taking out the trash? Yeah. They're making a nice dinner in the front. They have a couple things on the stove. Just a light. This should be taken out. Just a couple things on the stove. Just a light. This should be taken out.

Just a light couple of chicken breasts, something very light. Chicken cutlets, some macaroni and cheese. Very nice. He returns to the girls at this point, and they're still in the room. They've got to be scared. I can't imagine what they're feeling like. It must be. That's a living hell.

That's a living hell. It really is. And their faces are covered, and they're zip-tied hands and feet. I can't imagine what that did. That's insane. He puts a living hell. That's a living hell. It really is. And their faces are covered and they're zip-tied hands and feet. I can't imagine what that did. That's insane. He puts a pillowcase. He returns. He cuts off the zip ties first, actually.

So, I mean, that might have at least gone okay. Really a little bit of tension? A little bit, yeah, where they can move around a little bit. He ties their hands in front of them with a belt at this point, which I guess is better than flex ties. It's better than, you know, I guess. I don't know. There is no better in this situation. It's better than, I guess. I don't know. There is no better in this situation. It's a little more comfortable.

It's a little, not cutting into your wrist, maybe a little bit more comfortable. You don't feel like you're being arrested at a riot. Right. Your fingers aren't falling asleep. Yeah. So then he puts a pillowcase over Alicia's head and ties a rope around her neck.

Oh, God. He tells them, now this is how he's created his own world here. This is going to play out over the course of the next couple of days. He tells them, quote, we wanted Mabbs and I was paid to get her and I'll have to be paid extra for Dottie. So right now he's telling them that basically he's a hitman that was hired to kill a 69-year-old owner of a teenage modeling agency. Like she's in with the wrong crowd. She's been really going deep with the mob. Right.

Like, what are you talking about here? The Fifth Avenue is the tip. It's the tip, yes. That's the one that tells you she's really into some bad shit. Yeah, she's knowing it. Unbelievable, man. So, anyway, he takes off the wrist restraints after a little while off the girls and allows them to take their blindfolds off.

Okay. Which, I'm sure that had to be a ginormous... I can't imagine the relief in that. Even though you're still trapped in this house, at least you can see and move around a little bit. Alicia sees the door to the room at this point has eye holes in it. So he's got that creepy. Oh, wow. This is as creepy as a human being could be.

He's got a soundproof girl holding room with eye holes in the door. Every hair on my body just stood up everybody's hair should be standing up right now i hope it is if there's not you're fucked up and it should be checked out don't give us a review saying we're assholes you're the one whose hair isn't standing up not panicking right now with eye holes cutting a wall by this and you know what i gotta say this too like i understand that you know obviously whatever happened to them is the most horrible and i'll find out what happened to them but i this is disturbing to me i have had nightmares for two weeks doing this story and i'm disturbed i'm disturbed relaying the details

of it but it happened yeah and you need to know what a piece of shit this guy is and what a piece of shit still lurks out there like you said and we'll root for bad things to happen to this guy also. But unbelievable. Rah, rah, rah. Go bad things. So he comes in at this point and tells the girls after he's let them, you know, have undid their restraints, he tells them he'll probably hold them for ransom, which is probably a relief to the girl.

If it was me, it would be a little bit of a relief. I'd rather hear I'm going to let you go now, obviously. But hold you for ransom is better than, you know, I'm going to the girl. If it was me, it would be a little bit of a relief. I'd rather hear, I'm going to let you go now, obviously, but hold you for ransom is better than, you know, I'm going to get the zip ties out. I don't need you ever again is a worse fucking thing to say. A hold you for ransom means I need you alive. Right. So that's at least that. Now Monica, 12, the 12-year-old,

she asks if he's going to kill them because that's a normal question. Herb pulls out a pistol with a silencer on it and tells them that if he planned to kill them, he could have already done it. Well, he's not wrong. Yeah, I think he just saw that in a movie once. Because remember, this is...

I'm serious. If this is from the movie, this is a movie thing. He saw a movie in 1975 with Martin Sheen and Linda Blair that made him... Whereas Martin Sheen plays a smart mental patient that kidnaps Linda Blair and they end up falling in love. Right. So he feels, I really feel like everything he does is from movies.

He's just one of these people. That does sound like a fucking pre-written line. It does sound. I've seen it in movies a hundred times. Sure. They take the gun out, and if I wanted to kill you, I'd have already done it. And they're like, oh, yeah, okay. And that means that everything's fine now in a movie.

But in real life, I'm not, I wouldn't be buying it from this guy after what I've seen. Herb gives the girls some water at this point and then makes them turn around, face the wall and puts pillowcases back over their heads. So again, this is just a, I don't know if he did, this seems like the type of guy who would study psychological techniques of how to get people broken down. And I think that's what he's doing. Take them off, put them on, you know, disorient their space and everything. But also too, there's a psychology in that in that that you're dehumanizing them.

Yeah, absolutely. Maybe they were too real at that moment, and he had to put them on to get rid of that whole feeling. That's the thing. He's got to cover them up, and that's another thing that happens here. But also, too, I think it's a tactic because he's read all these booklets on how to control people and all this. I feel like that's a tactic, too. How to push that fear into them. Yeah, and it works for the way of dehumanizing them also.

I think it's like, hey, win-win for him, you know? Anyway, he leaves the room. Now they're sitting there going, where is he? What's he doing? He comes back with fruit. What the fuck? He comes back with fruit and gives it to the girls. What kind of fruit?

Like fucking honeydew or some garbage fruit? I'm sure it was a terrible, yeah, like an underripe cantaloupe. Fucking cantaloupe. A really underripe one, though. Yeah, it's all fucking hard. Didn't scrape the skin Fucking cantaloupe. A really underripe one, though. It's all fucking hard. Didn't scrape the skin slime out of the middle well enough. Still super green.

Not great. Yeah, it doesn't taste. It all tastes like the rind. I hate cantaloupe so much. I like it if it's ripe. It's the worst fruit. That's a little good one. Anyway, so after a little while of being gone here, he leaves the girls locked in the room,

and he comes back with some magazines now. I don't know. Now it's turned into the waiting room at the dentist's office and he's giving you a golf digest. National Geographic. So this ends up actually helping out because Alicia sees on them. This is how he thought all this through enough. This is brilliant. But he didn't think it through this much. Pull the label off you

dickhead. Exactly. You idiot. She finds a subscription label with Herb Coddington and his address written on it. So she, like a smart girl, rips it off and puts it in her bag because they have their suitcases for them to change into. So she does that, which is smart. Yes. He leaves them there now for the night.

Basically, they go to sleep eventually. What else are you going to do? You're in a dark room. There's nothing to do. You've had your fruit. What do you do? So they go to sleep. Eventually, too, like even you think that you're such in fear that you're just going to stay up constantly.

But eventually your body just goes, oh, you've had enough. It shuts it down. Yeah. How much stress can your body handle? And she's been barraged visually with horrible and audibly with horrible things. Yeah. You're just like you probably just your body rests and your mind rests at the point where, okay, I don't think I'm being killed right now, which was what you were in constant fear of every second of that day. And now it's gone.

So I would imagine that might, I guess, be – I don't know how you could be calm at all. Enough comfort, right. It's ridiculous. So Herb at this point, they're sleeping. He's out in the living room going about his business. Yeah. He calls a friend of his, as we remember from the first episode, part one, Michael Zaretma. Do we remember him?

He was the mathematician guy who has the advanced degree in mathematics. It said that Herb understands advanced mathematics as it comes to probabilities of gambling as well as anybody else. Right. He tells, Herb tells Michael that, quote, I have something going on here, something like the guy in Philadelphia. Now, they're referencing this. There was a man, I guess, who held some girls hostage in his basement in Philadelphia for years and never got caught.

And this is a thing that they're referencing. He says that the Saretma asks if it was a voluntary situation. You know, is this like a kinky thing you got going on with some girl you met at the casino? And she's like 30-something and she's into it. Yeah, she's 35 and wants to be tied up for 20 hours a day. Like, whatever. People are weird. Who knows?

Herb replies, no. So this makes Michael Zaretma a little bit uncomfortable, as I would imagine. Herb said he won't get caught at all because the landlord doesn't hardly come around. He's like, no one's going to come in here. Soundproof room. And that's what? Who's going to bother me? Now, he tells him, he tells Saretma that he's a 30-year-old guy.

He's going nowhere in life. He's got nothing going on. And basically, what the hell? Right. Like, he's going to give it a shot. May as well. Yeah. Basically, I've had these fantasies for going on.

They've been working and working. And let's give it a shot. Let's see what it works. Let's see if it works out. It's like a guy, he thought about starting a little business and cleaning offices. This asshole. One day he just got a bucket and a couple of sponges, and he's like, I'll just go start going around offices. I'm just going to go get one right now, and then maybe it'll turn into two and three.

Go to Vista Prince, get some cards, and let's do this. I'll just go around from place to place. Word of mouth? I might be kidnapping kids all over this town. Offer them a free cleaning up front, and then they'll come back and get my services again. No. So this is absolutely insane uh he tells him he uh herb tells zaretma that uh if if zaretma comes to back to the area because he had moved to minnesota in 1986 he said by the way if you're in the area he's planning on this being like a long-term thing

right now wow because if you're ever back in the area you should stop by he goes because it's because quote it was better than you can imagine. That's what he tells him about this. This is his idea of better than you can imagine. Holy shit. Having two dead women and two petrified, terrified, ruined children. Hold up in a soundproof room that you've made. With eye holes in the wall. I don't fucking believe it.

Better than I can imagine. Better than I can imagine. Better than I can imagine is you invited them over to do the photo shoot. You did the photo shoot, paid them, and they left. That's better than I can imagine. Here's better than I can imagine. Instead of doing this, Herb went out and found a job that he didn't really love, but it paid the bills, and he went and did it 9 to 5,

and then he jerked off, and then he went to bed. That's what I would like from Herb. But they have a smoking section and he hates it. He hates it. Hits the buffet at the casino. That's better than I can imagine for Herb. This is about what I can imagine for Herb. It's about right for him.

Fucking Herb, man. I want to punch Herb right in the throat right now. I swear to God. I'd like to wrap a zip tie around his throat. What a scumbag. This guy, it's funny too because neither of us are huge death penalty people. We're not like, kill everybody, who cares? But when you get something like this,

oh God, do I just want somebody to pummel him. Never mind. Crimes against the elderly. And I hate to say elderly, because they're in the 60s. They're fending for themselves. But they're vulnerable women. They're not a match for a 30-year-old man.

It's a 70-year-old woman. Really, any woman's vulnerable to a man. We're generally stronger. Physically, right. You don't fucking hit a woman. No, a 70-year-old woman. And you're bashing her to death. Well, you also hit a 14-year-old in the face with a blackjack.

So this guy has no... To kick off the festivities. That was the kickoff. Jesus. That was his opener. That was his opener. He came out and said, how you doing, everybody? Unbelievable.

So at this point he lets the girls wake up and he is there when they wake up with eggs and strawberries jesus what a terrible combination i don't know what he's that's probably the only fruit he had in the house i don't know but you need your vitamin c you need your protein for this this is how much he planned he's like i gotta get some eggs and strawberries in the house too that's what kids like apparently uh he also makes them take some vitamins. Got to make sure they're healthy. Have your Flintstones. As we know, he's obsessed with health and everything else. God forbid

if he found a pack of cigarettes on one of them, they'd be dead already. He then lets them go into the living room, which is interesting. At this point, he is wearing this. Okay, this is how terrifying this is. You don't know where you are. You're in some trailer in some strange little dumpy small town.

You've seen the people who brought you be killed. This guy killed them. He's obviously a horrible person that's built this chamber dungeon with eye holes in it and everything else. He zip-tied you up. He's taken you in and out. Now he's wearing a turtleneck with the arms wrapped around his face and a ski mask over his hair. What the fuck? How terrifying does that sound if you don't know what's going on? Sounds like an eight-year-old trying to play Superman.

That's what he sounds like. Not only that, they've already seen him. Yeah. We know what you look like. He auditioned them. Now you're terrifying. Now you're making it worse. And through the ski mask, they can see orange hair sticking out.

He's now dyed his hair orange as well. What the fuck? Because he's a master of disguise, apparently. Yeah. The guy who looked just like that crazy guy, but now he's got orange hair instead of dyed black fucking paint, you know, shoe polish head. It's like a bad comedy. It is.

It's like a bad comedy that is really, really not funny. It's scary. It's scary and not very funny at all. He lets them watch TV for a while before announcing that it was time to work out. Oh, boy. Now he tells them it's workout time. He puts them back in the room and he tells them to go change. Put your workout clothes on, he tells them.

We're going to work out. Yeah, right. So the girls, while they're in the room, they can hear heavy breathing like he's working out. They hear like, you know, working out noises. They hear the shower go on and they hear him take a shower. And then he comes back and retrieves the girls, has them work out to a videotape. He had to get a workout tape for them to work out to. He's looking through.

He's like, I'll just get Jane Fonda today. I picture him at the... There's some Susan Powder. Yeah, I picture him down at the, you know, whatever, the small town video, the South Lake Tahoe video going, do I want Buns of Steel or do I want this other one here? Do I want Denise Austin? Which one? I'm trying to think of 80s exercise video people.

Denise Austin, Richard Simmons, Susan Powder. So anyway, they're doing that. He tells them to work out. They work out to the tape because they have to because the psychopath is holding them hostage. Whatever video it is, they'll never watch that shit ever again. They will hate Jane Fonda from now on. I'll tell you what.

He offers them showers. They refuse because who wants to get naked in there? I would imagine if they're them. Alicia does ask to use the bathroom to brush her teeth because, I got to say, her dentist would be so proud. She is being held hostage and she's still concerned about gingivitis. She is still concerned about the health of her teeth, which is – that's impressive as a dentist. Like, no, actually I do floss. I was actually held captive and I still brush my god damn teeth.

I still did it. She sees brown mustache-length hair all over the sink. So he shaved his mustache. So he's trying to change his appearance with orange hair and no mustache. And he's a dirtbag. Clean that shit up, man. Yeah. Clean it up a little bit.

That's why you're single. Jesus. Yeah. Exactly. All the hair. Yeah. You bring a girl over. You bring a woman over.

Show her that. She's not coming back. Period. You ever have dinner and then you're like, yeah, the bathroom's down the hall. She walks in. She's like, what the fuck? What did you do? Who is this monster?

One paper towel swipe. God. It's not that hard. So they're both returned to their room. And after a little while, Herb comes back in. Oh, God. Which is insane. He sits down and tells the girls something.

He sits down and he's talking to them. He tells them. Oh, my goodness. He tells them that they are going to make a videotape with an 18-year-old boy that his friends kidnapped and that they were going to take the tape and sell it in Europe. That's what he's telling them right now. He makes them take off their clothes and he blindfolds them. At this point, Alicia can see out of her blindfold. He doesn't do a good job with that because he's a complete fucking loser.

Alicia asks if he's going to rape them. That's her question, which is a fair one, I would say, at this point. Herb tells them no and tells them that if this 18-year-old boy hurts them, then he'll hurt the boy. He's telling them no, whatever. So this, okay, this, by the way, this part's a little rough, so just buckle up for this. He puts both of them on the bed close enough to where they can hold hands with each other. For moral support. At least they had each other, I guess.

I mean, that's horrible. But I mean, at that point, that must have felt like a rock or something. Like a teddy bear. That's what I mean. Just something, someone else to help with the fear. Anything. It's horrible. So anyway, Herb climbs on the bed and he's holding a microphone.

At least you can see him holding a microphone. And in his normal voice, he tells this boy who they don't know is, they don't see a boy to be gentle with the girls. Okay. He tells him that. He leans down to Monica. She's the 12 year old, by the way. Can't reiterate that enough.

This girl is fucking 12 years old. Unbelievable. He puts on a young boy voice at this point. He's trying to fucking fool them with this, which I hate him so much. I hate him so much. That's what I mean. He's such a piece of shit that he can't even fucking be honest about the shitty shit that he's doing. Even when he's in the middle of doing it.

Right. It's like you are doing this. You're not fooling. This is for him. He's feeling shame, though. Yeah, obviously. A of it because yeah because he knows that he's doing something terrible yeah he's he's intelligent enough to know that this is not fucking correct even if his sick mind is telling him it's okay he knows it's not correct you can count cards you can damn sure count years exactly exactly 12 is not a very high number god God, it's so low. So low. So he whispers in the young boy voice to Monica that he's scared, too.

Fucking unreal. And that the people here have guns. And he thought that if they just did what they wanted, the people won't kill them. That's what he said. So now he's trying to get these girls to like, you know what he's doing. Right. Now he takes his hairy thighs. So now Herb, this utter piece of garbage, begins to kiss Monica all over herself, which is disgusting. He's kissing this poor girl, and Alicia asks Monica if she's okay.

She doesn't know what's going on, and she can only see a little bit out of the blindfold. Monica says yes, she's okay. She's not being hurt at this moment in time. About after a half hour of him kissing all over her, a half hour of this, Monica begs him to stop, and he actually stops. Oh, good.

And he lets her get dressed, which must have felt good, but I mean, she's ruined now more than she was. Now you've destroyed her mind. That was too much. Destroyed her psyche already. You've already done it. You've killed this girl three times over already. No doubt.

He moves over then to Alicia, and again, he's acting like the young boy, and he's saying he's sorry, and he didn't want to be killed he gives her the same bullshit because Alicia didn't hear he was she was whispering this to Monica he was whispering it and he didn't she didn't hear the original whispering he does the same exact thing to Alicia the you know we don't need to go over it again after a while she asked

him to stop and he does which is whatever I mean I would say it's never mind it's not even no would say it's, never mind. It's not even. No, she's already scarred and wounded. Absolutely. If you shoot someone in the head twice and then say, please stop, and they do,

they're not a nice guy after that. They're not unwounded now. You have brain leaking out still. It's still not great. So anyway, Alicia dresses, and he lets the girls back into the living room, and when they go in there, only Herb is there, obviously. Where's the young boy? Where'd he go? Where'd he go? Where'd Johnny

go? He tells the girls that the video quote is not worth two cents and he tells them that they would have to be repeated because they didn't do a good job. So now while all this is going on, these girls' parents are worried as you might imagine. Thank God. They are actually acting on their own now.

They don't even trust the police. Alicia's stepfather, who's a fucking, oh, I love this guy. This is some shit where you go, yes, this is what you do when your kid is missing. You fight. He goes out. This is the day, the Saturday that they're gone. This is while all this was going on. He goes on.

He can't call. He's trying to call Mab's office saying, where are they? Where are they? You're supposed to be back by 1230. It's two. Where are they? Where's my goddamn stepdaughter? No one answers at the office. No one's there. No one's there.

So he goes there later on in the afternoon. No one's there. He might as well have an S on his chest. He goes and breaks into that fucking office. I was just about to say, my wife would have brought a baseball bat and broke down a door. He does. He goes, he kicks down the door of this office and he finds her Rolodex and starts making calls. Were you at this audition? I mean, he goes through it and he tracks down, this is amazing, he tracks down the girl that he originally picked out,

that her picked out, that couldn't do it. Remember he said, never mind, tell her she looks too old. Yeah, from the beer commercial. That girl finds that girl. Okay. That girl remembers that day when she went there, there was a car in the parking lot, a BMW with the license plate that she thought said TV teen. Oh, boy. So that made sense to her because he was casting the guy. That's the guy. So they go looking for this car. OK, now her stepfather's brother in law.

We're going deep into this redneck family. I don't know if they're rednecks, but they're from Sparks. It doesn't matter. He's a king redneck. Yeah. I love this fucking guy. He goes, he gets his brother-in-law to go drive around South Lake Tahoe and find this goddamn car. Awesome. That's why I said you can say South Lake Tahoe is not a very big place. Thank God.

Thank God it's tiny. They end up finding this car in the lot at the Nugget where he left it. Amazing. Because somehow track this down. These people are amazing. Yeah. Okay. They alert the authorities right now. So this is all going while this is happening. Yeah. Because somehow track this down. These people are amazing. They alert the authorities right

now. So this is all going while this is happening. We're going parallel here. They alert the authorities who track the plate back to a dealer. It doesn't say TV Teen. It is the name of a dealer. It's a dealer plate. And it says Tveten. T-V-E-T-E-N. That is a man's name and he owns a dealership.

That's what she saw but she's just walking by. Go TV Teen, whatever, which is funny, because if you looked at that and you were thinking of that in your head, that's exactly what you'd see. You'd just switch to E in the T. I'll bet he thought it said that, too. Probably, yeah. So, well, he knows Tibetan, so maybe not.

Okay. Anyway, Tibetan, they talk to Tibetan, the dealer owner, and he says that the plate was given to Gary Sarno. He gives it to Gary Sarno, who we all know is one of his aliases that he uses all around town in the gambling circles. He says that Sarno had a BMW that he imported from Europe, and he couldn't register it in the state for something. He needed more paperwork to come in, so he gave him the temporary plate until he could get it registered. And he also said that Herb had given him a Porsche to sell because he was going to get his BMW registered. So he gave him this Porsche that he had to sell a consignment for him basically.

So now Herb is waiting for money from this guy, from this Porsche from Tibetan. Now the police, they go to Tibetan. Now they've gotten the police involved once they found out what the hell is going on. They go. They show a composite sketch to Tibetanvetan of the guy who they was seeing at these auditions. He IDs him as Gary Sarno. Uh-oh. Who is now starting to close in here.

This is great. This is going in here. This is some fast work. This is good police work. Thank God it's fast work. And he also even provides his address. Oh, shit. Because Sarno, or Herb, as we know him here, his real name Herb, lives in the trailer right next door to Tibetan's mother. Wow.

Right next door, okay? What a small town. Small world. Small town. Exactly. That's why we do this. This is why it's a small town and we give you demographics and shit because the town matters. Thank God this town matters so much that it's so small.

Yes. In Phoenix, this never happens. Never does happen. In L.A., this never happens. New York, forget about it. It's not going to happen. No. No, exactly. I like how you did that, by the way. You tried to put it. Hey, this never happens. Never doesn't happen. In L.A., this never happens. New York, forget about it. Not going to happen. No. No, exactly.

I like how you did that, by the way. You tried to put it. Hey, forget about it. Okay. So now, this isn't funny now. No. We're back in the trailer. So back to the horror.

Back to the horror. And this is particularly rough. And I'm going to basically, I'm going to give as much details as kind of comfortable saying out loud, honestly, because some of it just we don't need. Listen, we got daughters. It's hard to say. That's what I mean. And we don't need. It just doesn't need to be said.

I'll give you the gist of what's going on and the basic things that are important legally, basically. Anyway, so Herb promises the girls that he will let them go home if they each do another five or ten minutes of the video. That's what he's promising them. He puts them back in the room and blindfolds them both again. Monica's on the bed. Alicia's on the floor this time. They're not even together, but they can still hold hands. They can reach each other to hold hands, so at least they have that.

That seems to be their comfort at this point. It's all they have, really, to be comforted by. In the living room, they hear a voice. God, I want to fucking punch this asshole. They hear a voice with a bad British accent. They're teenagers. They recognize a shit British accent. One of them's not even a teenager, and they already recognize it.

It's like saying cliche shit like bangers and mash. And he fucks up and says shrimp on the barbie or something. She hears them, and she hears this terrible British accent saying that the tape is no good the tape's no good and then herb saying that he tried i tried he's saying and then the british voice saying well it will have to be done again and you know blah blah blah so like he's he can't even just say i'm a sick demented piece

of shit and i need this to get off and you know you guys are going to suffer for it he has to make it up like i'm just a victim with you guys. I don't know. So Herb comes back. He reenters the room. He undresses Monica. She's on the bed. And he begins to do certain things to do with his fingers is one of them.

She begs him to stop. She, you know, is begging him. She's saying it hurts and it's painful. He asks in the little boy voice off to the side if it was okay to stop. Piece of shit. So then Herb in his regular voice says, yeah, okay, you can stop. He's on top of her. He's not a ventriloquist throwing his goddamn voice.

So Herb then, and I have to say this, Herb tries to put his business in her mouth at this point. Oh, my God. Yes. She says she's going to throw up, which, thank God for this poor girl. This poor girl, man. That's so terrible. There's no way to say it. She doesn't know what she's doing.

You can't do that to a kid. No. You can't do that to a kid. No, you can't do that to a kid. You're not going to gain anything from that. What the fuck is wrong with you? Yes, exactly. Thank you. That's what I'm trying to say. That's why I'm laughing.

It's not that it's a horror. No, I know what you're. I know. I know you. You're stupid. You're fucking. You can try to do that. You're laughing because you're trying to gather exactly.

It's like, what is this guy's fucking problem? It's unreal. So he gets very angry at her saying this and says, quote, why did you say that? Now you've ruined the whole thing. Which, yeah, that's on her, you asshole. That's her fault. Because she's telling you the truth. Because she's 12.

Right. She's a child, you fucking piece of garbage. So she says she can't do it, and he allows her to get dressed, actually. He stops with her, thank God. But now he moves on to Alicia, and he puts Alicia on the bed saying that Monica didn't do very well and that she's going to have to do better is what he'd say. So this poor – God. Take one for the team.

How many times have I said this poor girl this episode? But it's true. These poor fucking kids. She screams no, but he still undresses her, and he begins to do the same things he did to Monica. He turb tells the nonexistent boy, well, don't use your finger. You quote, you're going to have to fuck her, he tells her. That's what he tells this. That's what he says to himself.

Right, right. To himself, which is disgusting to even say about a 14-year-old. Right. Alicia screams. She says that he promised not to rape her. Yeah. But he still gets on and he still tries. He still tries to rape her.

I don't need to go into explicit detail here, but it doesn't go well. It doesn't work because she's 14 and she's not ready for that, obviously. I love watching you struggle to do this because I would do the exact same thing. I can't tell this story. No. And I'm trying to tell it. You're doing an amazing job of being honest with me. I'm just trying to not have it be, you know, I don't want to.

You don't need this being too graphic. Yeah, I don't want it to be too graphic. I don't want it to be like, hey, let's talk about the horrible sexual things that happen to these poor girls. But, you know, I don't know. There still needs to be some so you know the charges. You know why he's a piece of shit and why what happens to him is whatever. So let's keep going here. Herb says, Herb basically says that because you can't do that, I'm not going to give his exact quote here because it's fucking horrible.

But he says you can't do that. Go back to what you were doing before that, which is not with his. Anyway, this causes her still great pain and some bleeding, obviously, too, at this point because these girls haven't done this because they're children. Alicia could see the camera, the red eye of the camera, like the red light of the camera out of the corner of her blindfold and thinks that she's being recorded. Herb stops at this point because she's screaming and bleeding and in pain. because she's screaming and bleeding and in pain. And now outside of the trailer, in the real world, the rest of the world, the police are closing in on this.

Oh, thank God. They confirm with the trailer park manager that Herb was indeed using the Tibetan plate before he got his permanent plate on the car. So he took his car, he took the plate off. Took it home. Yeah, he got a permanent plate, took it off and put this temp one back on and went out to do this. That was what he was doing. I don't know if he thought that would make him get away with it.

Right. So, Tvetten tells police that in March, he had seen a lot of old carpeting and wood outside of the trailer. Yeah. And he said that Sarno, Herb Bloomfield, whoever this asshole thinks he is, orange-haired fuckhead, told him that he was constructing a soundproof room to play guitar. Oh, boy. That's what he tells him. Well, you know, I got to get my guitar on. So now you know a guy's got phony plates on a car.

Yeah. You know where he lives. And he's building a soundproof room. And you know he's built a soundproof room. And we have four missing people. And four missing people. And two of them are children. This has started.

The picture's starting to clear up a little bit here. At least for the police. Yes. So we're back in the trailer now while that's going on. Herb allows Monica and Alicia out of the room and lets them watch tv which they're which sucks but yeah they're now traumatized sitting there watching tv what do you put on it that any show is now forever ruined that's what i mean garbage you don't yeah whatever was on your is your now you're gonna hate right even if you loved it this is now even if it was your favorite show yeah mash is completely fucking garbage.

Alf is now a dark. Never seeing that bastard ever again. Alf is a dark, dark place that they don't want to go to. Right. Who reminds me of a very sore body. And grossed out. And slimy. Mind.

Yeah. So anyway, they asked to call their parents, which is normal child behavior. He tells them that he'll make a tape of them and play it over the phone, hostage style. He'll take it to a pay phone and play it for them over a pay phone. The girls ask if they can leave, and they keep asking, can we leave? Can we go? We made the tape. He said we could go.

And they're kids. They probably think maybe he's telling the truth. They don't know. So he keeps saying, let me think, let me think. He has no idea what his next move is. He is in a panic now. He didn't have plan B. Plan A was get the kids, kill the women.

Get the kids, kill the women. I don't even know if he thought to – that's it. And where do you think passed that? I think he thought they would just stay in the room and be quiet forever. Forever. He could just go in and do what he wants and even drop off some eggs and strawberries once in a while and everyone would be fine. Here's the other thing, asshole. Eventually they grow older than 12 and 14 and they can fight back.

Exactly. Exactly. Because you're going to grow older too. So he tells them that maybe he'll just drop them off somewhere, you know, somewhere around and then he'll just catch a flight to Europe. That's what he's telling them. Maybe I'll do that. Eventually the girls fall asleep because nothing happens.

So now we're Monday morning. So this is the Saturday morning they left to go do the shoot. They've been there for 48 hours basically. Herb wakes the girls up and tells them that he's going to release them somewhere and he's going to call the police so they can get back to Reno. That's what he tells them. He tells them to tell the police that someone kidnapped them and took them to a two-story blue house in Sacramento, telling them that he'd harm their families if they don't follow exact instructions. Sounds great. And they probably believe it, too.

Whatever. I'll say anything. Just get the fuck out of this trailer. I don't care. I'll tell them whatever you want me to tell them. But the thing is, the trailer is now under surveillance. Uh-oh. The FBI has been called in.

Oh, this is so great. The FBI is on the scene, and he's being surveilled now. Now, Tvetten calls Herb up on the phone, and this is from the FBI, told him to do this, calls him up on the phone and says that he has the money for that Porsche that he sold for you. Oh, yes. He got your money. He also tells him, hey, do you know the FBI is looking for you?

You should really give them a call. So he's like, oh, boy. During the call, Alicia hears Herb say, what? My picture's in the post office? So he freaks out at that. He's super wanted. He's super wanted. Tibetan, by the way, it never actually is up at the post office.

That's great. We're just fucking with him because you'll see exactly why. They know the psychology here. Tibetan asks him if he was involved in that kidnapping in the papers, and Herb tells him that he'd done, quote, much worse. So, I mean, he's telling anybody that'll listen to this at this point here. Wow. And the FBI clearly just heard that. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. This is all being recorded. They've got very good reason to want to close in on this fuck, like now. So now Herb calls David Hacker, who we talked about, Alan Hacker. Meanwhile, real quick, if the FBI heard that, they don't even want to talk to the parents of those

children, because him just saying, I've done much worse, means all four are dead. They have no idea what's happened in this house. At this point, that's safe to assume for all law enforcement. Everybody's dead. They could be being tortured right now or they could be dead hanging up like, you know, like field dress like deer. Who knows? You know what I mean?

So Herb calls David Hacker, who we found out is the brother of that Alan Hacker guy that we talked about in the first episode. He asks directions to Alan Hacker's house because he says, quote, things are getting a little hot. I guess so. Herb ends up. They're on fire, sir. They're burning. Burning. He leaves his trailer now, followed by the FBI. getting a little hot. I guess so. Herb ends up- They're on fire, sir. They're burning, burning. He leaves his trailer now, followed by the FBI.

FBI hot on his tail. They keep behind him. He goes to the post office. And he's got the kids with him, or is it just him? He locked them back in the room. He's got balls, this guy. He leaves. He goes into the lobby of the- You know, like the lobby's open late at the post office where you can get to your PO box

and stuff like that. He goes into the lobby of the post office. The shitty, cold, so scary area. To look up at the bulletin board to look for his picture. open plate of the post office where you can get to your PO box and stuff like that. He goes into the lobby of the post office. The shitty cold, so scary area. To look up at the bulletin board to look for his picture. They knew he was going to do this. At this point, they note that he has bright orange-yellow hair still, so that's the whole thing. He looks like a Skittle.

He looks like a moron. So he gets back to the trailer at 9 p.m. Three minutes later, it's coming. I know you're going, that's what I'm saying too. Bust through the fucking door. through the bag around that fucking guy i don't know why they didn't follow him and just as he was opening the door bum rush his ass behind him tackle him blast him in the face with a blackjack that's that would be perfect wrap a zip tie around his fucking throat and throw him in a cell and say where are the girls girls? Absolutely. So three minutes later, the FBI gets a call from Herb. He says Herb tells them that his friend saw his poster

and told him that he's wanted for the kidnapping in Reno, is what he tells them. The FBI, because he just called an office, said, I don't know what the hell you're talking about, because he called a secretary. He just called the FBI main office. She said, you can come. Mary, this is the FBI.

She said, you're going to have to contact a field agent because I don't know who the fuck you're even talking about. Herb gives them his phone number and address. Says, yeah, you could have someone call me back, basically. So Herb tells the girls now he knows he's fucked. Herb tells the girls that they don't need to worry anymore because the FBI found him. And he tells them to give him their clothes so he can, quote, wash off his fingerprints. This is like he heard something about science on TV one time and was like.

I heard I've got fingerprints that I'm putting all over the place. He just said, like, there's semen in my fingerprints. I need to wash it off. So, like, I don't know what he was thinking. Dude, you licked all over these girls. Who gives a shit about their clothes? It doesn't matter at this point. So the trailer is surrounded by FBI and police because there's also the police there.

Two FBI agents knock on the door asking him to talk. Herb refuses to open the door saying he'd rather talk on the phone. So then he turns the lights out in the place, which the FBI is not OK with. They're like, OK, this is a little odd. The phone rings again and he yells outside to the agents asking them what to do. And they said, answer the phone and listen to what they say, idiot. That's exactly what they say. Do what you're told.

Herb answers the phone and he tells them that there's agents at the door. They know they're there. Everyone's coordinated on the outside. Yeah, we're out the door, dickface. Yeah, we know. So then he tells the agent on the phone that the girls are in the trailer and that he needs to go to the hospital because he's very sick. That's what he tells them on the phone.

So at this point, agents bust through the door. One breaks out a window with his gun and climbs in the window. Herb starts running toward the back. They hold him at gunpoint on the phone. So at this point, agents bust through the door. One breaks out a window with his gun and climbs in the window. Herb starts running toward the back. They hold him at gunpoint on the ground. Thank fuck. They cuff him, and I hope they use zip ties. Christ almighty. They better have.

Extra tight. Herb tells them that he's sick, but the girls are all right. I'm sick, but the girls are fine. No, they're not. No, they're not dead anyway. Right. They're breathing, but they're not all right. Yeah.

Herb also tells them that the older women are in the back room. This is the event that he's placed them in plastic bags, quote, so there wouldn't be any messies. Messies, he said, like a fucking five-year-old. You son of a bitch asshole. I can't believe he said that. Agents go in. They unbarricade the room with the girls. They find the girls.

Thank God they're saved. Their brains are a messies. Yeah. Anytime they hear something coming, they're like, oh, God, what is it? And then it's FBI agents. They must have felt amazing. They're rescued. Then they go in the back room and they find Mabbs and Dottie.

The messies. The messies. And this is the point where the South Tahoe Police Department take over because it's a crime scene and it's their case. And so they're in control of the crime scene. They end up taking Herb to the station. On the way to the station, Herb tells police that he killed Martin and Walsh. He said that he strangled them and that you can find everything that

he used in the home. He tells police that they fought him and they were too hard to control. Meanwhile, he attacked them first. I think he said, like, I can't control four people. Which is probably true. He denies any sexual contact with the girls. He says he's never touched the girls. He said he did it because there was too.

This is this is his explanation for why he did all this. The whole thing. He's got a sentence to sum up everything. He's got a sentence to sum it all up. And he just this is his connection. OK. He says that he did it because, quote, there's too many bad things in the world, too much smoking in the casinos and too many drunk drivers. Oh, my God.

That makes those things are not connected, sir. That's like saying you shit on the living room floor because the Dukes of Hazzard were canceled in 1984. They don't have anything to do with each other. Margaret smoking in the casino, spending her SSI check has zero to do with you. With you doing this. But that's what he keeps saying. He reiterates the whole thing at the station, smoking, drunk drivers. The whole thing's crazy. And that's why i did it because the world's a mess oh boy nothing to do with these girls uh told them that the police had a difficult job now he's pulling one of those where he's like look i know you guys have a tough job he goes that's why i bagged up the

women so you wouldn't have to clean up any messies he uses again again he can't stop saying it she thanks you're a real fucking prince we appreciate appreciate the help. Wow. So everybody out there, just if you kill somebody, make sure to bag them up. Put them in a bag, man. The cops really appreciate it. Treat them like dog shit and make sure you pick them up. Actually, you're preserving evidence. Yeah, so maybe do that. Do that.

Yeah, actually. We'll catch you a little quicker. A little faster. Mabs is found inside a garbage bag with a flex cuff around her neck and her hands tied. Same for Dottie, except she is inside three bags because she was bleeding from the head. Extra bloody. Extra bloody. Like a chicken.

The girl's like a chicken. The girls have bruises and internal tearing and all sorts of abrasions and bruises from being grabbed at and all that sort of thing. Herb, they find out, has $10,000 cash when he's arrested, which he's always had a little bit of dough and he's planning on fleeing to Europe. So Herb pleads not guilty to this three days later. Not guilty in Lake Valley Justice Court to four charges of kidnapping, two counts of murder. Judge Eugene Rasmussen asks Herb if he understands that you could be subject to the death penalty for this, and Herb says he understands.

Welcome to California. Welcome to California. The DA said of the girls, I think from the nature of the charges themselves, you could glean they've been through a very difficult and devastating personal experience. Beautiful. Because people are asking, how are the girls, basically. Not great. Not terrific. I'd put that on the news.

It's going to be a while. Not great. Don't ask another one about them. It's going to be a while for them to be okay. Now, June 23, 1987, the Clark County Justice Court in Las Vegas. Las Vegas. It's been a while since he's been to Las Vegas, hasn't it? Well, they issue an arrest warrant for Herb for the 1981 murder of Sheila Jo Keister,

who was found in a wash on the east side of Las Vegas. Do you remember that from episode one? Yeah. They found this poor girl, 12 years old. Yeah. Investigators saw similarities in the cases and ended up doing a little looking into it, and they figured they found that the bite marks matched perfectly. They got a forensic on an endologist, on dollars, whatever it is.

Yeah. Forensic tooth person to come in. And they found they found that the teeth marks matched perfectly. Yeah. And they also talked to one of Herb's old girlfriends who they showed a sketch from the time of Sheila's disappearance that said that's exactly what Herb looked like at the fucking time. He's charged with murder, first degree kidnapping and sexual assault down there, too. Good. So now it's crumbling down.

Yeah. This is insane. So now pretrial defense moves to throw out any evidence found in the trailer. What? Yeah. Says that the FBI didn't have a warrant to go in the trailer. I could give a fuck. Yeah.

I don't care at this point. Legally. I mean, I get it, but it's admitted because there was probable cause to believe someone was in danger, so it didn't matter. Because if you're saving someone, you don't need a warrant to do that. Legally, I understand them saying you didn't

have a warrant, you can't come in here, but you fucking said I've got the girls here. Exactly, exactly. DA tells the judge that this is also to the DA in this in this pretrial is telling the judge that Herb cannot get a fair trial in South Lake Tahoe due to the small town. This is the biggest thing that's ever happened since – well, before Duggard. This is before J.C. Duggard.

There's nobody there. You're going to have Tibetan on the fucking – Exactly. On the jury. So the defense doesn't want to move because they're trying to fuck the case either way. They go, well, if you don't move, then that's something we can appeal on later on, saying that, you know, you tried us. And they're trying to set up appeals, basically, because he he's not even he's not denying that he did this. He knows he's fucked.

They're denying his mental capacity. Right. March 4th, they do make a decision to move the trial to Placerville, about 50 miles away, which is something he'll use on appeal later on, saying he didn't get enough cross-section of jury of his peers from his hometown, which is, it's nuts. I mean, what are you doing? Why move then? He says, Herb says about this at this point, a quote from this pile of garbage. He says, they'll spend millions prosecuting me. God, if they had spent a few thousand helping me, it wouldn't have happened.

These are people who should have seen I needed help. I was really under a lot of pressure. It's everyone else's fault. Who the fuck isn't under pressure? They've got a police force out there looking for DUI drivers, and they've got laws that people can smoke in the casinos. It doesn't matter. Just cut it out, asshole.

If he's blaming those two things, they're doing what they can for you, man. He was under a lot of pressure. You're an asshole. Defense concedes that he killed the women and just claims that he's insane. That's what they're doing. He has three psychiatrists that say he was delusional and made up his own system of God and everything else in his head and was not responsible for his actions. They said he truly believed that if he didn't follow what he thought were messages, that bad things would happen to him. He believed that the numbers 46 and 45 were, quote, go numbers, and 26 was a stop number.

So if he saw those things and he thought whatever he was doing was good, if he saw a stop number, that meant he had to stop or bad things would happen. That's weird. He's going crazy. That's some bananas shit. Yes. They say that he thinks because the messages were from God that he didn't think they were wrong. He goes, there were messages from God telling me to do this to these women.

I'm not going to argue. Who am I to argue with God? I'm only a fucking scumbag. Herb says, this is what he says on it, quote, I was not questioning the messages because you don't question God. I thought I was just supposed to, I thought I was supposed to have a baby with these girls, someone to carry on.

Hey, asshole, they can't. Well, physically, but still. Unreal. Right. Anatomically, they can't have a child yet. So what are you doing? Three different doctors agree with him and say that he's insane. Just give you their names in case you're ever looking for some therapy. Don't go to these fucking assholes if they're still in business.

Dr. Joseph Stratton, Dr. Fred Rosenthal, and Dr. Mark J. Mills can eat my shit. Fuck you guys. Eat dicks, sirs. Eat dicks. He's found sane to stand trial. Good. Defense is told they can prevent evidence of insanity, but experts can only testify if they believe Herb did not premeditate or deliberate the murders. They say he's sane in our eyes.

So that's the only thing. If you say he's so insane that he couldn't have couldn't have had any premeditation, then you can use that. But otherwise, just he's a little crazy. We got it. And we're moving forward. We don't care if he's crazy. that. But otherwise, just he's a little crazy. We got it and we're moving forward. We don't care if he's crazy. His attorney, Coddington's attorney, says that he was, quote, violently anti-drugs and opposed to drinking, smoking and coffee. And coffee. I don't know how coffee comes into the mix. Everyone's

drinking coffee. Should have been a Mormon. See, well, he couldn't have worked. At least he wouldn't have worked at Dunkin' Donuts. So they also find the prosecution finds a couple of doctors of their own. They find a guy named Bruce T. Kaldor. He says that he talked about the practice effect, which is where intelligent people can basically learn the correct responses to say to doctors to get them to diagnose them with whatever the fuck they want because they've done this before. Some manipulation. In other words, he's a good liar and manipulator. He says that Herb has, quote, mixed personality disorder with antisocial, paranoid, borderline, obsessive-compulsive, passive-aggressive, and narcissistic features. Jesus. That's his diagnosis.

That's a lot. Yeah. Dr. Robert Biddle said about the same. Says legally responsible, asshole. During the sanity phase, Court looked at his compulsive writings because he has these writings where he would write, like, bag, you know, he did in like pieces and shit like that uh all the way back to his school days his writings they viewed films of him from childhood they also found what they found in the trailer a porn film where he's like he spliced a clip of himself wearing full makeup into the middle of the movie for some reason i don't know what he got off on that bizarre

okay we'll do that that's awesome i don't know what he got off on that bizarre okay we'll do that that's awesome i don't know what he's doing i want to see that video and giggle my ass off because that's fucking hilarious what a loon so prosecutors read from his diary pages excerpts of his writing include uh one that says evil must exist to prevent boredom which just sounds like some like teenage kid shit that's writing on his metallica folder yeah i mean it's it's just something to that an adult says to fucking justify their shitty behavior. He also says, quote, if you are given

a choice whether or not to kill but can choose who or when or how to die or live, it's not murder. Death is a given in some situations. Unpack that shit, everybody. We don't have time. We're moving on. Also, too, they found from October 15th, 1984, a diary entry that said, quote, young chicks smell, taste and feel better, even if not quite as built. Oh, God.

Jesus, that's a slimy one. That's harder to unpack than the other one. March 4th, 85. Need to find if young chicks are what I need. And if so, when I do it, when I do, I go for it. That's what he's saying there. So he's saying he needs to do that. Several statements in the book, like he wrote torture book on his book and label.

He said, act out fantasies like last days alive. Jesus. Right before this. Also has a diagram drawn of a room within a room. This is all in his diary and his torture book are in the same pages as the Live Out Fantasies line and torture book. Finally, he is found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder with special

circumstances for multiple murders at the same time. Also, forcible rape of Alicia, oral copulation, forced digital penetration on Monica, kidnapping the whole shebang night. On January 20th, 1989, he is found guilty of this. Luckily, Jesus Christ.

Judge Terrence Finney said, quote, Mr. Coddington's conduct was probably the most evil I've ever been involved in, which I don't know how it would be. I'm right there with him. There's automatic appeals to this before they can do the penalty phase. The DA, Ronald Tepper, said about this, quote, there is only one way to deal with animals like Coddington. His crimes are so horrendous, so evil, so heartless, he deserves to die. Yes.

I agree with you, sir. Yeah. I strangle this guy myself. I'm right on board, babe. Me and you would jump this guy, no problem. Let's take some turns. Let him start to black out and then let go, and it's your turn, James. Let him black out.

I get two times two, though. That's fine. That's all right. I'll let you have that. All right. One for your daughter for that whole thing. All right. So now he's appealing the whole thing, and Herb appeals on the grounds that because it was in place or bill, like I told you, he didn't get a cross-section.

Court finds no merit to that. Also, the search warrant thing, they said probable cause. Deal with it. What do you expect? Also, too, on the grounds that the evidence against his sanity wasn't admitted, that he wanted – should have been more shit saying he was crazy. Yeah. Court said there was error in not admitting certain expert testimony, but – unless it disputed the premeditation, like I said. But it's not a big enough deal to overturn the decision due to the overwhelming evidence of premeditation.

Yeah. I would say you built a room, you asshole. You built a fucking rape room, you jerk. Yep. California Supreme Court justices on July 3rd, 2000 are split five to two. There's split on the decision on this to keep his, for his sentence. And the split five to two in favor of the death penalty. So this asshole got the death penalty.

The dissenting opinion said that there was at least a reasonable chance that the jury was influenced by mistakes. But fuck it. Let's kill this asshole. That's what I say. Fuck him. Go. Fuck it. I like it.

I think that was what the first part was the actual judge. Last part was, I think, what they were getting at. That's what I said. Now, we have a gym teacher from his high school at Paul V. Moore High School back when he was a kid, Coddington's teacher. He said, quote, we have kids where we think if they don't straighten out, he's going to be in trouble. Not Herb. He was a good kid.

I was always for the death penalty, and I respect people who are against it. But in some cases, the death penalty is appropriate. This situation hasn't changed my mind. Good. I didn't even kill my kid. It was in my gym class. And finally, finally, we're going to give the last word on this to Mab's son. Mab's son, Jim Whiting, who now took over his mom's house and tried to put her shit in her shit and water.

And this poor guy, you know, suffering deal here. They said they asked him, what do you think his punishment should be? Yeah. He said, quote, how would I punish me? How would I punish him? Just give me four to six months alone with the guy. You won't have to. You won't.

You have to stop these sort of genes from being spread. But whether it's in his genes or in the soul, I don't know. Four to six. Four to six months. I'd like to torture him for months. Yeah, it's not. Normally we hear, you know, like five minutes with that guy. He said, I want him for four to six months.

I want to work him over with a pair of pliers. Every day. And a chopstick. For four to six months. Right after work. I think we should give this guy, I think we should give Jim Whiting a shot

at this whole deal. Let's give it a chance. My question here on this, and then we have to wrap up because we're way over. How many fucking little girls are in the desert? How many?

There has to be tons. He killed this girl in 1981 and put her in the desert and she was found and made a big deal. At that point, a smart guy like him would go, can't let him be found anymore. Now I have to hide them- Somewhere else. In a hole or deeper in the desert. You don't just kill a 12-year-old, get the taste for that, and then wait five years and

then decide to do it again. He's done shit. He's done shit. There's more out there and it's goddamn disturbing. I hope they, I mean, they're never going to pin him on him now, but it's, you know, these poor people are, it's sad. It's just, it's so sad. It's terrible.

I mean, unreal. But that's our story. That's our horrible, horrific story. When does he get the death penalty? We don't know yet. It's still going through all the things, and he's still alive. Still there 30 years later. Still hanging in there.

Jesus. You can look at his picture. He looks like an utter and he's still alive. Still there 30 years later. Still hanging in there. Jesus. You can look at his picture. He looks like an utter and complete piece of shit. Terrible. And he looks exactly like he is because he is an utter and complete piece of shit. Enjoy the fucking inside of the walls, Herb. Now you've got a rape room. There you go.

Hopefully it's, yeah, he's in a secure room now. I hope that whole secure room is a rape room. So that is our story for today. We do not have time for shout-outs this week. We'll do all our shout-outs next week because we have so, so many to do, but we just don't have time for it this week. We try to keep it at kind of a low end around the hour mark. If you like what you hear, or I hope you didn't like that, but if you enjoyed our telling of it. If you hate the description and enjoyed the story.

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We would appreciate it. But do that. Follow us. Jimmy, you want to give them your social media? At Wisman Sucks, W-H-I-S-M-A-N Sucks on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Come around and involve yourself. It's been a great week. You guys were awesome this week.

Thank you so much. Definitely. Thank you guys so much. I'm at Jimmy P is funny all around. And if you're still listening, make sure to catch us at the Tempe Improv on April 6th and 7th. We'll be working with Dan Cummins, who's a really funny guy. You can't go wrong. Come out and see us.

But, guys, that's our story. And we'll see you next week, guys. It's been our pleasure. Bye. Bye. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper.

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

is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.