Small Town Murder - #143 - A Scary Story On A Quiet Street in Pitman, New Jersey

Episode Date: October 31, 2019

This week, in Pitman, New Jersey, a quiet, idyllic street, where two beloved local residents are planning to spent the rest of their lives is shaken, when those very same beloved people are found in pools of blood, inside their own home. The particular brutality of the killings are a source of confusion for police, who wonder "who could have wanted these nice people dead so badly?", and for the rest of the town, who wonders if they're next. The legal wrangling that follows take almost a decade, and thoroughly frustrates everybody! It's a mess of horrors & stupidity!!Along the way, we find out that Warner Brothers is REALLY picky about copyright infringement, that you should always ask follow up questions, when one of your friends is covered in blood, and that just plain stupid is not considered a mitigating factor!!Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman New episodes every Thursday! Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com & use our email: [e-mail] Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports! Follow us on... twitter.com/@murdersmall facebook.com/smalltownpod instagram.com/smalltownmurder Also, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events, told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Pittman, New Jersey, a quiet street is sent into a panic over the heinous murders of some beloved people in their own home. Welcome to Small Town Murder.

hello everybody and welcome back to small town murder yay yay indeed jimmy yay indeed my name is james petra gallo i'm here with my co-host i am jimmy westman thank you folks so much for joining us on another crazy exciting wild adventure that we like to call small town murder uh we have a crazy episode this week as usual as, as you know, as it is every week. It's murder. I mean, it's always going to be nuts. And we kind of pick ones that are weird. So you're going to get that. Just like, oh, well, yeah, he robbed a 7-Eleven and he killed the clerk.

Have a good night, everybody. I'd be very boring, very boring podcast. I'm trying to find something with some twists and some turns for you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you to everybody, by the way, who came out this week in Missouri, Kansas City, and St. Louis. You guys are unreal. What great crowds you guys are. The Midwest is the flatter and uglier the land, the more excited the people are for comedy shows.

And it really is wonderful. You look outside and it's brown and flat, but then you get into a little tiny room with a shitload of people in it. Stick a few hundred people in there and man, you guys come alive. It's awesome. So thank you for that. Also, thank you to everybody this week who gave us reviews on Apple Podcasts, that purple icon.

We don't understand why, but apparently it's part of their algorithm. It helps drive you up the charts. So if you want to help out the show, that's a very, very good and pretty easy way to do it. Just give us five stars. It doesn't even matter what you say. You can type in whatever you want. Say, these guys are forcing me to do this, and it still counts. So that's wonderful if you could do

that. Also, and thank you, by the way, to everybody who has. And also, go to shutupandgivememurder.com. All sorts of new merch. The cheer up bitch with the skeleton thing. I mean, this is awesome with the skeleton. It's the coolest thing.

It looks awesome on a coffee mug and a blanket and a sweatshirt. Sarah got all sorts of stuff. So it looks really cool, though. It does. It looks awesome, so get that. Tickets to live shows. Small Town Murder, no, there's nothing for sale right now. Everything's sold out for the rest of the year. We're going to be in Texas here, Houston and Dallas,

and then Milwaukee and Chicago. Those are sold out. April's Nashville show is sold out. There is a few tickets left for crime and sports the day after that, though, in Nashville in April if you want to get those. Otherwise, we're going to announce very, very soon. They're finalizing it right now, our tour schedule for 2020.

So we'll get you guys some new dates. Northwest, we're coming to you and all that sort of good stuff there. If you want to be a hero to our show, and I mean a hero, one of our producers who we're going to gush about and just fondly just say the greatest things about at the end of the show,

you can do that really easily by heading over to patreon.com slash crimeinsports or head over to PayPal and you can make a one-time donation if you want using our email address crimeinsports at gmail.com slash crimeinsports, or head over to PayPal, and you can make a one-time donation if you want using our email address, crimeinsports at gmail.com. That's also a good way to get hold of us. And where can they find those links?

Over there at shutupandgivememurder.com. That's right. You can get it all from there. Right there, shutupandgivememurder.com. That said... Also, follow those social media links because from time to time,

these sold-out shows, people can't make it to the shows. Yeah, that's true. And if they tweet us that they've got tickets, we like to retweet that and get those people the opportunity to get their money back. And also get somebody else that couldn't get tickets the opportunity to get into the show. Especially, yeah, some of these smaller rooms. Like when we do comedy clubs, those sell out real quick. Right.

And they get them in months in advance and then things come up. So if people can't make it to the show, we'd like to get them their money back and also get you who wants to be at the show. Plus, it's a fun little community. People are nice in there. It's a good deal. And it keeps you from having to go to some third-party website and buying some ridiculous Christ horse shit. We don't want anybody doing that at all. So with that said, I think it's time for the disclaimer as well here.

This is a comedy show. It's a comedy podcast. We're going to talk about murder. It's a comedy podcast. It is. We're going to talk about murder. It's going to happen. But we're going to make jokes all around the murder. But what we try not to do, we go out of our way not to do, is to make jokes at the expense of the victim or the victim's family.

Why do we do that? Because we're assholes. What? But we're not scumbags. Now you know. That's how it works there. So if that sounds good to you, I think we're going to have a great time and everything's going to be wonderful if it doesn't if you think true crime and comedy and murder and jokes just no shouldn't ever go together don't listen to the show i don't

think you're gonna like it that's the thing we're not we're not terrible people like we said assholes not scumbags we don't we don't say things that are going to probably offend you but if you just don't like that at all then maybe take a a walk. Maybe it's a bad blind date. And we went, oh, God, I didn't realize that you were, you know, seven foot two and, you know, you're 4'11 and it's not going to work out. You're so gorgeous.

You're just too big for us. Yeah, you're great. We're great, but we're just not. We were the seven foot two in that scenario, but it's fine. You know what I mean. So, you know, with that said, though, with that said,

if you want to have a good time and you want to listen to an insane story and you're on board with this, I think it's time. It's time to celebrate that fact by sitting back and shouting, shut up and give me murder. Let's do this. All right. Let's go on a trip. Great.

Let's do this. I'd like it. All right. We're going to go. We're going back to the East Coast here. Going up to the Northeast. Oh, boy. Making fun of the

Florida of the North, New Jersey. Great. So that's always wonderful. Going to Jersey is always an exciting task for us because it's very easy to make fun of. So easy. Especially, I'm from New York, and it's been a lifelong thing for me. It's almost like they enjoy it.

Yeah, it's almost like that. It's like they're asking for it. Pittman, New Jersey, we're going to. P-I-t-m-a-n not tt really you would seem like right but what are you gonna do it's in southwest new jersey uh which the way it ends up it's like all of new jersey a panhandle there's not any part of new jersey that can't be construed as a panhandle so it's it's all panhandle it's all panhandle. It's all panhandle behavior. It's about 25 minutes to Philadelphia. So it's like kind of right over there to Philly, just east of Philadelphia.

About an hour and 50 minutes up to New York City. Just across that river. Just, yeah, over there. What is that river? To Philly. Which one? I don't know. I remember when we were in Philly, they were like across that water over there is Jersey.

Is it water or is it a river? Basically, across any filthy water in the Northeast is New Jersey. If you see filthy water and land on the other side of it, that's probably Jersey. That's how I'll just leave it at that. This is about an hour to Middle Township, New Jersey, which is episode 92. It's our last Jersey episode. Wow. And this is in Gloucester County.

It's zip code 08071. I love it when we're in the zeros. That's wonderful. Some of the first. Yeah. This is the base of the whole thing here. Area code 856 and 2.3 square miles. Not a big town.

There's a lot of these Jersey towns are kind of little towns all kind of dabbed in there together uh it's got several mottos it's just they're so desperate yeah this is a town that's like that kid in school who's like uh come over i have all the nintendo games and i have this and just please like me and you're just like dude just be yourself and be cool like i get it that it's you want to see you you feel bad, and you want to like them, but at the same time, it's just desperate. Listen. The guy that's like, I've got all the brand new games. You can take them home with you. You want to borrow them?

It's cool. My mom won't mind. It's totally cool, dude. Don't you know what you're doing right now? You're making me take your shit. I have other games. And also, it's making me spend time away from you. But that's okay, though.

You're trying to get me to be your friend, and you're giving me the opportunity to be away from you. Tell's okay though but you're trying to get me to be your friend and you're giving me the opportunity to be away from you tell people good things about me i feel like that's the goal here just uh just maybe if the word spreads that i'm a cool guy go out and spread all the good rumors i'll find it yeah i think that's what it is they're just building a brand these kids are trying i gotta build a brand yeah i'm the guy who lets you borrow his games that's my brand and then go tell all the girls that i have a huge penis yeah tell them like yeah it was weird and you were peeing on a bush and it was just huge I'm the guy who lets you borrow his games. That's my brand. And then go tell all the girls that I have a huge penis. Yeah, tell them, like, yeah, it was weird, and you were peeing on a bush, and it was just huge.

You, like, you know, took half the bush out. Tell the girls that. So listen to these mottos. We have mottos here. The first motto is, quote, the small town with a big heart. Oh, no. So that's motto number one, okay? Motto number two, just even more desperate. They get more get more desperate as it goes motto number two they have three yeah motto

number two quote everybody likes pitman is that real that's a real that's literally real everybody likes pitman is right so the question mark what do you think yeah and there's so i mean and then the desperation on the third motto it reaches a fevered pitch at this point their third motto is quote free money and blow jobs i mean jesus come on man that's just desperate be mayor for a day everybody gets a chance it's ridiculous free money and blow jobs that's good now you're just you're just bribing people at this point. Forget about it. Never mind.

What happened to the big heart? All the oral you can stand. Hey. All day long. That's a joke about, I think it was a Greg Giraldo joke that he's like, it's very arrogant of New York to say that it's the greatest city in the world. What if there's another city that like nickels cost a blow job and there's guys that run around that just give you nickels how do we know there's no city yeah there you go well that it

does it's called pitman new jersey but that's their fourth town motto. Blowjobs cost a nickel. Here's a nickel. Here's a handful of nickels. Oh, free money. Here's a roll of nickels. Yeah, so history of this town here. This town in 1871, this land was chosen to be set aside for a Methodist summer camp. Okay, this area over here, in this area. Okay, this area over here in this area. The New Jersey Conference Camp Meeting Association was chartered and given authority over the land grant in 1872.

And they started planning campgrounds and organizing church meetings. New Jersey, every time we do it, every town was started for some religious thing. Every ocean town started as some like religious retreat. And then it turned into like for health reasons. Blowjobs because you know it's disgusting there there's syringes washed up on the beach so it's worth the blowjob is a nickel but it's also worth a nickel the jersey shore people are spreading their syphilis around again that's on television again they're spreading it around again so it's it's really it's been a lot so the land i guess is they had an auditorium that was located on a central meeting ground and there's 12 roads originating from the central area that are like spokes they go out of

spokes what else what else is there 12 of um monkeys 12 monkeys yes think religion so the disciples apostles apostles that's what am i doing that's why there's 12 jesus who are you with who's that how many we're building fucking roads over here and i need to know how many to build right do we do we build one for jesus too is that so third the middle's for you and then everything okay the middle about that jesus gets the center 13 is a bad number but there were 12 apostles and jesus makes 13 it makes 13 that's weird i think jesus gets the middle he's the center square yeah yeah he's the center square he's the shadow stevens was that who was in the center no he was off to the side he was the announcer right yeah yeah. Who was the center square all the time?

Lately, it was Whoopi Goldberg in the last room. She was always in the middle. I think she was the executive producer or something. I forget who it was, but it was somebody all the goddamn time. Yeah, whoever's with most gravitas gets center square, because they get called on the most, because that's the first one everyone goes for. It's Hollywood Squares that we're discussing, in case you don't know. John Davidson was the host. Oh, that's the first one everyone goes for so it's hollywood squares in case you don't know john davidson was the host oh that's right that mannequin looking son of a bitch back in the

80s no that's ray combs that's the family feud guy there you go there you go that's i want to talk about wink martindale because we'll get into it jimmy i used to love game shows when i was a kid i love gene rayburns oh he's fantastic i was a kid give me syndicated shitty game shows where they play cards now great that's fine how about a whammy no all right good none of that either let's go move keep them rolling spin a wheel or draw a card i will watch joker's wild so yeah anyway yeah uh the the so i assume jesus is the auditorium and then all the apostles spread from there. Got it. I assume here.

Worshippers' tents originally lined each of the 12 rows, all sorts of tents. And then the cottages came in after that to replace the tents. And that's how the town started. They went from religious tents of people hanging out to worship the center Jesus Square. And then they built permanent housing like that so yeah by the 1880s they had about four uh they had a ton of cottages and uh for about 400 cottages and people started staying year-round at first it was just like a summer thing right a summer retreat and uh so then they put a public school in finally in the 1880s and uh the in 1904 residents of pitman grove which is that area

voted 122 to 35 for incorporation so there you go it became a damn town circle gets a square circle gets the square your turn you're a town let's do it you're a town now uh so it's it's mainly though it was just religious shit it's weird when you enter the pitman grove area it's a big metal arch like an old-timey cemetery that says pitman grove and foreboding weird metal letters really it's i'll post a picture with the episode that's what it looks like the entrance of a concentration camp damn it or a religious festive center i'm not sure whichever one it looks scary though because it's the 1800s everything is like iron and frightening you know it's one of those things so that's when they built it concrete block that's what it looks

like i'll post that that'll be the picture of the of the town obviously on social media because it's scary so there you go it's uh at small town murder on instagram at murder small on twitter uh find that it's small town pod on facebook yeah so you can you can see it but uh it's uh it's very very strange there there's uh the the 12 roads are very narrow and there's little houses on these little lots they're 30 by 40 foot lots that's not big at all not big at all little time they were tents originally it's like four easy ups it's yeah that's basically what it is it's kind of like a uh it's like a shanty town but not but not but it's like you know nice but that was a lot little yeah those were little lots because those were people first they were just there to worship for a while and then they became permanent year-round

residences and now it's you know new jersey for christ's sake you can how big a house is on that not very no if it's a 30 by 40 lot fucking that's a one room you'd need it to be tall right multiple floors that's what it is like uh yeah it's all i can imagine here now they have there's the broadway theater there which is this cool looking old theater that they have that's kind of their claim to fame i guess as far as for shit to do uh there was uh uh this guy here this guy named uh lacy uh he became uh he or i'm sorry jesus i messed it all up here it's uh a guy named henry carr dr henry carr this other guy named george washing uh washing car who was one of his relatives they bought a bunch of land that became the site of the Broadway theater.

They had a lake and a park that was named the Alcyon, I guess. And they had fishing and boating and a boardwalk and a bathhouse and a merry-go-round, bowling alleys, a casino, roller skating rink, and other shit. And in 1905, they staged the Fall of

Arthur, a naval battle on the lake. Oh, Jesus. Which seemed they performed it by the people who lived there. That's awesome. Performing a naval battle, which seems really. That seems elaborate. Like a lot.

Yeah. They had horse racing there. But during the 30s, all this went downhill. And then in the 40s, it was taken over for tax liens and sold for $5,200 at public auction. Wow. So that's some sad shit post-world war ii this place used to be happening 5200 bucks used to be yeah i don't know 55 it's a little high 52 50 how about 52 52 i'll give you 50 i'm not going to send higher what

year was that a penny higher 1945 wow. Wow. Post-World War II. This whole area. An area big enough to stage naval battles on and have amusement rides. That's so rad. Their website is hilarious because it's... What year are these websites being built in? This one says, welcome, exclamation point. Welcome to our new and improved website.

New and improved. If your website says, welcome to our website, it's a shitty website. Okay? That's terrible. You need the new and improved again. Yeah.

Feel free to browse for all that Pittman, New Jersey has to offer. Dining, entertainment, services, and shopping. Check back often for updated content. That's what a website is.

You didn't have to explain what that is. That's like every time you got into McDonald's, they were like, this is a hamburger restaurant. Order the food at the counter, counter and then they do this and you take it home and eat and you get nutrients and then you shit is that that's we don't need to explain it we know what it's there for you give me food i take it home i eat it i shit it out that's how it works this is yeah unnecessary shit here come back to our website come back to our website periodically where we might update more information that you can browse through, as is the purpose of a website. Did we explain it thoroughly enough?

There's a Q&A at the end of this, an FAQ in case you really need to know more. Don't forget to pay your cable bill so that you can get your internet and come back to our webpage. Come back to our webpage. Jesus Christ. Don't forget to turn your electricity on so you can turn your computer on and then pay your cable bill and come back to our webpage. Come back to our...

Please, come back to our webpage is what we're saying. We really need you to come back. I don't know why. It doesn't help us any, but come back. People from this town, notable people. We have Joe Crisp's a he played for the suns and lakers no in the 80s or i'm sorry uh in the late 90s there uh we have uh let's see a few other people here a miss new jersey from 2004 hell yeah oh boy and then a jane moffitt

who played for four seasons in the all-amer Girls Professional Baseball League in the 40s. One of the league of their owners. I'm not sure. It doesn't say, but I could have looked it up. Was she a peach? It doesn't really matter. Was she a goddamn peach? It doesn't matter.

Either way, she played the damn thing, and I'm very happy about that. She played one of six teams. Wasn't it six? I think there were six. They might have expanded to eight and then contracted to four at some point and then went away. And then it was all done. That's sad. So we have a resident

review of this town which i always love these are like my favorite thing in the world they're really great to hear somebody who should know better yeah for you know i mean for real they should know better that we know that it sucks it's a small town this is one of this you always i love when they have a very specific beef with the town, too. Those are my favorite reviews where you're like, this person's taking out their really personal thing. Makes you want to give them a call and be like, what's the story? What happened here? Tell me.

Tell me all about it. I gotta know. You just touched on it here. You just painted the outside of it. You ran over and tagged it and didn't tell a shit. Connect the dots. Paint a picture for me here. Resident review.

Quote, I do not like Pittman. Okay? and didn't tell us shit. Connect the dots. Paint a picture for me here. Resident Review, quote, I do not like Pittman. Okay? They have a big heroin problem mixed with an overstepping police force. So you have junkies and apparently police force who's overzealous about the junkies. I'm not sure.

Their focus, the focus, their resources, I assume that's supposed to be they, they focus their resources on petty things like overnight parking tickets instead of catching real criminals. This person's got a bunch of parking tickets. So many. He picked one up and he's like, there's fucking junkies sleeping under my car.

You're giving me the fucking ticket. Are you kidding me? Look over there. Fucking guy. He's just shit himself in public on the fucking sidewalk. And I get a ticket. That's what he said. A junkie nodded off on my hood while you get a ticket that's what he said a junkie nodded off

on my hood while you wrote this he's that's what he's thinking quote spent a ton of money on a police dog which doesn't do anything what's it gonna do it gave me an overnight parking ticket that's what it gets with all that's all i ever see uh taxes are high and most people that live here will never leave is that bad You want a town with constant turnover? If you want to experience a good face at McDonald's because the other guy moved. That's what I mean. I like how this person opens and closes distinctly. Opens with I do not like Pittman.

And closes with if you want to experience a good living environment, look elsewhere. So he's got an opening and a closing. He followed some direction here. But he's got an opening and a closing he followed some direction here but uh he's a very particular beef he got a ticket once yet he sees junkies everywhere and he's like they're not getting tickets well i'm gonna get an overnight parking ticket i pay taxes and you give me a ticket and then it all went into that review my tag two stars goddamn police dog and you're giving me tickets two stars for parking yeah that's what the fucking dog's doing i think that's what the extra stars for the dog's cute at least they got a dog he's cute he's a cute little fucker i gotta give him that so you know what two stars speaks german that's it well that's

a little frightening this town hit peak population in 1970 when they had over 10 000 people they kind of went all went up slowly and since then they've gone back down a little bit slowly it's that was their peak though uh people in this town that's because people have left philly too yeah around that time so uh people population here 8886 to go to mount so it's a decent amount down five uh a little over five percent since 1990 so yeah people have have left it's been like i said 10 000 in in uh 1970 to 10 250 in 1970 we're back down a little bit more guy that writes the reviews full of shit these do leave people do leave well they die probably is what happens because the the all the young demographics are low all the old demographics are high in this town people don't leave they do stay forever and die there more females which is it's you know 53 female which is a definite indicator that the

population is older and so that works because you bastards outlive us you fuckers you you seem all the time theories about it why should you live longer i'm willing to give any advantage you want i'm for you know advancing all the women things, but you can't fucking live longer, too. No, that's just not fair. I just want to live the same amount. Well, you know, that's the other thing, too, is if you're not making as much as a man, the good news is you'll make it up in years. Stay on the job a couple of years longer. Ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen somehow Andrew Jackson

I know that Andrew Jackson's not known for misogyny but I'm sure at one point he said a similar statement there that's Jimmy trying to joke so yeah but I want equality of death

I want death equality I want to die the. I'm in. I want death equality. I want to die the same as you. Not fair. So 50-50 married population. It's the same as usual right on the money. Most of the stats are pretty close to normal, except there's less single people with children. Seems like people with kids seem to stay together here more, whereas a lot of the other people are old and so they're they're aged out of kids at that point uh we do have a race of this town 89 white okay pretty white yeah uh two percent black oh two percent black in new jersey it's

crazy right outside of philadelphia right out right outside of camden and an hour and a half from new york city so that's uh York City. So that seems on purpose. That seems on purpose to me. Because it's not like an expensive town that would be like, oh, you know, let's price all the minorities out of it. There's like eight rich people living there. It's not like that with big giant estates or no room for houses. This is all inclusive. Yeah, but it seems on purpose.

Or, yeah, something's going on. something's going on keeping somebody out of somewhere uh about two percent asian here uh uh even hispanic is only is less than three percent so it's pretty pretty white town religion it's right on the money 50 50 it's about 49 weird thing thing is, more Baptists than I've ever seen this far north. 9% Baptist. That is high. That's high for New Jersey. Damn near 10%. Outside of Philly.

Of course, though, 27% Catholic. There you go. Because Catholics are the Baptists of the north. So that's how that works, obviously. Listen to this. This has to be 0.0% Jewish. In New Jersey, outside of Philly, an hour and a half from New York City. That seems on purpose.

What's happening here? I'm fucking sorry. I don't like what's happening in this town. There's some weird shit going on. Zero. Really weird shit here. 0.5% Muslim, a couple Muslims there. 47.3% of the people, basically last time. Forty seven percent voted Democrat.

Forty seven percent voted Republican in the presidential election. So in the county. So the middle absolute swing county here. Now, the unemployment rates right on the money, a little under four percent as for the rest of the country. Median household income is high, though. Normally it's a little under fifty eight thousand here. It is about seventy73,500. How about that?

A little bit high for income. And as we'll talk about, the cost of living is kind of low. The jobs, pretty much on the money. I mean, you can commute to Philly. So it's one of those things. You don't really have to work in Pittman. You can go find some other employment somewhere. So a lot of educational services because there's colleges all around in that area.

And a few more health care jobs because there's more old people. Cost of living, 100 is average regular par. Here it is 103, which is pretty close. And the low thing, though, is housing. Whoa. You never see that on the East Coast. Never. Especially in New Jersey.

Housing's a 90. What the fuck? That's what I mean. People are making 78 grand, 73. What did you say? 70 something. 73 and a half. I'm sorry about that.

With a 90 in housing. Man, you got me there. 73, a median home cost 178,300 bucks. Wow. Which is shockingly low for New Jersey. Very, very low. Most of the houses are between $150,000 and $300,000. What is happening?

So there's a lot in there. Those are like 65% of the houses. 25% of the people here are renters, too. So there's a lot of rental shit as well. So it's a very affordable place. I can't believe I like Jersey right now. It's very interesting. Well, if you like it more than you think you do,

we have for you, Jimmy, this could be useful, the Pittman, New Jersey Real Estate Report. Your average two-bedroom rental here is $1,200 a month, which seems, that's high. That's your national average, and it's under to buy, so you're better off buying here. That's because there's so many renters, though, so that makes sense. I found a two-bedroom, two-bath, 806 square foot, but it's a freestanding, its own little house.

Okay. $62,000. That's super affordable. It needs some work and shit like that, but it's $62,000 for a house. You've got it. You can't get an SUV for that. Your house rich. Yeah, that's what I mean.

I found a three-bedroom, one-bath, 1,563 square foot kind of starter home for kids. It's one and a half bath. Vinyl siding wonder. One of those vinyl siding Jersey neighborhood wonders here. $160,000. That's your base level entry kind of. Then you want to spread out a little bit. This is pretty much the most expensive house for sale in town right now. In160,000. That's your base level entry kind of. Then you want to spread out a little bit. This is pretty much the most expensive house for sale

in town right now. In the whole thing. Five bedroom, three bath, 3,998 square feet, just shy of $4,000. $307,000. What a deal. It's nice. Nice to walk up. It's got good curb appeal. On the East Coast. On the East Coast, half hour outside of Philly.

Doesn't happen. Go to New York City. It's fantastic. Not a bad place. On the East Coast. Half hour outside of Philly. Doesn't happen. You can go to New York City. Yeah, it's fantastic. Jesus. It's not a bad place, maybe. I hope somebody listening to this that lives in Philly buys that shit and commutes. Yeah, just commute it. Philly's expensive. What?

Where? Forget it. I'm buying it. I'm just going to drive. Things to do in this town. This is hilarious, this whole thing. Well, they had a thing to do. Now they don't anymore.

Hilarious, this whole thing. Well, they had a thing to do. Now they don't anymore. Starting in 2017, they had the Pittman Potter Festival, which is the Harry Potter Festival. Get out of my life. Well, I'll read right from their website here. This is when it was first starting. They were very excited. 2017?

A little late on it. 12 years late. A little late on it. The festival begins on Friday evening at 6 p.m. with a showing of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone at the Broadway Theater. The festivities continue Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with a variety of activities for all ages, including a sorting ceremony in the Pittman Grove Auditorium, a defense against the dark arts class at Sunset Auditorium, magical entertainment at Ballard Park and Uptown Pittman, and much more. Many businesses are joining the fun and offering themed menus, activities, and items. Pittman Gallery and Art Center will be hosting its themed exhibit, Harry Potter, and will

be raffling a signed framed print from the published illustrator. The Gallery and Art Center is also planning some enchanting Saturday evening entertainment. While some of the activities will be offered free of charge, a $5 wristband will be required to enter the main events. I hate this so much. $5. You know how that goes. Wristbands go on sale.

There's a limited amount of wristbands, so you've got to get them right away. It's a non-profit event run by volunteers. It goes to the Chamber of Commerce. Then their last thing they say is very prescient here. Warner Brothers Entertainment and J.Kk rowling are not associated as if you thought they were like you thought they were sponsoring this not associated or responsible for the festival in any way and we hope they won't send us to as uh as caban for expressing our enthusiasm

okay so so what happened the next year they weren't allowed to call it the pitman potter festival anymore because they had been they got a copyright claim yeah they called it the pitman festival that must be named or that must not be named pitman festival that must not be named uh yeah uh but uh the warner brothers said not good enough shut it down fuckers so it was the last year was the last one there uh they were contacted shortly that said that the warner brothers quote enforcement of warner brothers copyrights and trademarks would be much stricter than we anticipated is what they said yeah they protect that stuff you can't just fucking idiots oh my god but i mean honestly this isn't taking money

out of their pocket also this is promoting the movies yeah and it's also i mean now it's so late yeah it's it's hilarious is what it is and this is the chamber of commerce's statement it's a rare gift as an adult to be given the chance to turn a fantasy world into a reality although the magic of pitman took the form of pitman potter festival in 2017 and 18 those of us who live here know what a magical community pitman is year round no more uh how fucking petty is warner brothers says warner that's disgusting they refuse what 8 000 people live in their own town dick around watch a harry potter movie and make some themed drinks grown adults with a fucking people live in their own town. Dick around, watch a Harry Potter movie, and make some themed drinks. It's grown adults with a fucking twig in their hand.

Who cares? Who gives a fuck? So stupid. Crime rate in this town, besides that last stupidity. I want them to continue it. I'll fucking come. You put that thing on, I'll get on a plane. I don't even like Harry Potter.

I don't either. I've never seen a single thing I'm going to. It's the worst. But I will come celebrate that horse shit with you. Just to fight it, because this is ridiculous. You know what? Screw you, Warner Brothers. How dare you enforce copyright on a town?

It's not even like I could see a Philly was doing one. Even then, it's promoting your show. Whatever. I could see that. But it's a small town dicking off. Who cares? It's people breaking sticks and calling it a Harry Potter wand. And they're pissed that somebody bought that for five bucks.

They're going to have a sorting ceremony. Oh, Jesus. Oh, you're this one. And you're that. Great. That's terrific. Crime rate in this town. Who's that, Warner Brothers?

With this fuck. I don't know. I'm going to choke that fuck. I'm going to jerk it. We're trying to make stuff. Let's not besmirch entire networks at the moment. Don't be dicks, Warner Brothers. Maybe something's going to happen.

Who knows? So crime rate in this town. Property crime is a little over half the usual rate. So it's low. And then also violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is about one-third the national average. So very low. So considering its location to other places with very high crime and murder rates, this is a very low thing.

I don't know what's happening in this town. James, it's creepy and weird. Harry Potter fans. It's a bunch of fucking nerds, I guess. But they're old people there. I don't know what's going on. It seems like there's old people who don't want black people or no jewish people at all in here i don't know what's happening in this town it's just strange but it's very safe i guess

um which is why our murder is such a strange murder which you know what let's talk about i can't wait i think we should 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 Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. 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.

So, my goodness, this is the exact murder that you would expect to not happen in this town put it that way it's it's it's a quiet town it's a nice town it's a town where people you know can uh go outside and hang out in their yards and not not think that somebody's going to come up and bonk them on the head and you know take empty their pockets or anything you know it's a nice town it's a nice. A bunch of people casting spells and shit. Yeah, if you're old and pretty white, this is probably the place you want to be where you can run around and pretend to play

what the fuck is the name of that stupid Quidditch. Run around and pretend to play. I'm flying. No, you're not, Bob. Bob, you're running with your fucking wife's broom in your hand, you stupid idiot. You're not flying, stupid. You're an adult. Your kid is looking at you funny throwing a throwing a bocce ball through his neighbor's

window talking about he scored bob your grandkids are laughing at you how's that feel how's it feel to have your grandchildren laughing in your face. This is a time where I regret that I didn't watch any of the Harry Potter stuff. No, I would have much more references. Harry Potter references destroy, too. People love talking about that stupid shit. We don't know anything about it. I know Slytherin.

I know Quidditch. There's an owl. There's an owl. And a ginger kid. And Dobby, whoever the fuck that is. There's an unfortunately and a ginger kid and dobby yeah whoever the fuck that is there's a yeah an unfortunately pigmented ginger child um there's that chick guy with a long beard harry potter took his dick out on a stage when he was done with harry potter i know that's a thing he didn't

have some naked show harry potter yeah because he didn't want to be harry potter that's what that's one way that's what all those kid stars do as soon as their adults are like i need to show my vagina slash penis right now or everyone's gonna think i'm just a kid actor right see show girls to let you know it's like i need to gyrate in the most unnatural and uncomfortable and unhuman for that matter in human form possible to show everyone yeah unchildlike watch me but she looks like a child who's like i saw someone dance seductively once and i think is this seductive but there's no like feeling to it that's show girls if i gyrate like you can see it so that means it's seductive here are my boobs it's essentially the equivalent of uh jesse spano gyrating in a chair on carpet trying to make it move.

That's what you just did. That's what I did. I was like, is that what's happening? Is this good now? Jesse Spano looks like he's trying to make a roller chair move on carpet. Did I do okay? Do you think I'm a grown-up now? Can I get rolls?

Yeah. As a matter of fact, you will get no more rolls jesse you're done actually forever that's the last one and people are gonna make fun of you for i don't know at least at least 23 years because that's i think it's 96 95 95 i don't know somewhere in the mid 90s see if you can see if you can outrun uh monica lewinsky's jokes at least a quarter century this is gonna haunt you everyone's you're gonna be a punchline forever you know it's over uh yeah you know stand next to chris o'donnell and he's bad he was robin stand next to him he thought it was good he thought it was good too hey everybody thought it was a good idea his agents told him they told you everybody thought everybody thinks it's a good

idea at the time but now you stand over there with him of the people whose careers are over there you go screech will be there in a minute no no oh no no screech is in the next room there's a never had a movie they never even gave him a shot to be an adult actor they were just like screech fuck no get out of here remember when he stabbed a guy he can stand in for paulie shore or something if we're lighting he can come in for paulie but then he has to leave he can't speak you don't want him to say anything your dick in your pants oh my god all right enough 90s references blast from the past let's just talk about brendan frazier for 20 minutes so uh let's talk about this murder let's get into a couple of people here let's talk about bruce and alice sharp okay they are a couple a married

couple they've been married many many years over over Yeah, I know. Over almost 40 years, basically. Based on Bruce and Alice. Bruce and Alice Sharp. And we're going to go all the way back to 1984 here. Okay. So we're going to fly back in time to 1984 and figure this out here. Now, in 84, Bruce is 63 years old and Alice is 59 years old. Their children are adults

they're grown up Bruce has just retired as a mechanic he was a mechanic for 40 years and he retires and Alice is an elementary school teacher currently she still is she's a second grade teacher in the Sewell school in Mantua

and her husband was a mechanic at the Texaco plant in Eagle Point. Oh, goodness. So, I mean, yeah, they worked their lives, and they're just coming to the end of it. They like to garden a lot and things like that. The bluest collars.

Yeah, the blue collars, and now they're just slowing down, and they're enjoying their retirement and this sort of thing, and they're looking forward to maybe some grandkids eventually, and that sort of thing here. Like I looking forward to maybe some grandkids eventually, and that sort of thing here. Like I said, she was a second-grade teacher.

They lived in this home. It's a two-story home with white siding. It's your typical nice little house that you'd see in New Jersey. Not a big house, not a sprawling house, not a shack. Very modest. Like our second house from the real estate report. One of those. Just like a nice little house.

Vinyl siding wonder type of deal. And it's on a nice quiet little street, too. There's a quiet street with only six houses on it. So very quiet little cul-de-sac street. So it's a very idyllic little area here. You're going to retire. Well, not really. Except for the location.

Because there's six other houses and the location. Except for the neighbors and the location it's my kind of place but i mean your street now has like 12 yeah yeah no but i want like uh i want like uh zero yeah i want zero i like when we get to the street where there's one house and it's mine yeah that's what i mean like if i without my name on it though i don't want anybody to know that. Now, remember when we went looking for OJ's house in Brentwood and we were driving around? That's what I like. Those fucking 25-foot tie-like bush tree things. I like that.

I'm not going to have an estate like that, obviously. That's very expensive. But if I could just have a regular house with 25-foot bushes around, that would be perfect. That would be great. That'd be great. A cul-de-sac that's like half a mile long and there's two houses on it. One for either side of the street. That would be good. I'd like that.

I'd like, and if you could just avert your gaze when you come outside so you don't have to wave. We don't have to wave. We know we're here. Just keep your eyes straight down the fucking hood, sir. Unless you got something to say. Unless my house is on fire. I don't need to know anything. It's okay. Straight down the fucking hood unless my house is on fire i don't need to know anything

what's okay straight down the hood yeah uh they lived here uh uh they lived here uh they've lived here forever basically they've raised their kids here this is their place and now they're going to retire here uh and one of her reports alice sharp uh from the superintendent one of her teacher like you know whatever evaluations i evaluations, I guess. She'd been a teacher in the district since 1962. Jesus. 1962. So at this point, over 20 years in this district.

And it said that she started out as a substitute and then has been a full-time teacher for 15 years. Oh. So she came in that way. She's stuck around with that substitute shit. Back then, you had to, like, teaching jobs were a good thing. You had to pay your dues. That people wanted. Now it's like, when the fuck are you? All right, I know you didn't graduate yet, but we're going to let you teach anyway.

We're going to get you started. We're going to give you a class. Right. Just tell you what. Make sure none of these kids stab each other for a while, like 40 minutes at a time, and then just get your degree whenever. Yeah. It's fine.

We don't even know anymore. It's been like that for a long time it's rough because when i was in school we had a teacher who was active shooter drills just work on that and then we'll figure out the rest of it later to make sure that they got that part down teach them how to get under their desk without hurting themselves after that we'll work on it i don't know curriculum what are you talking about yeah and the teachers they want to do it's like that's like on the wire jimmy it's like the fourth season of the wire the teachers if you ever know any teachers all they want to do is really well they want to be the best teachers they want their kids to be smart they want to teach them the right stuff and it's not made easy by anybody uh that

operates school districts anybody that surrounds the education process outside of teachers it's rough fucks everything it's a bad thing yeah they're just terrible at running it it's bad shit from the from the from the pay on down let the teachers figure give them more of a say maybe they're there they know what's going on you know they know what's up i'm sure that when they design a car they probably consult a mechanic at some point i'll bet you're right if we do this configuration will it work like as a car will this operate will that run and we could drive and stuff no oh shit well we better redesign it better figure this out maybe do that so i don't know i don't know the ins and outs of it but uh i guess she was currently

teaching second grade like we said she was described in an evaluation, Alice was, as a, quote, sound, fundamental teacher who paid attention to the details. So she's known as a nice lady and a good teacher. And so is Bruce. Not a nice lady and a good teacher, but a good mechanic and a nice guy. So they have two sons. One is named John. He is 33 years old at this moment, and he's a P.E. teacher in Maryland at the time. So he's a gym teacher.

Their other son, their first son, Bruce Jr., was killed in Vietnam. Oh, my God. Killed in 1968 during a Viet Cong ambush in Da Nang. Jesus. Yeah, he was killed there, which was a rough one there. That is horrific. Lost a lot of people there. And he was the town's first fatality of the Vietnam War.

So it was a big deal. And, yeah, they kind of, everybody, a lot of the people in the community know the Sharps because of this thing that happened with their son because he was the first one. So it was a big deal. And they kind of rallied around him. And, you know, as a town would, I would imagine. imagine he's lori piastua yeah that's the thing that's it that i know no one knows what you're talking about i realize that you just made a very local reference like north phoenix well she's in tuba city arizona and she was uh the first female uh

name american ever killed in combat i I think. I'm not sure. I don't know for sure. I don't want to. I know she was the first female killed in the Iraq-Afghanistan thingy-o. The thingy-o over there. You know. You know, that old dust stuff. You know, that little thingy-o that happened.

That old skirmish that's still happening. Thousands of people. Anyway, we named it. Trillions of dollars. That thingy-o. We named a mountain after her. That's awesome. And I'm very aware of where Tuba City is because of dollars that thingy we named a mountain after and uh i'm very aware of where tuba city is because of that okay so yeah so this is probably very similar

he's also somebody's i saw my buddy die face down in the muck he's somebody has that story that's the other thing and then multiple people from the town uh afterwards died in the next couple weeks oh my god they were there was a bunch in this area and there was a that was a heavy fighting area so that's what happened uh so april 30th 1984 as we set the scene 63 year old bruce 59 year old alice second grade teacher retired mechanic they are uh you know they're living their lives uh they live kind of a very quiet life i mean they live on a quiet street they're half retired right she teaches second grade which isn't like she goes she's not like in the in the pits and like wall street shouting out uh trading numbers and shit like that she's you know teaching second graders it's

they're relaxed people uh so a a woman named susan sayer who is the uh uh lives, she's a neighbor of the Pittman's on the street. She gets a call from the secretary at the Sewell School where, God, why don't they name it something easier to say? I hate that so much. Sewell School? Is it S-E-W-E-L? Yeah, like the old Bronco. God damn it.

Deep Sewell, yeah. That is fucked up. Sewell School, that sounds so weird and unpurposely, it sounds like someone tried to make something that was hard to say. It's a tongue twister. You say it over and over again. The secondary school school district. Can we just call it Sewell Elementary?

You know what I mean? We can just call it Sewell. Sewell School. Got to sing it. See all the way and get through it. Yeah, Sewell School. Yeah, so they said, which is a weird thing because she doesn't work for these people so to get a call or have any students at the school so it's a strange call to get i work it's great that's nice i fucking work here it's a pleasure good to meet you what

are we talking about uh it wasn't like oh i know what's going on is that alice like we said is a teacher and she lives right she lives as susan sayer lives on this small street that alice and bruce live on and i guess alice didn't show up for work that day on april 30th so that's abnormal for alice she's a pretty reliable lady she's not a real big partier no i mean she'll go through some coke from time to time i mean she'll rip through it for two weeks on a binge but you know when that's coming you could see the bags under her eyes and you can tell she's getting more irritable she starts kicking kids in the chest once in a while you're like oh christ here it comes alice alice isn't going to show up for a couple weeks two weeks are calling in you know how it goes but no honestly she's a very reliable very non-coke addicted very forthright woman here that was a substitute teacher her life was

generally like it could be on a whim she could be called today for tomorrow's work so exactly probably pretty clean and she that's the other thing it's not like oh christ i gotta i've been drinking all night i gotta come in this morning like that's not really with her they're they're pretty stable people enough to where if she doesn't show up they start calling neighbors yeah that's really reliable the house next door and fan out from there what the fuck They're pretty stable people. Enough to where if she doesn't show up, they start calling neighbors. Yeah. That's really reliable. We'll start with the house next door and fan out from there? What the fuck?

That's really reliable. Not like, oh, maybe she's sick and meant to call but fell asleep because she was sick or something like that. I'll give her till noon. Fuck no. It's 9.03. Alice isn't here. Let's start calling the neighbors. Like, that's extra.

I've never been have you ever been that reliable on a job where they're like oh he must there must be a problem obviously he would have definitely been here shit no no no you they just assume he's got something's up this is probably him going um i'm not coming back ever again or he'll be here tomorrow yeah either one yeah or he'll be here by but by 10 yeah probably is still asleep let's just i called him but he's not gonna hear that if he's hung over right so uh they said yeah she she hadn't reported for work this woman the secretary had called their house bruce now obviously first they didn't start with the embarrassing thing real quick okay i got called

once by my job at fucking uh one in the afternoon and it woke me up and i was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm late and they're like oh we thought you you haven't been here yet we thought you already left now how much do you guys not need me nor nor like what were you scheduled to fucking four to twelve six a.m six to two oh so they thought you left early? They thought I just took off early. Oh, you just hadn't been there at all. You should have said, I'm 2 to 10 tonight, right? What are you calling me? I'll be there in an hour.

I'll be there when I'm supposed to be there. Dude, you should have. You totally blew that. Because they would have been like, no, you're. You'd have been like, oh, my God, really? Yeah. They fucking told me 2 to 10. The good news is I hated that job and they fired me over it.

Where's that schedule? Start shuffling pay. Hold on a minute. Because I swear, my schedule says two to ten. I swear to God. I planned my whole week around it. They gave me a no call, no show over it. I thought it was weird because I usually work.

But they said, I don't know, it was weird. Well, she's not you. That's self-forgettable. Yeah. She's not you. No? So, no, they know she doesn't show up because the kids are like sitting there and sure are going.

We don't have a teacher right now. Yeah. They're just wandering around. Just bumping into each other. They don't know what to do. Stabbing each other. Yeah. Hey, we can finally stab each other now.

That was job directive number one. The shooter drill goes off. They're on top of their desk. They're on top. Yeah. What happened? Oh, shit. Damn it. They're on top of their desk. Yeah. What happened? Oh, shit. Damn it.

We don't know what's going on here. So they said they obviously called Alice first. They didn't just start with the neighbor, which is good. She's not here. Call her next door neighbor, and then we'll see if she knows. This is amazing. They start there and then go fan out, as you said. So they said, can you check on Alice and see if she's around?

Which, again, is just so weird. I don't fucking know. I'm not involved in this. She works for you. You come over and check and see if she's around. I don't fucking know her. Yeah, what are you talking about? Go over and check on her.

What are we doing here? So she goes over there. Susan Sayre goes next door. Not that far. I guess it's not that big of an inconvenience. She found the cellar and back doors unlocked, which isn't that unusual around there. People aren't real sticklers. It's not super dangerous.

But they lock their doors. It's not rural Canada or anything. They're locking their doors and shit. She said, I don't know why I took a shot at rural Canada. I don't know. There's nobody there to break in, I guess. That's what I thought of. I see just sprawling nothingness with a cabin with smoke coming out of it sitting.

Rural Canada out there. I hope per capita Canada has way higher crime than we do. I would hope so. They don't, though, unfortunately. But I figure there, anyone who would come up to the door, you'd be so surprised. You'd be opening it before they even got there. So you don't need to lock it holy shit there's a person coming open the door christ i'm lonely i've had this coffee going for years let me warm it up i got some coffee oh it's stale it's been i got well i got it 12 years ago so but you know it's you know maybe if i put it in the microwave with a wet paper towel around it

it'll no it's not gonna no okay it's not going to, no. Okay. It's done. It's pretty hard. You're right. I should have got Steve. Yeah. Freeze dried. Fuck. Frozen.

Yeah. Sourly. A pound cake. You leave it in there. You never know when you need to take it out. There it is. Pound cake. Boom.

So, uh, she, uh, yeah, she, she finds the door unlocked back door in the cellar. Uh, she opens the door, calls in. Hey, Alice, Alice, Bruce, some fucking body. I don't know. Where are you guys? Um, you know, she doesn't hear. the door unlock back door in the cellar uh she opens the door calls in hey alice alice where bruce some fucking buddy i don't know where are you guys um you know she doesn't hear anything so she walks in the house which i don't know i tried i hope call the secretary i called i went over there i opened the door and i yelled and they didn't answer nobody so i'm assuming they're not home right because it's none of my goddamn business where they are or that they didn't show up if there's anything worse in that house send the fucking cops i'm not qualified anything

on the inside i yelled they're not there that's all i know there's no nobody yelled back that's it just my echo that's my part so if you got any further concerns proceed as you must because i'm gonna be doing whatever i was doing before you bothered me have a good one instead she walks on in here no nozily open enters a bruce alice entering the house and uh she she finds uh before she gets to the dining room there's a center hallway and there she finds the very bloody and very lifeless bodies of Bruce and Alice. Both. Both of them laid out in the hallway area there. Oh, no. So, obviously, she has a little freak out. I mean, she's probably not the most exciting person either.

She's the type of person who you'd call to check on a second grade teacher to make sure. You know what I mean? They called her to check on them at 9 o'clock in the morning. She's the second most reliable person in town. Like, did we get Susan on it? We'll call susan imagine how busy she is it's just a coincidence that was her next door neighbor but they call her whenever anyone doesn't show up for work can you check on i can tell you who's never checking on anybody ever again craig wilkins uh didn't show up for work this morning at the auto by. Could you check it out for me?

Jesus, fine. He's not home, okay? I don't know. He said he's sick today. Oh, okay, thank you. Just like the town truant officer. So instead, she calls the police and obviously they're concerned about two bloody dead bodies there. It didn't look like it was a natural thing that happened.

Whatever happened. Did it just start leaking? Not from multiple holes. And from different ways and everything it's okay it's a brutal scene uh it's very brutal here they uh they came in and they said okay they were dead they established that the police which susan sayer had that one down she didn't really need much help with that uh they also note a broken vase nearby and a fireplace poker lying near the bodies with a whole lot of matter on it, we'll say. Some gore. They find no signs of forced entry when they examine the whole house. Of course, there was two doors open also, so they don't know if that was what the purpose was.

Either or. Either or. They don't know if that was what the purpose was. Either or. Either or. And they also find, though, that the upstairs bedroom, their bedroom, Bruce and Alice's bedroom, had been completely ransacked. Tossed. And tossed and gone through. That's right.

The rest of the house just looked like there were signs of struggle from here to there, but there wasn't ransacking, just mainly up there. So, obviously, there's an investigation here. They're found lying in a pool of blood in their own hallway. That's something that's abnormal, like we say, for a second-grade teacher and a retired mechanic. It's funny, too. When we set the stage for this, that's not funny, but when we set the stage for the show as Bruce and Alice and we set their whole life up, you figure, oh, one of them is going to kill each other. Oh, for sure. Obviously.

Which one snaps? This is so idyllic. Bruce needs insurance money or some shit he's he's gonna find uh you know there's some 31 year old broad that i thought i found dancing and we're gonna run away to mexico together i've been working my whole life for this and now all of a sudden i hate you now i hate you i'm stuck in this house with you forever our kid teaches gym you understand that right now he's yelling at kids to throw a ball at each other harder yeah that's what we're that's what we did this didn't work it's a fucking failure who's the

lucky one bruce jr's that's right no that's called he got out of it he got out of it so no that's not what happened no that's weird they loved each that was a complete fiction no they were nice people who liked each other and raised their kids well and they were all fine and everybody worked his whole life for this end that's fucked up that's the other thing and for this end uh the it's wow uh they have the police say they have no motive for the slayings but they say it might have been a burglary based on the tossing or maybe that was something specific that someone was looking for yeah they didn't know it's it's just two dead people in there in a pool of blood they don't have any enemies i can't imagine it's not like alice really pissed a kid off 15 years ago and now he's come back for revenge you know now he's 22 the man put in 40

years turning wrenches man i did that shit for like a week and i was like i i'm not cut out for this this is oh fuck i think he retired at 62 it's so hard just retired. This is, oh, fuck, man. I think he retired at 62. It's so hard. Just retired. That life is so brutal. He was, you know, now he was real into gardening. That's what he was into. Like, he was not, he was trying to relax. Keeping his fingernails clean.

Oh, yeah. Or at least with dirt and not grease. Oh, that comes out a lot easier. Soil instead of grease is a lot easier. So it's the medical examiner, Dr. Klaus Speth. I trust him for some reason. He knows. Sounds like a very harsh, you know, he's going to tell you things you don't want to hear.

Whatever he says, fucking trust it. Yeah, that's the guy that tells you you have a horrible disease. And you go, I'm fucked, yeah. Dr. Klaus told me, I'm done. And you go, I'm fucked, yeah. Dr. Klaus told me, I'm done. He said that, ooh, man, Alice sustained over 80 wounds. No.

Over 80 wounds and was beaten so severely that the fireplace poker penetrated her brain. My Christ. If you've ever held a fireplace poker, it's not the heaviest thing in the world. It's not like an axe or anything. See the staircase if you've seen that documentary the that's what they're what they said he killed his wife with right that's what we're talking about here i believe the blow the blow thing uh or this might be the point on the hook yeah the hook point one not the blow thing it's a different one now the staircase was the to get it going oh that's what he did it with no this i think he did it with the

hook thing this is the he did it with the poker the guy on the staircase stoker was the blow yeah yeah yeah different one yeah this is a different thing this is the one with the hook pointer yeah hook pointer so this thing's nasty 80 wounds with that my god that's what they said here and that's not it also and he fucking stabbed her with it he was just wow i mean hacking her at her with it over 80 times which seems like pretty personal it's angry that seems personal mad and especially with bruce's shot really bruce's shot so you only bring one bullet bruce's shot to death and and he and and alice is beaten just so severely overkill yeah with this so it's very, the scene is interesting. You'd walk in and obviously, to me,

you'd look and if I'm just initially looking at the scene, you'd go, okay, obviously the focus of the rage is here. This seems like a... Dispatch him fast because he is clearly a threat. Yeah, get him out of the way and then concentrate my rage where i want to which is here right which would seem like that's what it would seem like to me so it seems not not many second graders are that mad that's what i'm saying this is a very this seems super

personal and it doesn't seem like oh you know it must have been a something you know it just doesn't seem like uh random basically is what what it is. No, not at all. Not at all. So this was in broad daylight, this happened. This is a nice street with six houses on it. There's a lake at the end of it where the neighbors go feed birds and shit like that. It's a very idyllic little area. They were last seen working in their yard at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

So that's the last thing they've seen. They were doing gardening together basically um yeah they as a matter of fact they're still outside there's still clippers and a lawn rake and a bag of grass clippings still out on the lawn so like they they took a break for lemonade and yeah and we found somebody in the house we're severely murdered oh here uh yeah everything was there, sitting. The grass was freshly cut, and they were cleaning up after it. One of the neighbors here said, quote, we saw her, meaning Alice, around 1 p.m. She was right where the bag was left in the yard.

Because they were saying it was still sitting out there. And the police told no one's allowed to move anything. It's a crime scene, obviously. So that's a neighbor of theirs. Also, they said other neighbors said there's no there was no disturbance. None of the neighbors reported any kind of, you know, ruckus in the neighborhood that day or anything like that. It was just a quiet, normal day. You know, it's a Sunday, you know, just a quiet Sunday and nothing out of the ordinary.

Nothing like that the one neighbor said that's what seems so odd but they also said that there had been two or three burglaries on the block in the past year so there had been some burglaries but nobody put it together as anything to be in the past year past year a case in the joint for every three months to go back yeah to go back and now we're going to get the big score of slaughtering the second grade teacher. It doesn't that that doesn't make sense either. It's a weird doesn't line up the way it looks personal. I don't think you'd go in right away and say, well, burglary.

That must have been what it was. And these were burglaries that were no violence or no, no confrontations or anything like that. Snatch and grab or smash and grab, smash and grab. And the fact that like they were outside doing yard work would make it that would cut down on the the uh the chance that they like came home and a burglar was in their house you know what i'm saying happened upon happened upon yeah they came home early or something they were outside so anyone who was going to burglar burgle them knew they were there and they were home and it's not the

middle of the night someone broke in and they caught him and they were home. And it's not the middle of the night. Someone broke in and they caught him and it was a struggle. So it's a it's just it's a weird thing. Everybody's really perplexed by this whole thing. It ruins just every opportunity to really get away with it, too. But now now people have seen them at a certain time. It puts the pinpoints, fucking everything. And if you want to burgle more, you're putting a lot of attention on yourself.

The whole thing doesn't seem cover of night seems a lot easier i i would say so uh they talked to a guy named tom herrera who uh who i guess said that uh on the previous day he had they talked to him the next day this guy he said he'd cut the house across the streets lawn uh from the sharps house and part of his job was to dump the grass clippings from this lawn into the Sharps compost heap. So I guess everybody who would cut their lawn, they'd put it in their compost on purpose. They asked him to do that.

So, well, yeah, they've got a garden. They need the company. This is what they're working on. He's gone from Texaco to composting, knocking on neighbors doors and saying, dump your shit in my yard. He's done a 180 is what I'm saying here. Rather now that i'm gonna dump my shit in your ocean right he's gone to dump your shit in my yard so he's done a complete 180 uh he tells this guy says that while he was wheeling his cart full of clippings up their driveway the sharps driveway he said he

encountered a man he said they exchanged no words he said uh the guy first ran into some bushes then he retrieved a dirty gray bicycle with an orange sticker on it and rode away that's what he said and you exchanged fucking no words with that man and they said can you describe him and he said this herrera said that the man had big eyes and, quote, long, scraggly hair, and he wore boots. So they have a mysterious booted, scraggly man. Right. On a kid's bike. On a bike in the bushes as you were wheeling your clippings.

And you have no fucking questions for that guy? No questions. And the cops go, all right, sounds good there. And they work up a composite sketch of a scraggly-haired man, a a scraggly haired white man, as we know he's white in this town, between the ages of 18 and 21. So a young man. And they said the man was last seen riding his bicycle away, old gray, dirty bicycle with an orange sticker on it. So, yeah. So the cops go in.

They're looking for clues. They say they have no suspect. They have no motive. They don't have shit. They say they have no suspect. They have no motive. They don't have shit. They have two bodies and a gardener seeing a scraggly man. That's all they have. They said that all they can speculate, based on everything they've investigated, they have these people.

There's no one with any reason to kill these people. So they said this has to be a burglary based on the ransack. It's the best thing. Occam's razor type of thing. That's the best we can go on. we beat uh small town police forces to death for their lack of but this information this is tough just having that there and then you've got a police force with very little resources they're like now we gotta fucking solve this we have to solve this crime lay it out before you right now it seems pretty rough i'm fucked right now you're

with this information you're going was it the gardener did he make up the scraggly man was it the scraggly man was the scraggly man someone who worked for them doing stuff in their yard we can't ask them because they're dead and they had you know who the hell knows was was someone angry at them i can't ask that gardener any more questions because the fucking guy had no questions i had no questions that's what i mean was was was was this was Bruce banging some broad? And this was her angry husband that came over. Was this some, you know, who the hell? Who knows?

That's you don't know what the hell's going on here. So they said all they have to go on is maybe they surprised a burglar while they were working in the yard. Maybe someone thought they could sneak in and steal some shit while they were outside working, which would be really ballsy. Super brave. And they came in and that's that's what ended up happening they didn't know uh at all here so uh on may 1st so you know some time goes by here uh you know this is uh not two days but still uh they go by uh then and a guy named paul godman here who's an officer with the police department in Pittman. He gets a phone call from his nephew. It's funny because you always talk about

sometimes it's better to be lucky than good and shit like that. Like you said, if you're a cop, you're looking at this going, fuck, I mean. God, I hope I'm lucky. Unless we pull literally fingerprints or something very solid physical or someone confesses, we are fucked here.

This is 1984? Yeah, this is 84. There's no... DNA is not really that big. No. It's not a thing at all, right? It's not a thing at all. No.

So it's fingerprints or if they catch a guy with a gun that matches the caliber that killed Bruce... And he says, I killed him. And they match the ballistics and hopefully he'll have a bloody knife on him too otherwise or you know a fireplace poke they need luck basically and they get it here a guy this is his nephew this officer uh godman his nephew's name is karma or carmen katafi yeah okay katafi he says, Carmen, he says he read about the murders in the newspaper and he tells his uncle that he thinks he knows something about them, but he's afraid to get involved. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart.

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

This mother****er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. 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. All right, well, you just called your uncle who's a fucking cop. What do you want me to do now? That's the thing. You're involved now. You just told the cop you know about a murder. You just put me in a position that I have to, I'll fucking arrest you. You called me at work.

You didn't even call me at home on a Saturday and said, I need some advice from my uncle. You called my sergeant and said, can I talk to my uncle uncle i have a gun on right now i have to like follow this shit like i'm literally wearing a gun my lieutenant's right here he's in the room with me i can't just be like oh well i don't know i'll see you at lunch this weekend no there's no the barbecues this weekend memorial day end of the month don't forget forget. Big barbecue. What do we have talking to do now, son? So he says he's afraid to get involved. So you're afraid to get involved? What is going on?

Your uncle's a cop. What the fuck are you scared of? That's what I mean. Who are these sharps involved with here? They're thinking now. What's going on? So this Godman here, the officer, sets up a meeting between his nephew, who, if he knows anything about it, I'm going to call him a dipshit just because he's into something weird. He sets up a meeting between him and detectives from the police department and the prosecutor's office here.

Now, what he says is, Carmen says that he himself, Carmen, and a guy named Gerald Smith yeah and another man named walter johnson not the hall of fame pitcher uh obviously uh you know you never know hey what was he 80 out there fucking fucking around what's going on with walter johnson all right these three dickheads all right walter johnson gerald smith and carmen katafi here he said they uh spent a couple hours of the day of the murders when they were found dead that that day they spent a couple hours of the day of the murders when they were found dead that that day they spent a couple hours drinking wine at gerald smith's house in glassboro that's also where walter johnson lives how old are these dicks uh they're you know young youngish early 20s sitting around drinking wine sitting around drinking wine yeah probably a mad dog 2020 or

some shit like that it's not wine wine he drank in that thunderbird right that's what's happening now this is getting uh this is shit wine this is oh yeah yeah no they're not sitting going no the merlot i said not the what are you doing jesus i don't want the chianti you don't have any cheese jesus what kind of fucking place is this the cab is too dry i'd like a maybe a Pinot Noir. I want it sweeter. That's not what's happening. I want some notes.

He's like, what is that, strawberry? I'll take a swig. That's the wine we're talking about here. The word notes is not in it. If your wine shares a flavor with Starburst, say, of any kind, it's probably not very good wine. And don't call yourself. You're not exactly a sommelier is what we're getting at.

If your review of the wine is it'll fuck you up. Shit fucked you up. Shit fucked me up good. I didn't even throw up. So that's a good. If your review is how little or much you threw up, you're probably drinking wine wrong. I'm going to say. If the review is this one will give you a headache.

Yeah, real bad. I mean, I drank four bottles of it, but still, you drank it, it's rough. If your review is based upon how fucked up you get versus the headache after. Yeah. Exactly. If that's how you drink wine, you're not drinking wine.

If it's grape flavored, not just from grapes, you fucked up. You made a mistake. It's grape flavored because it's purple. That's what I mean. It's very, like, it's alcoholic grape flavored. You've done something. Yes.

Although that does sound delicious. That is cough syrup, my friend. No, no, no. Not with medicine in it. Just a grape. That is just liquid coating. I just want, like, grape. They call that syrup, James. No, no, not with medicine in it. Just a grape. That is just liquid coating. I just want like grape. They call that syrup.

No, no, no. I want a grape soda where I can't taste the alcohol or any medicine. I just want to drink grape soda and get drunk from it. I think that would be fun. Is that good? Because I don't really like the taste of shit. So can I have that? I mean, lean is close to that.

Can you give me that? It tastes like Sprite. How much of that do I have to drink, though? Not much of you pouring. But then it tastes like syrup i mean i don't want that you gotta go hard on the syrup james i'm gonna stick with the weed thank you very much because i think i have a better i've got all figured out now it tastes better that's for sure it's much better so he sets up a meeting here between this idiot i mean like i said it's him walter johnson gerald smith drinking cheap wine for a couple hours on the day

of the murder in Glassboro. So about 1 p.m., I guess, Walter Johnson borrowed Carmen's gray bicycle in saying that he had to get some things that he quote, had stashed. Yeah. He's like, I gotta get some things I stashed. So he's gonna go

ride his bike to get some things he stashed. Got it. going to go ride his bike to go get some things he stashed. Got it. I don't know what that is. Dig in the trees and pull out his shit. Some shit that he stashed away. Now, about two hours later, Smith and Carmen, the other two wine drinkers of the sommelier trio here, they get drunk and argue. Look at us're look at us yeah we're wonderful i just then they eat

like fucking they go steal candy from a girl like children right i from that brocks yeah just try where you put a nickel in yeah they just take that take the neapolitan coconut ones they get caught stealing see one of them with the other one the fogget full of fucking butterscotch no stop they gonna see you no i don't get the twix i don't want no twix that's like two little black dicks rubbing together in your pocket i ain't getting no twix i don't want no three musket queers either that's the name of it right they got muskets and they're queer right right right that's how it work right that's these idiots i feel like that's all snickers sniffers it's a sniffer i mean a sniffer it's for penis sniffers they hang out with stevie from the

documentary so uh they a couple hours later this is hours go by i'm gonna get some stuff i stashed with your bicycle and then he's just gone. They encounter him, Smith and Carmen, encounter Walter Johnson in the streets of Glassboro on his bike here. On Carmen's bike. On Carmen's bike. Now, obviously, Carmen wasn't riding it. Walter Johnson was. Now, Smith and Carmen

were driving in Smith's car going to Smith's girlfriend's house. So he has a girlfriend. That's a good sign there. Now, or somebody, some significant somebody that is willing to, someone that's willing to spend time with you,

that's somewhat relieving. And tell other people about it. And tell other people. That's what I mean. Yeah, there's something there. There are people I'd spend time with, but I would never tell anybody. That's what I mean.

There you go. Now, at this point, they saw Walter Johnsonson he was riding his bicycle in the direction back to smith's house like he's going back to you know drop his bicycle off now carmen noticed something odd about walter mainly that walter was uh had blood all over him yeah which is not normal obviously and he didn't have that when he left so smith stops the car this is what i would keep driving yeah he's got i didn't see do you see what the shit was all over his face let's drive keep driving i don't think it was his i'm driving keep driving is he bleeding doesn't look like it's somebody else i

can't even tell be honest with you just keep going if he is i don't want it on my interior i'm gonna keep going he's got a bike he'll get there i've I've done my part. He was riding my bike. He's still moving on it. So this Smith stopped the car, and Carmen talked to Walter, and Walter said, hey, let's go to Camden. Okay? Now, they said among them, when they said go to Camden, that meant let's go buy drugs. Yeah. Because you'd buy drugs in Camden.

How about you go to a bath first? No, it's covered in blood, and I need drugs now. Right. So let's go to Camden meant let's go buy some shit. Right. That's about you go to a bath first? No, it's covered in blood. And I need drugs now. Let's go to Camden, let's go buy some shit. That's where they go to buy shit. They said, alright. And they go back to Smith's house first, where he washed some of the blood, at least the blood off his face. He had blood all

over his face and arms. They're like, I should probably at least get that off of you. So, with the garden hose outside, That's how he did it? That's how he did it that's how he did it not even yeah no there's some of that squeeze that pumpy soap next to the sink to the anti-bacteria yeah give yourself a good five pumps of that probably you're gonna need it none of that shit at all he just said there's a hose out there towel nope whop it in the grass drip dry fuck dry, fucker. Drip dry.

So, yeah, this man is washing blood. Walter Johnson washing blood from his face and arms with a garden hose. By the way, they're not asking a whole lot of questions of why are you covered in blood so much? And now you want to go buy drugs. How did that happen? I thought you were. Where'd you have that stash? You had a bunch of money and blood stashed somewhere awesome glad you found it what the fuck did you have it stashed up something's

ass and you had to tear it out it is yeah i just i grabbed it and it popped all over me so he's doing that and while he's washing the blood off of the garden hose he starts like you know just unsolicited uh Talking about how he got blood? The way they put it, quote, disjointly explaining. So he's just kind of here and there. Meandering through a story. Yeah, he's not real concise. He doesn't have a good narrative.

It's open, Mike. He's putting it together. Yeah, he doesn't have like a, you know, like shit, like words I have in front of me like that. He doesn't have that laid out yet. He's bouncing around. He doesn't know where he's going. Okay. So they said he's disjointly explained that I've killed one or more people.

They're like, well, first of all, how many? Right. That's important. Total. But they don't believe him, actually. Carmen said that he thought he was full of shit. And he said, quote, he, quote, thought it equally likely that Walter himself had been the victim of a beating and that the blood was his own. So he, Walter's one of those guys who tell stories.

That's the thing. So when Walter comes in and he's covered in blood and he's washing the blood off and he's like, let's go get some drugs. And they're like, what happened, Walter? He's like, I killed one. It could have been more. I killed a couple of people. And they're like, oh, did you now? And he's like, I killed a couple.

Yeah, I had to kill him. You know, hey, that's what happens, man. You got to do it. And they're like oh did you now he's like i killed a couple yeah i had to kill him you know hey that's what happens man you gotta do it and they're like oh sure shaming and dignity of getting rolled exactly right he probably got the shit beaten out of him and fucking now he's bleeding from a head wound under his hair and he's saying oh yeah you should kill the other guy kill two of them you should see the other one two of them i don't know a couple i don't matter that's how little i care. Little regard I have for taking a life. I just started beating him. One, two, three. I'll kill whoever's in front of me.

I'll kill you right now. Strangling you with this garden hose. Come on over here. Yeah. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. So he says that they don't believe him. So they're like, yeah, right, whatever.

So he washes up. They said they ditched the bicycle. I don't know why they said they ditched it. They just left it at the house. That's yours. Yeah. Oh, because it's at Gerald's house over here. So they wash up and everybody gets into the car to drive to Camden to buy heroin.

So that's where we're going with that. Let's go buy some heroin. Very strange here. Now, during this car ride here, Jesus Christ, the heroin car ride, Walter starts telling people, starts telling Smith and Carmen a little more about this whole thing.

Because they're like, so, you know, they just ignored it. They were like, oh, you killed people. That's great. And they were like, let's go over here. So they were just not even asking questions because they assumed that he was fucking lying. The conversation's over people. That's great. Right. And they were like, let's go over here. So they were just like not even asking questions because they assumed that he was fucking lying. The conversation's over already. That's how it works.

So, yeah. So he tells him a little more. He says how he shot a man and he bludgeoned the man's wife to death. That's what he tells him. He's like, yeah, they beat her to death. And they were like, Carmen said that he still was skeptical because he knew Walter to be an untruthful person. He's a fucking liar who I'm going to buy heroin with. So, you know, he's not the most reliable here.

Also, they said at this point, this is when Walter shows Carmen some jewelry and some cash. And he says, I got this from those fucking people. You think I'm lying? Right. and he says, I got this from those fucking people. You think I'm lying? Right. And now at this point, Carmen starts to believe him because the jewelry and the cash have a bunch of blood on them.

Still could have been his blood, but they're like, that's a little... But that's a lot of cash. It's a little more believable, and where'd he get this cash from? And if he got beat up, how'd he end up with cash at the end of it? He wouldn't have the cash, though. They probably would have robbed him if someone beat him like that. So they get to heroin, they get to Camdenden which might as well be heroin at that point and uh so walter treats my treat

i'm buying hey you know what a round on me round on me stick it in your vein and let's do this let's go on a ride let's go on a trip everybody oh and 20s in the air let's do this shit buys uh heroin for himself and his friends which is nice and then they all shot up which is i guess the point of having heroin right uh after that they stop after that mind you they go to heroin first yeah then they stop at a at a store the pensock and mart which is i guess a like a department store and bought a pair of pants he bought a buys a pair of jeans to replace the ones he's wearing that are covered in blood

he went into the store he went to buy heroin covered in blood and then shut up covered in blood and then was like now I'll go change my pants now I'm calm now I'm cool I'll change and not only am I going to change them I gotta go buy them to change them walk in there well clearly I need a new pair of pants.

Is somebody to help you with? Obviously. And you just put your hands out and look down. Pants are that way. What do you think? Yeah, exactly. So he then throws the bloody pants out of the car window, which is a very reliable disposal method.

Right. You just throw them out of the car window and they fly off like dandelions. They are no longer good. Poof. Gone. All the blood comes off found never uh so the police at this point said let's go ahead and arrest this walter johnson guy based on this statement and we'll see what shakes out because this sounds pretty good sounds like our guy the way it's described here uh so they try to locate him and uh they can't find him they have they look all They said his friend said, why don't you search Camden? Because he's probably looking for drugs right now.

There he goes. So then these cops have to go try to find him in Camden, which is like crackhead in a haystack. You're never going to find that shit. In a crack. Yeah. Junkie in a junk stack is not going to work. You're never going to find him. So they never they couldn't find him.

And they continue the search for this mysterious Walter Johnson johnson now who the fuck is walter johnson i'd love to know walter is a kid who came up shittily well uh he's an abused kid yeah that everybody who knows him says is a good person except for drugs yeah he's's had a drug problem since his early teens and been a complete fuck up since then, just based on drugs. He's 24 at the time. He dropped out of high school in like the 10th grade. Okay. Drugs for drug reasons.

He worked in a bakery that a family member of his own for a while did a little carpentry work here and there. He's Jesus. Yeah. Well, there you go. He's going to live at the center of town. There you go. carpentry work here and there. He's Jesus. Yeah. Well, there you go. He's going to live at the center of town. There you go. Center of the Pittman Grove there.

He does a little bit of carpentry work, but at the time, he's unemployed. He's been doing odd jobs here and there. To support his heroin habit. Exactly. I need 50 bucks today. I'll go work. That's all I need. That's what it is.

But he's not completely employed here. So unemployed here. He is married at the time and has a son. Oh, my God. work and that's all that's what it is so but he's not you know completely employed here so uh unemployed here he is married at the time and has a son oh my god he's got a five-year-old son which sounds like a fucking disaster yeah that sounds terrible that's a 19 year old kid not good 19 year old junkie yeah said great idea let's say well i don't know if he said someone said yeah i'll help and she's still married to him at this point so i don't know if he said it. Well, I'll help. Someone said, yeah, I'll help. And she's still married to him at this point. So I don't know if that's just we can't afford to do the paperwork or if they're still together or what. Or we can't afford to live separate. That's the thing.

They end up separating in a while, as we'll talk about. Now, he isn't the brightest bulb, as you might imagine. He's known as kind of a not a low IQ in terms of like a legally defining low IQ. Just a burnout. He's got dead cells because of his drug use. And he wasn't that smart to begin with. He's always in school. He wasn't very smart always.

He's not a very bright guy. Everybody says it. Likely used drugs to relieve the burden of distress of not being able to learn at school. And he's very abused, too, as a child. That, too. He's got all kinds of reasons to do drugs. That's the thing. He's got plenty of reasons to do drugs here.

He is 100% addicted to heroin, and he has over 50, 5-0 at the age of 24, burglary convictions. Yeah. And different convictions for misdemeanor this just stealing shoplifting wow he is i i mean those are his stats 100 addicted to heroin 50 burglary arrested county he's really really really uh a high flyer when it comes to the burglary a bad thief also a shit terrible if he's getting caught 50 that many times because he's a junkie he's not planning things out and and i'm gonna i'm this is the perfect score right and he's got a map and just taking opportunity when the lasers come from

the thing i'm gonna do a cartwheel over the one and a backflip shouldn't activate the third that's not what he's doing he's like i need heroin that looks shiny right that's what he does and with break grab yeah break grab sell right okay even if i get arrested at least i got high first i know that's what he's looking for here uh so yeah convicted of more than 50 burglary and burglary adjacent offenses here so uh on may 1st they finally find him late at night on may 1st uh he's at his parents home in glassboro he just went to went back to his parents' house. Jesus.

That's where he goes. The police surround the house, which is weird. Now, it gets even weirder. Walter Johnson's brother is a member of the Pittman police force. Yeah. So the nephew with the thing, and now we got the- That's how small this town is. That's what I'm saying.

Everybody's got a family member. You can arrest your own family member murderer if it's a murder he's related to somebody in the family either the murder victim or the murder 66 of the idiot crew has family on the police force that's what i mean it's weird as shit so uh this is his this is walter's older brother yeah okay uh his brother so his brother goes up to the house because it's his parents fucking house and goes in and talks to Walter and brings him out. That way they don't have to have a big scene. Mom, dad.

Yeah. We've got you surrounded. Hey, mom. Mom, the house is surrounded. Are you making? Are we doing chicken parm? No, it's no, it's still surrounded, but I'm hungry. Is it?

What's i'm gonna take is there something in the fridge i can take can you send out wally i can't take a sandwich with me i got a prisoner he can't have a sandwich he's in handcuffs ma i can't take i'm not gonna uncuff him so he i'm not gonna tell me to stop being mean to my brother my mother would be like are you picking on your brother can you uncuff him in the car so he can eat the sandwich at least that's would be no he can't workuff him in the car so he can eat the sandwich at least? That's would be. No, he can't work. I'm sorry.

Look, this isn't about him being my younger brother, mom. This is about Walter covered in blood. It's a different thing. Your son's a junkie, mom. Jesus Christ. So he drags him out of there. He comes out voluntarily. His brother at 147 a.m. on May 2nd, the police arrest him.

They frisk him. They put him in a car. And a detective reads him his Miranda rights. And then they drive him to the police station. Now, there's some other things we're going to talk about in a second here about that ride. But later on, I'm sorry. At the police station, they escort him into an interview room here. There's Detective Reeves. That's one of the main guys. It's Reeves and Wechter are here. the police station uh they escort him into an interview room here uh there's the detective

reeves that's one of the main guys it's reeves and wechter are are here reeves uh he's the one who's going to conduct the interview and uh the detective wechter re gives the miranda rights and uh he so walter johnson signs a form yes i understand my rights blah blah blah blah they witness the signatures then wechter leaves the room and uh detective donovan donovan arrives so now it's reeves and donovan in the room okay and uh 2 a.m about or so they start this interview and uh reeves asks most of the questions while the other one takes notes so kind of go back and forth these teams they have their certain roles they're like us homicide detectives are like us

like they know how to dance you ask them the fun stuff the the facts the stuff that's gonna matter well and i go did you did you well no what'd you do that's creepy we both do the creepy thing that's not how we do this no i mean we just know how to dance around each other like people that work in a kitchen not that you always say that i say grosser shit than you 90% of the time. All the time. I said pulled pork pussy in front of 400 people in St. Louis. You're going to get

the stuff that matters. Yeah. It'll be great, but it's going to matter for the story. We're both disgusting, horrible people is what I'm getting at.

I'm going to try to say I'm not because I am too. I'm not going to run from it. It's the worst thing you did for heroin. What's the thing that's the worst thing you did? No, they had their different roles. James will tell you a story about an amazing documentary and we're not going to run from it. It's the worst thing you did for heroin. What's the thing? What's the worst thing you did? No, they had their different roles.

James will tell you a story about an amazing documentary, and we're both going to get out of you. Who's your Al? Who is he? Who did it? Who's the best? Tell me. These are all inside live show jokes. If you went to these live shows, you'd know.

We talked about the fucking... Problem? The smut show. What do you call it uh fuck shops no no no side of the highway that documentary god damn it oh dope sick love yeah but what do you call it when you don't when you used to call your friend to come over and watch it with you oh do you want to watch them kind of come over this we can watch some smut what did you call it scum scum scum we can watch some scum let's watch some scum like this documentary stevie we always called him stevie scumson hey stevie scumson he's coming over let's watch some scum bags

that's all it is dope sick love is just all scumbags never a person is seen in a camera lens it's not a scumbag in that entire fucking video it's amazing it's wild so uh yeah so they're they're questioning old walter johnson yeah now in the early stages when they first start this interrogation they state detectives say that he displays what they call a quote easygoing confidence yeah he's just like i don't know what the fuck you're talking about i'm cool they said when asked about what he did he said i spent the day at a tavern drank some beers with my friends hung out my friends that's all just cool as can be uh they said what are the names of those friends he goes i can't tell you that i can involve those people in this and that yeah i'm gonna bother them it's not their business you go knock on their doors and bother them they're busy people i'm talking about these are doctors and lawyers and judges and you know people like that are

important people they can't be having cops be knocking on you've been drinking in the tavern with you know walter they don't want to know about that yeah you know it's it's unsightly and unseemly have some class officer that's what i'm saying yeah uh so the uh detective says look it's really important that you supply the names this This isn't just like, you know, we're not someone didn't do graffiti on a locker. This is important to dead people. This third. Yeah. You need to corroborate your story.

They said basically like you giving us an explanation of where you were and who you were with would really help us not think you're a murderer. Basically, it's literally what they said to him. And he was like, oh, all right. Literally, he was like, oh, I'll get it now. All right. That's what I mean when I said he's not medically simple, but he's definitely, there's something off there. He's missing something. Yeah, not only is he on heroin all the time, he's also stupid to begin with.

He's not doing himself any favors rotting that brain. That's what I mean. He did not have much to lose to start with. His tires were bald when he started out on this cross-country journey. That's the problem. So by the time he gets there, he's going to be on rims. This is not going to work. There's 2,000 miles left on those tires that need to go 3,000.

That's a problem. So the Detective Reeves, he says, okay, so you don't want to tell us the name of your friends. He goes, I understand, but I still ain't going to involve these people. He said, all right, we'll tell you what. Tell us the name of the bartender who served you. You hung out all day. Who's that?

That's not involved. He's a bartender. He's working. People ask him all the time, is somebody here? He won't mind. Just ask him. He goes, nah, I can't tell you that. i just can't tell you man you know walter's exhausting walter is a dick yeah yeah uh so they said tell you what we find your story and they told him quote unsatisfactory yeah this isn't gonna work you said you're drinking beers all

day you don't know what we're talking about but you won't say who you were with who served your beers where you were exactly none of this shit Just in a tavern drinking beers with, quote, friends. Yeah. No, that's not going to work. So they said, you know, what's going on? He goes, well, tell you what. I'll tell you what. Yeah.

That's actually I was there part of the time at the tavern. I love when people revise their stories. It's whatever story you say. If you're being interrogated for murder no matter how stupid it is never stray from it that better be the whole thing never stray from it just never go you know what i forgot because then you're done that you did it it doesn't matter if you forgot that you got milk and orange juice if you did it at that point they're just oh now you're oh now it unfolds now you remember things you're fucked just i did this and that and then aliens came and they gave me

that's an interesting detail that's interesting and then you murdered or didn't you detective donovan orange juice he said orange juice you think of that shaking his head in the corner i don't know that's what they do though yeah never change your story no matter what i don't know i'm not trying to help people get out of murder but if you didn't do it obviously then don't don't try to get out uh so he then says all right i did a different thing he goes that wasn't it i mixed up yesterday with today and tomorrow and you know things go when you're fucking sticking heroin in your arm all the time it's just whoo-wee so he said i actually spent most of the day driving around with my friends is what i did so So I fucked everything up.

That's what I did. So they said, well, you know, could you expand where with who? Where'd you go? Whose car? Whose things like that? He goes, I can't tell you that. I can tell you names of my friends or none of that shit. Can you tell us where you went?

No, not. No, I give you my ten. It's very private. I'm a very private man. So at about the end of 40 minutes of questioning the detectives uh just they're just they're pissed off at this point here with lumps on their foreheads from banging it on the table and punching their own selves how stupid do you think god damn it so they said that he they could not get an adequate explanation out

of him and they said he maintained the whole time what they called a confident easygoing demeanor he was real casual about it that was the thing he wasn't like i can't tell you man he was just like i'm telling you they're like why it's like fuck you care like he's just real like just i don't know shit it's my business well i've turned some skin on or some shit because it's fucking quiet in here i'm tired of listening to this asshole jesus christ almighty pack up the bong get something going right order a pizza what is it too late for pizza dominoes open late right like that's when shit changed. And the problem is the record's very sketchy because none of this is recorded. Oh?

This is 84. What? Way before things were videotaped. They didn't even fucking audio record this. So this is just, they go in a room with a guy, and then whatever the detectives write on a report is what happened in that room that's awful so that's not a good place for the criminal justice system at that point this is 12 hours post pickup no no this is like an hour and a half okay later yeah they they got they arrested him at 147 it's now 240 got it so they he said some bullshit for about 40 minutes and uh that was that. So about 240, though, this happens.

And the detectives then, they say, hey, Walter, would you give us consent for some hair samples of yours and some blood and some saliva? Just we're going to go all over you. We're going to do it around the world on you and see what comes up. Run some swabs over you. Jizz, poop, whatever comes up as we're going around. We're going to run some wet wipes through you. That's it. We got some toe cheese.

We'll take that. We don't care. So they also, he said, sure, you can have that stuff. They said, can you search, can we also search your parents' home where you live? And he said, oh, no, you can't do that. He goes, well, I have no authority to grant that. It's not my house. That's what he said.

We don't want to involve them. He said, well, he said literally, he goes, well, I have no authority to grant that. It's not my house. That's what he said. It won't involve them. He said, literally, he goes, well, that's my parent. He said, I don't have the authority to grant you that. You've got to ask my dad. You know, that ain't my thing. That's the thing that his dad has said at some point, and that's why he knows those words. I think if his, yeah, it's not my authority.

That's when he had the house painted or something without their consent or some crazy shit. He's like, you don't have the authority. You don't have the authority to put a new storm window in. So instead, he says, I can't. Fuck. Shit. Damn, I can't do that.

So they persisted. They said, no, I think his brother would smooth it over, too. Hey, mom, dad, we have to search the house because Walter killed two people. That happens. So they said that uh uh they only want they said they're not asking you to search your parents fucking under their bed or you know in the living room just permission to search the portions of the house that are under your control your room especially and shit like that if you like have a shed a shower things like

that uh still he's like i can't do it i just i just don't have the authority to grant you that i'm sorry i would love to but the bureaucracy and the red tape behind it i just couldn't do it they would i'd have to run it up the flagpole and you know everybody gets their say and you know how it is hey i put in a request it could take two to three weeks i mean i gotta wait for an answer and then if it's negative i then i have to I need to make a formal reply to it. Review them on the 10th. And look, here we are on the 14th. If on the 31st of May, this end of this month, we have not come to a resolution, there will be a six person board panel that will review it.

And committee will be summoned if they approve it within six weeks of that. It will be processed. And I'm saying by mid-july we should have you guys all cleared to go ahead and on account of uh two of the committee members have retired so we got to take a vote to get the committee back together so that's gonna be a while because they're they they're going they're going uh take off for summer on june 1st oh we got to get them to agree on salary so maybe mid-november thanksgiving we're shooting for like before the holidays we'll say just before it's too coldovember thanksgiving we're shooting for like before the holidays we'll say

just before it's too cold out that's what we're shooting for maybe you can come on by the house you know but nothing before that might not be in the budget it's just not gonna be we can't you're not gonna be able to do it so uh yeah they said no uh he said won't do it now Now, during the same time, he, Walter, asked the detectives why, when they pulled in, his friend Gerald Smith, who he rode around with and used his garden hose to wash blood off. He said, why is his car in the parking lot of the police department? So then Reeves here, the detectives, he says, well, Smith here, Gerald, your buddy buddy gave us information about the crime and uh he then reeves shows walter the complaint naming walter as a suspect in the murders and he basically another wire thing he did when he slapped the fucking search warrant down in front of avon barksdale

and uh showed him stringer bell's name as the confidential informer just to rub it in a little more yeah that's where we got the info but he did that shit with him basically he said uh yeah he said see this is from here and he said that they wouldn't have been able to get the signed complaint to bring him and you know compel him to talk about this unless they had evidence and that evidence was provided by who your buddy gerald who is here right now so that's a a problem. They said at that point, his demeanor completely did a 180. They said he went from, literally had his arms folded behind his head while they were talking.

That's how casual he was going. I don't know where I was. Arms, can you imagine being, even if you didn't murder anybody, you knew where you were. Solid alibi, solid yeah you were on stage at the time we were doing a live show right and you know it was 800 people staring people were looking at you calling you a dick and you were fucking giggling and having a piss

halfway through the show she drank too many beers you know that that's going on the most you're at i'm still not having my hands behind my back. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I'm going to be very interested in the process. I'll be screaming, go find every... There's documentation for their ticket. There's so many pictures. There's so many people.

They all take... We tell them not to, but they take them anyway. It says no photography, and they're fucking... They're everywhere. Look at Facebook. There's pictures everywhere. God damn it. I don't know why they don't listen.

Their timestamp. They're very excited. It's fine. We're not mad at them, but damn it. And Gerald Smith is the one that told or was it the other kid? No, Gerald. Carmen's the one who called and then they said, well, Gerald Smith. So Gerald corroborated everything?

Gerald, yeah. Gerald's corroborating everything. So he's in there. Now he's, he said, now he's bowing his head, Walter, and wouldn't look the detectives directly. Wouldn't look at them anymore. He can't be private very much longer. Yeah, he's changed this whole thing. They said over the next hour and a half, Detective Reeves pressed Walter for a confession.

He said he asked Walter whether he felt remorse and whether Walter understood what other people might think of him for killing these nice people that everybody loves and whose son died in Vietnam and blah, blah, blah. They're going on. And you're 100% addicted to heroin. You're about to be really sick. You're going to be super sick. And also, yeah, right now there's 37-year-olds

that are going to cry their fucking eyes out because their teacher's not going to show up tomorrow. They're giving him the business. I mean, that's what they do. They said there is no record of this interrogation, though, because it's just notes based on the detective's notes, so they could write anything. They said that they don't know exactly what was said, obviously, between 2.40 a.m. and 4 o'clock a.m., but they definitely crack him at that point. They said that he repeatedly answered questions with prolonged silences and then by either saying that he couldn't talk about the murders

or that he didn't want to talk about the murders. So either way you go, I don't want to talk about it or I can't talk about those murders. That's what he would say. Why? It's weird. What's happening?

They said they took several breaks uh this is what the detectives say and they said they provided him with beverages and cigarettes and then after each break they would resume questioning now finally they said at four o'clock detective reeves asked uh walter whether alice sharp was still alive when walter fled the house yeah and at that point that's the first question he answers he says yeah she was because that's they gave him an out they found the out and we said that tiny window they try to give people that's the out he gave her was she still alive maybe she was alive and you got scared you left off there yeah because you you know you left and now she's no they're giving him something that they can say face on right That's the thing. That's the thing of, you know,

even when somebody kills their kid, they'll be in there going, I mean, I hit my kid all the time, man. I get it. I mean, he's fucking, you know. He wouldn't shut up. He's got no balance and then he hit his, it was not your fault.

Dude, we all do that. What the fuck, man? That's what they do. They try to give you an out of why you're not a complete piece of shit if you tell me what you did. And that's his way to go, well, she was still alive when I left.

I didn't kill the lady. Good Lord. That's his way of doing it so uh it's at that point that he says the detective asks if walter had talked to bruce and alice beforehand and that so now he's opening up elisa did you talk to him before this happened and uh walter says that he did talk to them uh then they asked him uh to tell in his own words what happened and at that point they said that he gave his narration uh walter did and this is detective donovan's recounting of the confession basically he said he approached the house and he saw the sharps working in the front yard saw them there he said hello to them and uh he he i guess he had done some work on their house previously some

carpentry work for them previously whatever when he was working and so he said hey you remember me i'm walter um do you remember that i worked on your house before and they said yeah mr sharp bruce said i do remember you yeah absolutely and so they talked about whether uh the work that he had done and whether they liked it and how it was holding up and all that shit i was holding up how's it going oh it's good yeah we like this we're gonna add this onto here they're talking about house shit basically uh they said uh that they liked the job that he did and everything like that at that point walter told bruce uh he says look man my car broke down over here and i remembered i had worked at this house

so i knew you guys and I saw you outside, so I figured I'd come over here. Do you mind if I use your phone to call a tow truck? I'm stuck here, which seems totally reasonable. Oh, good thing he's here instead of in the middle of nowhere. Good deal. So they said, yeah, of course, come on in and use the phone. So they allow him into the house to use the phone.

At that point, Bruce and Walter are having a conversation about tools for some reason. He's a carpenter. He has tools. They're tool guys. That makes sense. They're both handy. At one point, they go down into the basement of the house because Bruce wanted to show Walter an

antique that he had in the basement. An antique tool? Yeah, some kind of old... You're going to appreciate this. Check this out, what I got down here. This was made before you was born. That's the only thing. My grandpappy gave it to me.

It's one of those deals. I love how they're a jersey outside of Philly. We've just given them southern accents. I should be like, hey, these fucking guys. Come in the basement. Oh, and instead I'm giving them... Wait till you see the fucking metal on this thing it's his behavior it's very it's very hillbilly it's hillbilly doesn't mean it's not

southern it's hillbilly yeah it's panhandle panhandle accent we're giving him such shitty behavior uh so i guess at that point bruce went back outside and walter then went upstairs and started rifling through the bedroom for jewelry uh at that point when bruce went upstairs alice walks in and catches him as he is going down the stairs because he wasn't supposed to be upstairs now he's coming downstairs and she's like hey what are you doing up there yeah with you know handfuls of jewelry all right so alice starts yelling for to bruce for hey bruce you know he's coming down he He's upstairs. What's going on, Bruce? Bruce yelling for Bruce.

At that point, this is how hand-to-mouth this situation is. At that point, Walter, just freaking out because she's making a lot of noise, grabs a ceramic vase that's sitting there and just smashes her in the head with it. Wow. A fucking ceramic vase just in the living room. Yeah. And just shut her up. Yeah. Smashes her in the head with a fucking ceramic vase just in the living room. And just shut her up. Smashes her in the head with a ceramic vase.

Breaks it all over the place. This is right in the entryway of the house. And he hits her a few times with it until it fucking breaks. That's the other thing. And also because he probably just realized, oh my God, that's not like the movies. They don't just fucking go out now. And then they go unconscious. It takes a few times.

You got to beat a second grade teacher a bunch of times before they go down with that. Not like in the movies where you hit a second grade teacher once, they just go right down. You hit a 60 year old, 59 year old second grade teacher once and they collapse to the ground. A bottle of beer knocks them out. Done. A bottle of beer in a bar, it gashes them open and now they are pissed huge man huge man yeah cowboys hat and everything right pow so uh at that point bruce sharp comes in and says the fuck are you doing right obviously said why are you hitting my wife yeah uh at that point he says

that uh walter says that uh uh walter pulled out a handgun that he had and told Bruce to lay on the floor. Hell yeah. Okay. Hell yeah. Walter's. Oh, wait, Walter. Not Bruce. Yeah.

What the fuck? Hell yeah. Damn it. Robbed those. I thought Bruce had a pistol in his pocket. Robbed that old fart. Damn it. Take that, you retired bastard.

What, are you thinking of living the rest of your life with your wife and your grandkids? Be all happy? No. How dare you? On the floor. You narrated what I wanted to happen. Exactly. I wanted Bruce to come up guns a-blazing, talking about, get on the floor, that's my wife.

On the floor, he's like, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, that's not what happened. But the junkie has the gun here. The junkie produced a handgun. Damn it. Yeah, because, you know, Walter's gardening. Right. So, or I'm not sorry, Bruce is gardening.

Right. There you go. So he says that he tells Bruce to lay on the floor. Bruce complies, lays down on the floor. Walter then says he pulls the trigger on the gun. What the fuck? But the gun misfires. Doesn't fire.

It's got a jam there. He says he pulled the slide back, chambered another round, and then shot him in the head. Oh, my God. And it worked, and he killed Bruce with a shot to the head after he listened and laid down. He probably thought he was being robbed, and he's like, I'll just comply, and I'll go along with it, and hopefully this will be over soon. And it was over quicker than he hoped. And, yeah, not great. So then he turned the gun and said, fuck i'll shoot alice too yeah tried to shoot alice but the gun didn't work uh shit it's a shit gun that he's a junkie i'm sure he doesn't clean it

often and at that point he realizes oh fuck i'm out of bullets anyway he had two he had one was a shitty round and one worked and then he's done so uh at that point he's fucking with the gun he's pulling the clip out he's doing the whole thing he's realizing he's out of bullets yeah he looks down and sees alice trying to crawl her way out the front door right she's trying to get out the front door so he's like what the fuck do i do and obviously by the by his vase thing he's not that uh bright and he's not that good under pressure. So he doesn't know what to do. So he just grabs

a fireplace poker close by and hits her what he calls several times with a fireplace poker. Turns out, more than 80.

Oh boy. So that's a lot more than several. That's exhausting. Basically, yeah, she was kept trying to go. That's why. She was really tough

and she was not going down without a fight and she's trying to crawl out the door so he had to beat her over 80 she was not going down without a fight and she's trying to crawl out the door so he had to beat her over 80 times to make it so i don't think she's getting out the door what a coward uh yeah this guy's a fucking coward uh he then left the scene on the bicycle encountering the man with the uh with the grass clippings and uh yeah he said he uh he went in the backyard and got a bite got on a bicycle and left the scene on the bicycle. So he said that he went to a friend of his house who drove him to the mart where he got rid of his clothes.

He said they went to Camden, bought three bags of heroin, shot up, and went back to Glassboro. That's his story. One of the detectives asked him what he did with the gun, and he says, it's under my mattress. Because he's a real bright guy. He kept it under. He threw the pants out the window, but I'll hang on to this gun. But I have no bullets for that's better. So they said, now can we have requests to search your room? And then this time he signed the request for him because they're going to look eventually.

Not like he's going to hide it. You just told him where it is. I think that's probable cause, right? Probably. Yeah. Two people he just confessed to murdering and told us where the weapon is. I think we can just go. I think we got the warrant. We just go there right we don't you can draft it while we're

on our way we don't need to get him to say yes he's late we don't want to wake a fucking idiot right let him sleep we're gonna get it right in the morning it's fine so he then uh then at this point he repeated his confession the detectives say he repeated his confession into a tape recorder, and then he signed the cassette tape, and then the interrogation ended. So they said that he said all this first, and then he repeated the story into the cassette recorder. That's a bit much. That's tough. Now, on the way to jail, and this is important later, statements made by him after this interrogation uh uh it was a little interesting here there's a detective watson of the prosecutor's office who transported him and watson says that uh

they were talking because watson used to be a friend of his yeah they were social acquaintances based on his brother's a cop yeah so they've and they went different ways hey mom at the bar drinking he goes there's other cops there everybody knows each other and it's a small town so you know everybody you know your brother's friends this is one of those things detective watson how many times has he razzed about watson yeah yeah the fucking sherlock's apprentice i don't know watson elementary watson yeah all right yeah i get it i get it right the junkie did. I've been here for 12 years. I think the jokes are done. Yeah. And it usually is, Tim. Right.

So, yeah, Watson escorts him from the interview room to a car and then drives him to jail from there. They started talking again. Hadn't talked in a long time. Hey, how you been? How's your parents? Well, not so great. You know, just murdered two people and they found out about it. I mean, you've got handcuffs on and I'm driving a cop car.

This couldn't be more different, right? Neither of us. Yeah, both of them, I think it could be better. Looks like we don't have anything in common anymore. Probably not. You know what? Never mind. You like football? You're following this year? What are you, an Eagles fan? That LT's pretty great, right?

It's pretty not too shabby. The Eagles do suck. At that point in 84, they were awful. So they were good a couple years before that, but then it fell apart a little. Then awful. So they were good for a couple of years before that. But then it fell apart a little. Then they got Randall Cunningham a couple of years after that. It came back. They weren't very good still.

Reggie White and Jerome Brown. They didn't win. No. They were exciting in the late 80s, though. Yeah, started to get some pizzazz. So, yeah, they hang out. Now, he didn't explicitly, they say, they touched on his involvement in the murders is what they said. They said that he didn't explicitly repeat his admission, but he made several incriminating statements.

Now, he wasn't Mirandized again before he got in the car. The detective here said that Walter had, quote, really gotten himself jammed up this time. That's what Walter said, which even if you're innocent, you could say they think I murdered someone. I really got myself jammed up here. Then he says that, quote, he could get the chair for what he had done. That's a little more incriminating than that. I could get the chair for what they're accusing me of. He's saying, I said, I could get the chair for what I did.

You rarely get the chair for 50 burglars. I mean, that's a really strict country. That's super strict that is cambodia or some shit like that crazy shit yeah well they just shot you after the first one there probably back in the day so uh he also uh asked this uh asked watson here whether he watson thinks he did the right thing by confessing yeah is there he's looking at him he's talking to him like a friend yeah he's talking to him like a friend yeah he's talking to him like i know a guy who works there i'm gonna ask how shit works rather than he's a

cop who's transporting me and will probably testify to this shit later it's literally like well i know a guy who works there i'll see how they you know file their stuff like that's what he's looking at it like so he says did you think i did the right thing by confessing? And he's like, yeah, sure. I mean, you want to get it out there. Depends on your conscience. I think he tells him, because they always tell him, well, you want to get your side out there, right? That's your side of the story, your confession. So, I mean, that's your statement. You want that to be entered.

You don't want it just to be with the prosecutor saying, do you? He also asked him what effect his arrest might have. It's like he works at the DMmv and he's like can i renew is it extra for the personalized is that extra just look on the website if i move how many days before i gotta tell you is it like 30 what do i got two months 60 90 what do we got it's 10 10 days out of here 10 days that's what it is i'm gonna get all this shit hooked up and i'm gonna tell you even though my electricity works still and my car drives if i don't fucking tell you if i don't tell the electric company that i moved right i can't watch tv if i don't tell the dmv i moved nothing happens it's fine no one cares i can do everything i feel like doing everything's all right netflix works i can smoke a bowl everything's great so worst case scenario they go this is your current address and then you either go yes or no then you probably

just go yeah that's fine you know i just moved no no fucking anyone has ever said a word about them you change your address no they know no one does it and they don't care it's the last thing anyone gives a shit about so uh he also why is that so goddamn funny it's just it's amazing i guess i don't know because i've fucking complied with that my whole life and now i'm like why did i did that yeah for what what do they care what do you need to know where i am relax why am i rushing back to this old broad at the window i'm not on parole at 11 i'm not on parole i'm not a sex offender you don't need to know where i am at all times it It's fine. We'll sit here for two hours every couple of years.

Worry about making the sex offenders tell us where they are and the rest of us are fine. It's a good point. I'm good. I don't touch kids. You don't need to know where I am. It's private. I'm fine. I'm a private man. Undisclosed bunker is where I am right now. The end of a very

tree, bushy, cave-like street that's not how it is but so he also uh walter also asked this guy what effect his arrest might have on his brother as at the police station he goes this is gonna fuck my brother up he goes are they gonna like all make fun of my brother is he not gonna get promotions now no no is he gonna like not get from is it gonna fuck up his career that his brother's a murderer no is that a problem i mean we're going to make fun of him mostly you mostly we'll make fun of you you're the guy you know are you planning on being a cop because that's over that's not gonna happen uh well certainly not we'll see how the trial comes out actually so uh we need people is what i'm getting at okay so he also expressed concern

about his mother and how she was going to react he literally was like my mother's going to kill me how's this my brother's going to get made fun of at work he's really worrying about things that don't fucking matter at this point so uh after this the watson left the guy left uh walter at jail watson made notes and then wrote a report concerning the conversation because he's a cop he's not just some guy you know at the bar he's also you know working sworn sworn yeah also carmen uh described kafati the guy who are uh katafi sorry who originally i want to be kafati better it's a better name he also described a ring with a bright blue stone that walter had admitted to stealing uh the ring was never recovered, but Alice Sharp's close friend

later on would say that Alice purchased a ring just like that a year before the murder. So they said, do you know of any jewelry? And she said she would have had this that she bought she always wore, and that was the same thing

that Carmen was describing. But they could never find it to make that a piece of evidence, but it's just another thing to connect it. Also, a carpenter who had employed Walter for a short time, he says that Walter had accompanied him, this carpenter, to the Sharps' home when this guy had occasion to do follow-up work on an installation. So he corroborated that Walter had been in these people's home with him before. So he knows for a fact that he's been there. And also the chief identification officer at the county prosecutor's office,

he says that a footprint found at the scene matched Walter's sneaker footprint in the blood. And a forensic expert testifies that blood found on his sneaker lace matches the blood of Bruce Sharp. Not the DNA, because this is 84, but the blood type. It matches the blood. It has all the characteristics or whatever they have there. So, this looks like a pretty good case. He's charged with two counts of purposeful knowing murder, armed robbery, theft, possession of a weapon with the purpose to use it unlawfully possession of

a weapon without a permit possession of a weapon by a convicted felon right so a lot of stuff that's all very bad and aggravators and everything else here uh the prosecutor here the assistant county prosecutor steven sand said quote the circumstances of this case are as brutal and as heinous as conceivably possible yeah that's how they're starting this shit out uh and he says we're gonna go ahead and recommend the old death penalty from a man walter over here based on the alice brutality bruce too because it's in the commission of a burglary but uh the brutality of alice is what's gonna sell it's crazy it's fucking crazy to beat someone like that with a fireplace poker is fuck that's brutal because she's just tough because she yeah and she said what are you why are you stealing shit from us and then you

know why you hit her that many times because he fucking had to because he kept because she's tougher than him that's what it was wow and that's what he'll say later on too she wouldn't fucking stop wouldn't die she wouldn't die you had to hit her that that's fucked up that that's the a to b because i from i need I need to beat her till she stops moving. Then I can get heroin. It's fucking. He was jonesing. Yeah.

So town reaction is freak the shit out. There hasn't been a murder here in four years or almost five years. And that murder was a domestic murder, was a husband killing a wife. And they were like all fighting and all the time. And it was like, oh, those two. It wasn't. Nobody was surprised. nobody was surprised nobody was surprised it wasn't nor nice people killed by a stranger in their own home which is the scariest thing there is in a horrible way that's yeah this is the worst this is the way you

don't want things to go down the most because you figure at least in your home you're safe you know uh you know from outsiders anyway from people who live with you who know this is like you could kill me anybody's house anybody yeah uh now al the barber yeah he owns al's barber shop of course he does al lounsbury al says i couldn't believe it that's what he says he goes these were the nicest people you could imagine who would do such a terrible thing especially in a little peaceful town like pitman the biggest crime we had maybe was throwing stones at pigeons before right that's what he said fucking al's my man did he say that part about the pigeon the biggest crime we had was maybe throwing stones at pigeons see that that's an

actual newspaper screen i'm fucking real hey yeah who needs a cut let's go no waiting on chat to move your asses it's gonna be good it's gonna be good for business yeah my name's in it make sure you spell it right yeah al's apostrophe barbershop i mean yeah no put it right do it sorry what the fuck i'm talking about i am the owner obviously The owner, obviously. Al, obviously. Now, at trial here, his, Walter's defense attorneys, they try to suppress his confession, saying that... That ruins everything for us. Just put my arms out. I mean, where do we go from there? Obviously, we want this suppressed, Your Honor.

Clearly, we'd like most of the preponderance of the evidence to not be involved in this trial is really what we'd like to have is that possible we would like to say we'd like to say and mean they have no evidence your honor we would like to say and mean that is that a thing can we do can we throw all this in the trash i'm gonna file a uh do-over i'm gonna do a this is a uh this piece of paper here it's a it's a memo for a do-over motion. Do-over motion. It's very official. Is there a motion to put all of this into a trash compactor? Can we do that?

Just throw it out. We don't need it. This is garbage, right? Blood. Gross. Gross. Nasty. Nasty, right?

There's spatter. Ew. Gross. Gross. Nasty. Nasty, right? There's spatter. Ew. Gross. Gross. So the attorney says, look, he was a victim of heroin withdrawal. He had shot up earlier. They had him in the police station for a few hours. He was getting sick and he would have said anything to get out of there because he was fucking itching, man.

It's heroin withdrawal. And he was coerced into a confession. He's not that bright to begin with. And he's withdrawing from heroin. So basically he's not that bright to begin with and he's withdrawing from heroin so basically anybody could have got him to confess to that that's what they're saying they say no no no that's coming in i don't care yeah no i i get alcohol shakes and i i'm not saying shit for a bud light i'm not saying anything that's not true no especially i killed people no so they also have blood spatter testimony here and that's not true. No. Especially, I killed people. No. So they also have

blood spatter testimony here and that's Lieutenant Reeves who questioned him. He is the guy there. He's an expert in blood spatter analysis. They say that Reeves' as the state says,

Reeves' interpretation of blood stains at the scene of the crime enables him to draw conclusions regarding the position and movement of the victims at the time of the attack and that they can kind of reconstruct events a little bit from there, which is what blood spatter does.

If you've ever watched an episode of Dexter, that's his fucking job. It's hard to do and you don't see it that often. But in a case of a poker like this, it's an obvious cast off. It's a slinging it cast off and there's all sorts of shit. And with the gunfire, too, you're going to be able to set a scene with two different people with batter in different directions you're going to be able to figure out sort of what happened here uh now uh the states say they tried to introduce 46 color photographs depicting various blood spatters at the crime scene this is their way to get a bunch of color photos in and talk about the blood spatter because the jury has

to look at them and then you get to see the absolute brutality of the whole thing uh several showed the bodies of the uh of the sharps covered in blood as well to see the blood spatter so this is a you know that's what the state does so uh obviously walter johnson's attorneys challenged the assertion that blood spatter analysis is an accepted field of scientific analysis, and they vigorously contest Reeves' expertise in the field. And they're like, yeah, no, we do that. That's a thing that we do. It's really, really common, especially pre-DNA. They needed that more than ever.

They also argue the defense that the admission of the blood spatter testimony and the photographs violates his right to due process in a fair trial because these are excessive on the photographs. Inflammatory. That's inflammatory is what he's saying. They said the expert testimony was merely a vehicle for admitting gruesome photographs into evidence to inflame the jury and increase the likelihood of the death penalty. And the prosecutor said, absolutely. That's what we fucking do here.

That's the whole point. Ever watched a murder trial? That's how we fucking do here. That's the whole point. Ever watched a murder trial? Right. That's how we roll. You also going to say that the judge demanding that everyone rises is paying too much credibility to him as a person? Is that what you're saying? Are you saying he's more superior than everyone in the room? How dare you? So the state contends that the blood spatter testimony, quote, provided the jury with a

virtual eyewitness view inside the Sharp home on the afternoon. Now, that's a little going a little far. It's not an eyewitness view, but it gives you an idea. It's pretty gross. It's a little gross. They also assert that the testimony provided the jury with information that Mr. Sharp had lain laid on the floor and was shot while he was not fighting, struggling. and was shot while he was not fighting, struggling. He was complying, which makes it worse.

And that Mrs. Sharp had been struck more times, more than once with the ceramic vase and had suffered all these injuries. And also that she struggled and fought as well, because that's bad also. They also say that Reeves' testimony contradicts the defense theory that others, because the defense is going to come out later on and say he wasn't alone. He didn't kill these people. There was other people there, and they killed him. And so they said that the spatter shows that that didn't happen. And Alice Sharp's attacker acted alone is what the crime scene says the defense argues that the testimony is not of any value except for they're taking. They said his testimony is just a conclusion that he drew on his own and blah, blah, blah with Reeves.

They're saying that the testimony is not relevant. And the prosecutor says it is. And they let it in, obviously. Also, the footprint identification. They're saying there a fingerprint identification expert testified that a footprint found at the crime scene had been made by the sneaker now walter argues that uh that it was a that they this shouldn't have been admitted because they didn't have a a big qualifying thing as an expert to see if he was specifically trained in footprint

identification and this shouldn't have been in so they have a big fight about this and they eventually let it in uh which seems like pretty good appeal fodder as well eventually for they're eventually going to do that uh he also challenges the admissibility of his oral and taped confessions that's the big one that he said we'd really like to not have those yeah yeah uh they do that time the words of the person on trial, of them saying, I fucking did it. Anytime that can be pulled out. Yeah, that's bad. It's very helpful. Let's get rid of that. Yeah, he said that his right to remain silent was not scrupulously honored, is what it is.

They said that that crucial period between 2.40 and 4 a.m. from when he cracked and stopped having his hands behind his head and was being taken out of there after a full confession. They said something in there was different. And they asked these detectives. They go into, I mean, excruciating detail. And I'm not going to read the fucking Q&A of it, but I'll give you like one question and answer to give you an idea of what the whole thing is. And it's quote.

Here's a question to Reeves here. Quote, just when he said he couldn't talk about it, he would hang his arm. Sorry. Did you have any instances with him on that night where his responses were, in fact, not responsive to the to the question of the area of questioning? And Reeves says just when he said he couldn't talk about it, he would hang his head and say he couldn't talk about it. And then we would ask him specific questions, and then he says, now at that time as you progressed, did Walter Johnson's behavior change in any way?

He became quieter. So it's very excruciating. I had to read all this. It's fucking redundant. It's redundant and excruciating. I'm not going to fucking go over it, because I read it all. I reviewed it for you.

There's nothing in there of any importance. It's horse shit. I wasted. This was my 2.40 a.m. to 4 a.m. last night was reading this horse shit going, I'll tell you what's changing for me at 2 fucking 3 a.m. This goddamn fucking document that I don't want to read anymore. You basically just de-clicked the clickbait for us. That's it.

It's awful. Jesus, that is terrible. This is bullshit. Don't read it don't read this uh so yeah they said that uh there was a lot of periods of uh uh contemplation and silence while he while they would ask him questions he would lose eye contact they go over all of that uh they also the defense council uh stress it stresses here the lack of documentation and and the you know timing of the circumstances.

And were there any breaks? He said, so you gave him several breaks and cracked him about a murder in an hour and 20, basically, is what they're saying. That seems a little from 240 to four o'clock. He went from I didn't do shit to take me to jail, like statement done and signed and over with and recorded on a fucking tape. And that's a little fast. It doesn't sound like heroin withdrawal, though. though yeah or it is because he's immediate if i get out of here but then what they're not gonna give him heroin that's my point that's why it doesn't sound like heroin withdrawal because a guy's just gonna be like all right now you're gonna give me that black

shot right i guess so russ is gonna be puking all over this yeah remember i don't want to puke in here i'd rather puke in myself or like that's what they're betting on if you don't end this soon i'm gonna be throwing up all over this room so you know uh yeah he said that uh uh they said that defense says that he he sought to establish the likelihood that walter had been seeking uh his right to remain silent because they kept saying how many times did he say that he didn't want to talk about something and they would say shitload of times he kept saying that we kept asking him and they were like well isn't that him invoking his right to silence he's saying he doesn't want to talk about it and you're you're you can keep asking him about it that's a good question it's a that's a close one because he's not saying i'd like a lawyer i'm i'm exercising my right to remain silent he just

says i don't want to talk about he's not saying he's not talking about the crimes. He's saying he doesn't want to talk about the murders. So we could talk about the robbery and then maybe hint about the murder. And then if he talks about that, he's talking about that. But listen, let's talk about that day you were in there stealing shit. Yeah, let's start there and go from there. Jesus. He said also, didn't he indicate twice that he didn't want to sign a permission for a search?

And they said, yeah. And they said, you kept bringing it up right and they said yeah and he i guess walter was saying that he didn't want to get anybody else in trouble is why he didn't want to do that that was his his his excuse uh it's you know they go over the whole thing basically and they said uh do you know anything about him do you know that he's not that smart and what you know basically he says quote do you know what mr johnson's educational background is and the cop said i don't recall and so they said quote would it surprise you to know that he's a high school dropout answer i wouldn't be surprised at all in other words he seemed like a fucking idiot pretty dumb uh question so when you

spoke about that card it's not your contention that someone has a new has to uh enumerate their rights as if he or she was a lawyer is it and he said that's correct so that's they're getting you're not saying he has to say i legally invoke my right to remain silent you know based on the blah blah blah he doesn't have to do that no he's so whatever so uh uh in closing for the closing arguments the defense contends that the prosecutor made improper comments during the closing here as well. Later on, they're going to say this shit's improper. What the prosecution said was he says that the prosecutor repeatedly alludes to the defendant's failure to testify on his own behalf. She can't really do because that's your legal right.

You're not allowed to say he's guilty because he's not talking. He wouldn't even tell us what he didn't do. That's the thing. That's a given. They think that. You don't have to say he's guilty because he's not talking he wouldn't even tell us what he didn't do that's the thing you're not that that's a given they they think that you don't have to say that that's and you can't really say that reason yeah uh you don't have to testify but probably look better it looks bad you know it's one of those things but it worked for oj so there you go and you know sometimes it's like i don't have anything to say about this matter i'm not even going to give it the dignity yeah you know what i mean that's the thing uh i'm not even gonna let it go right also uh so he didn't testify on his own behalf also they says that uh that uh he uh he would say he told the jury that uh that the

defendant's failure to make eye contact with the jury was suggestive of his guilt he goes you've seen him in here he wouldn't make eye contact with. He knows he's guilty and all that sort of shit. This prosecutor's got a great case, and he's fucking it up. He's trying to fuck it up, yeah. So then the judge let all this go. And the defense is closing here. Their summation, they give a new theory of the case. I know you guys have watched a trial for a few days,

and this has all been laid out, and there's evidence, and people talked. Throw that all out, okay? This is what really happened. He he says my review of the evidence the defensive council says i've been reviewing the evidence and putting this together i'm a thinker i don't know if you know this yeah i've been putting this together and he said he didn't act alone my client did not act alone he said uh this didn't happen he says that yes walter was there and yes he did shoot Bruce Sharp.

That he did. There's no question. We're not going to deny that. He had the gun, fingerprints, the whole deal. He shot him. But he says it was his acquaintances that killed Alice, not him. He said it was Gerald Smith and Carmen Katafi who killed them. Killed them dead.

He said so he didn't kill Mrs. Sharp. So he shouldn't be eligible for the death penalty even for that crime and you can argue about the bruce one but you shouldn't even be able to argue about the alice one because obviously it was those other two people who i just brought up now who we have no evidence of and i lit katafi fat kitty fat kitty and i literally just brought up now right even though they cooperated from the start and told us exactly what happened. Wow. Verdict here.

Jury. After four hours, they find him guilty of two counts of knowing and purposeful murder, as well as robbery, theft, and a bunch of weapons charges. So everything. They run the whole gamut on him. Penalty phase of the trial here. Looking for aggravators at this point, obviously. There's a lot of them.

There's a few. The aggravators in specific that they're going for are the offense was committed while he was engaged in the commission or attempt to commit or flight after committing or attempting to commit a robbery. So there's a robbery. Two, the murder was committed for the purpose of escaping detection, apprehension, trial, punishment, or confinement for another offense committed by the defendant or another and three the murder was outrageously wantonly vile horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture depravity of mind or an aggravated battery to the victim goddamn all three uh fucking yeah strike one strike two strike three done that's a tough one so the jury, there was also a fourth aggravator here in the commission of the murder. He purposely or knowingly created a grave risk of death to another person.

In addition to the victim, that one, they did not. The jury had a hard time finding because they probably didn't really understand it that well. And they just fuck it. We got three out of four. It doesn't matter. Now. Yeah.

The jury found the same aggravating factors in both murders uh so then they had because they had this they're they're sentencing is separate for both murders so then they had to do deliberations concerning mitigating factors for each murder and the mitigating factors differed somehow for each murder we'll talk about that uh with bruce sharp they found that the uh there were only relevant factors in mitigation and the fact that he was kind of a fuck up. The defense said that their mitigating factors were emotional disturbance, his age, which 24 is not very young or old, mental disease. He's got no significant criminal history, no violent history. He's got shit loads

of arrests uh and that sort of shit so they found uh only that uh he didn't have any significant criminal history because he had no violent crime there uh they said that he grew up for his mitigating uh the defense psychiatrist testified that he grew up with an emotionally uh abusive uh family that uh lacked support he used drugs to cope uh they said he did not intend to kill when he entered the home he was remorseful uh and all that sort of shit they said that he has addictive diseases testifying that is he's got horrible drug drug addiction and he was under the the haze of this heroin withdrawal at the time they said he was also depressed he had a personality disorder and was in heroin withdrawal they also said he had a borderline iq low self-esteem and responds uh emotionally to situations without considering

the consequences story so yeah he's like a dumb like teenage girl is what they said he responds emotionally or boy a dumb teenager is what he said uh except he killed two people right so that's that's the difference this is a this is bad excuses yeah uh he brings a reverend in to testify for him of course reverend michael doyle yeah uh who takes his finger out of a kid long enough to testify i'm just sorry i couldn't help myself. So he testifies here. He says that for Walter Johnson, he says that he met Walter Johnson here, visits him in prison, and he says that he's concluded that Walter's not a bad person. He's just a, quote, young man in a very sad situation.

He said his downfall came when he started running with the wrong crowd as a child. He said that Walter's remorseful for the murders and had prayed for the Sharps while he's in jail. He's praying for them. They said, you know, he's praying for them. Are they coming back? It's fine. We'll get them back.

Also, Walter's now former wife, who's now divorced him, she shows up and also her in-laws are testifying. This is not what you want. Your in-laws testifying during your penalty phase. Bad. Bad stuff. They said that he stole checks and money and money orders and tools from them as well.

And he's just basically a thief. They all suggested, though, that he should be kept alive for the sake of his five-year-old son. They even brought pictures of him and his son to say he loves his son look here's him with his son uh jesus christ johnson takes the stand to uh you know testify on his own behalf in the penalty phase which is smart here uh he says that he's embarrassed by the murders he doesn't want to be sentenced to death he says i didn't want to hurt anybody that day really he said he was out looking for some uh someplace to rob when he saw the sharps asked him to use the telephone and you know went over the whole thing he said that bruce sharp seemed like a nice person and so he thought he would let him in and so the assistant county

prosecutor here said uh uh at the time quote did you ever think well this is a nice guy so maybe i should go off and rob someone else yeah like if he's such a fucking nice guy and johnson replied that he didn't he didn't think that no i just thought easy mark can roll this guy i thought i can do this exactly he said he struck alice uh with in the head with his fist when she found him rummaging through his valuable through her valuables and then hit her with the with the with the vase uh he said that he later shot the husband in the head and the wife was uh he said and the wife was uh such severity that they said that uh uh jesus christ he bent the wrought iron oh my actually bent it on her that's sweet jesus actually bent up wrought iron's fucking strong you try to sucker try to bend wrought iron yeah it's

real fucking hard you mother it's made to not move anywhere they build like gates out of it and shit jesus so yeah uh he says quote i didn't think about what i was doing uh he says though after he killed them he also continued to search the house for jewelry so he knew what he was doing there after he bent a poker on her. Yeah, he said that his heroin addiction was his motivation. He said, quote, I never knew heroin was going to control my life that much.

You know, heroin, who knows? Whoever hears heroin's addictive, right? You never hear heroin's addictive, ever. Had no idea it was going to make me do wild shit. People shoot up a couple times a year just to party and they move along, right? Public defenders begging for his life, saying his kid is there. He has a kid.

Let him stay alive for his kid. They said that the murder of Alice Sharp, the jury found one mitigating factor, extreme emotional disturbance, insufficient to constitute a defense, though, to prosecution. They also weighed the aggravating and mitigating factors. In the murder of Bruce Sharp, they unanimously found aggravating factors did not outweigh the mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt. But in the murder of Alice Sharp, they unanimously found the aggravating factors do outweigh the mitigating factors do outweigh the mitigating factors. And you, sir, may fuck off death penalty for him and light and a term of life imprisonment with 30 years of parole and eligibility for the murder of Bruce.

So just in case, we'll stick you there, too. So he appeals. Obviously, we'll go through this real quick because it's super interesting. Actually, the prosecutor here, the assistant county prosecutor said, quote, it was a fair verdict then. It's a fair verdict now. He said, before this case, I didn't believe in the death penalty. But this case was the exception to that rule. He's such an asshole.

I only want to kill him. He's that special. That's what kind of asshole he is. Now, the sharp son, John, who lives in Maryland there, the alive one, the non-killed by Viet Cong, he said that regardless of the appeals outcome, one thing he knows, he said, quote, we can't bring back my parents. That's not going to change. So it doesn't fucking matter, really. What does Al the barber think is the important thing, though? I'd like to know.

What's Al think? Al thinks he says he's even more adamant now about this whole thing. He said the Sharps weren't only his friends, but friends of many people in town. They all fucking like these people. He said, in fact, their generosity is what did it to him. He said, quote, kindness killed them. Kindness killed them. He's right.

He said, right now, quote, the whole town would probably like to be the ones to pull the switch. Yeah. He's like, I got a straight razor. I can take care of it. I'll kill this fucking guy right now. I'll inject him full of Barbasol right in his vein. That blue shit will be dead in three fucking minutes. Trust me.

I've used it before. It works really well. Three fucking minutes. It'll drop. Shit looks like 2,000 flushes. Yeah. You ever seen that movie with Steve Martin where he uses Windex to do that or whatever? This is better.

It's worse. Trust me. This Barbasol will kill. It kills lice for Christ's sake. He's seen this shit in action he also uh he says at this point in his appeal that there's a he says as a heroin addict he argues a claim of diminished capacity and uh all this type of shit in his questioning and confession he says his co his confession was coerced and they kind of agree with him. They say it kind of was coerced because they say that he basically they're saying what he kept saying specifically meant that he was saying he didn't want to talk about it was invoking his right to silence is what it was. It's heroin speak for I want a lawyer.

It's basically yes. They said questioning is not considered interrogation later on. We'll talk about this here quickly. Detective Donovan said that he repeatedly responded to questions, I can't talk about it. That statement could be construed as an expression of the either emotional reluctance to admit guilt or desire to cut off questioning. In the face of ambiguity, the officers were required to stop the interrogation completely as an expression of the either emotional reluctance to admit guilt or desire to cut off questioning.

In the face of ambiguity, the officers were required to stop the interrogation completely or to ask only questions narrowly directed to determining whether he was willing to continue. They're saying that you got to shift your shit and go, are you willing to keep talking? Which is nobody does that. Now, his reluctance to answer questions, they said, was not confined to an isolated, ambiguous remark. He persisted for well over an hour in a pattern of prolonged silences and unresponsiveness, refusing to answer any and all questions about the murders. Under those circumstances, it was not his. It was not the defendant's obligation to state his position more clearly. The police officers had the duty to determine specifically whether his uncooperative response is constituted in an assertion of the right to cut off questioning. It's on them.

He's a junkie murderer. It's on you guys to make sure the law is followed. It's also on them to fucking. To get them to close the murder. That's the other thing. So that's the way. That's where people are. That's the blind scales of justice.

That's the thing where you're like, shit, we don't want anyone going to, especially the death row for a false confession. But this fucking guy did it, too. But I'd like to get a confession. Yeah, that's the thing. But we'd really like to get this asshole put in jail, specifically this guy. So they said they did not,

the detectives did not scrupulously honor his right to remain silent. They said that, this is in the appeal, we appreciate it that it is the rare suspect who confesses immediately after police questioning begins. And police officers must be accorded reasonable latitude to conduct an interrogation in a manner that permits a reluctant suspect to overcome natural disinclination to confess to wrongdoing. Such interrogation will often encounter silence, denial, and evasive responses. We hold that only that when a suspect's silence and refusal to answer questions continues, as here, for a prolonged period and is characterized by statements conveying an unwillingness, that's when they should whether local law enforcement agencies should institute enhanced training procedures or deploy specially trained units in the investigation and preparation of capital cases is way beyond our province. We can only observe and make suggestions. Now, they said that that's illegally obtained.

So they said his other subsequent statements are then like the gun being found in his home. That is what they call a fruit of the poisonous tree. That is a fruit obtained by a shit tree. So that's a shit fruit now. So yeah, you got a bad confession, which led you now to what is going to be bad evidence. You can't have that evidence. Anything that comes from that confession is all out too.

So fruit of the poisonous tree. So that's gone on that. They throw the gun out uh they also talk about the tape confession uh now they bring up watson who took him to the fucking jail uh-huh and they he was allowed to testify to things in the car that he wasn't remirandized for and they say that he could get the chair and they said that came up in court and that's a big thing uh they said they were voluntary statements under such circumstances the connection between the coerced confession and alleged voluntary statements is too strong to ignore so they're saying even here because one of his first questions is should

i have confessed which then opened the door up to more questions which is all fruit of the poisonous tree at this point damn it i hate our system this is fucking well it's just rough you gotta do it right our system but you hate our system you got yeah it fucks up, it's just rough. You got to do it right. You love our system, but you hate our system. Yeah, it fucks up sometimes. It's got to be done the right way. It's got to be right. Yeah. So they said basically, yeah, so the room search, all that shit is garbage at this point.

They said Katafi describing the ring shouldn't have ever been in court because they never found the fucking ring. So that's, you know, circumstantial bullshit. They shouldn't have had not even circumstantial enough. They also said that he was smeared with blood, riding the bicycle, observed there. So they were saying that independent of the illegal confession and other evidence thereby rendered inadmissible, defendants' acquaintances, Smith and Catafi, not only testified by incriminating admissions, but also described how they encountered him smeared with blood blood riding the bicycle that the other guy saw him with. They talk about all that. Basically, they say you can't fucking do that.

Also, prosecutorial misconduct. Prosecutor made improper comments during the guilt phase, saying that, you know, look at him. He didn't testify on his own behalf and all that shit. You can't do that. Also, blood spatter evidence. They say they disagree with the court's ruling that the blood spatter testimony is admissible because it is part of the entire picture of the crime. They say that the amount of 42 slides depicting blood spatter and corpses here were too many and

that was a presentation exposed the jury to too many and it became basically it has to weigh probative value and just trying to scare the shit out of people and if it's too far on the just they're like you could have shown them 10 pictures and it would have scared the shit out of

42 is a lot you wanted to fucking non-stop parade of horror so they'd want to strangle this guy themselves that's what you were looking for uh so they said that shit uh should not be and if there's a retrial that should be that blood spatter testimony should all be excluded as well also also they said that uh uh the court the trial court rejected his challenge uh to another aggravating factor they said that the trial court rejected his challenge to another aggravating factor. They said it is uncontested, however, that Bruce Sharp was killed before Alice Sharp. Before he was dead, the attack on Ms. Sharp could not possibly have created a risk of harm to Mr. Sharp.

So it was inappropriate to submit that as an aggravating factor to the jury, too. Everything overturned. Conviction and fucking sentence. Not just sentence. Conviction overturned. Everything overturned. and fucking sentence not just sentence conviction overturned everything overturned retrial retrial 1991 he just pleads guilty uh smart he's still got people like yeah we were with him when he told us that you know blah blah blah and all that shit uh so he accepts a plea bargain in which prosecutors agree not to seek the death penalty if he pleads guilty for murder here. Now, before sentencing is imposed, the victim's son gets to talk. He gives a 10-minute speech here.

He's 40 years old at this point. He said that he's accepted the plea bargain because he feared the high court would not uphold another death sentence if there were a retrial. He said, quote, I've waited a long time. And then he was showing he was staring at him like to talk to you and he said quote but i want you to know that i feel walter johnson should be executed uh this is a very difficult and bitter pill for me to swallow uh this court sentences him you sir hey fuck off again 60 years in prison without parole so it's life with 60 years without parole. Okay.

So he ain't getting out. I mean, he's 30. Yeah. He could get parole when he's like 92. Right. Which is a stretch. That's a ways out. Someone will stab this idiot well before that.

He's going to die in there before that. Probably. He's a junkie. He's going to get some bad shit. Yeah. We don't know, but that, he's still in prison. That's Walter. He's been in prison since 1984 and goddamn well deserves it.

35 years. He's still got 40 to go. He's still got a bunch more to go. I don't know if that counts. 30 to go? I don't know if that new sentence, I don't know if that counted time served or not for an extra six. But yeah, he's got at least another 30 before parole. So good luck, Walter, there.

I'm sure you like Walter. Yeah, I'm sure he's having a wonderful time in prison. How old is he in there? Probably 60 uh he was 30 in 1991 okay so 30 or 31 so the one that is going to make him 74 that's going to make him about 60 years old right now yeah he's about 60 so he's it's not going great for him and all this to steal some jewelry and a little cash to get heroin wow man fucking ridiculous so that's walter johnson pitman new jersey alice and bruce sharp and their poor sad demise and so fucked up carmen katafi and gerald smith and all these detective watson they're all there oh it's so depressing it's very depressing and if you're not depressed

you're not too depressed tell us how much you like that story yeah uh to Apple Podcasts, the purple icon, and give us a review. Five stars would be great. It doesn't matter what you say. Say these assholes are for you. You can't say assholes on there. Say fat kitty. These people are forcing us to do this. We don't care.

It's not for our ego. It's just for business purposes. And honestly, it helps drive us up the charts a lot. So do that. Also, head over to shut up and give me murder dot com. All sorts of new merchandise cheer up bitch things with the skeleton hand and the pill bottle are awesome get those they'll look good on everything they're really really cool all sorts of other new stuff on

there only live show tickets available right now or it's an april 8th crime and sports and zany's in nashville everything else is sold out uh full slate of 2020 shit coming up very soon like i said northwest portland denver salt lake city i know you're not northwest right portland or portland or portland yeah but i'm just saying northwest and down from there sam fran will be back you know through there too there too all through the all of the weed legal states will be there don't you worry you can't keep us out of there and even utah yeah for some reason but we'll be there eight hours do the show get out very briefly back to back on our way back to denver back on better ground here yeah so we'll do that shit we'll be all around we're gonna go to different cities too boston new york we're looking at you guys

that we missed this tour i love boston cities that we missed on this tour we're definitely going to try to get back to because uh we had a good time we're even going to try to get to like toronto buffalo somewhere around there that'd be cool uh we're gonna have a good time though so keep checking us out like that and if you want to find out as soon as we know uh when these tour dates are you can do it very easily by following us on social media at murder small on twitter at small town pod on facebook and at Small Town Murder on Instagram. Follow us there. Get up to date everything and you'll know all about it.

And also, if you want to be a hero of ours, and God damn it, we really have to tell you people, you're our heroes. Truly, this list that we're going to read right now. Goddamn angels. You guys are the best. And you keep this show your show because you have no idea.

Whenever I listen to another podcast and I hear hosts having to talk about dick pills and I'm just like, nope, not doing it. I'm not fucking doing it. And I'm not doing it because we don't have to do it. Because instead we go, you know what? Our patrons give us enough to where we can turn down basically 97 of the ads were presented with unless it's something we like and we think you'll like we're like nope sorry and they're like why don't you just do it it's easy money and we're like don't think people would like it and we'd feel stupid reading it so no thanks i feel like an asshole why do you do that

like because you don't own the show right you know what it is we give a shit what our fucking audience thinks of the show not what our not what our network thinks of the show and honestly not what the sponsors think of the show because at the end of the day you guys are all that matters networks could crumble advertisers can go out of business things could happen like that we could still be on the air we could still be on the air because we have you guys in an audience so we're gonna go ahead and stay real loyal to you guys and everybody else can stick their heads up their asses that sounds good to you awesome and if you we're going to go ahead and stay real loyal to you guys and everybody else can stick their heads up their asses. That sounds good to you. Awesome.

And if you want to donate to the show and be one of these fine people who keep the show the way it is, you can do that so, so easily. Just go over to patreon.com slash crimeinsports or go over to PayPal if you want to make a one-time donation. You can use our email address, which is crimeinsports at gmail.com.

You can also use that email address to get a hold of us if you want uh do all of that make your donations and make us just i don't even know we're so we're both humbled and proud at the same time which is a weird thing to be about well thank you for everything it's very hard to do both but we figure it's true somehow it is we're it's because of you guys blown away and we're proud that we give you something that you would actually pay for even though you don't have to that's fucking amazing so thank you jimmy why don't you just you know what sing it tell us these damn people who are going to sneak in our house and beat us with a fireplace poker right now this week's executive producers are heidi porter don smith uh milnelia merced i think renee re Byrne, Jordan Bennett, of course, and Simon Bennett.

Thank you, guys. Good seeing you guys, by the way. Unbelievable. See you in Chicago. Oh, my gosh. She's a hero. She fucking saved somebody's life. She rocks, man.

Unbelievable. And Tanya Volanek, thank you guys so much for what you do. We can't do it without you, and that's real. Sam Lang, other producers this week. Sam Lang, Michaela Mendiolaola dillo no dylan dylan incantel and incantalupo hey uh melissa melissa houston you've heard that once or twice i'm sure he has melissa no yeah it's he yeah dylan not dylan yeah He. Yeah, Dylan. Not Dillo. It's Dylan. Yeah. Alyssa Martin Davis, Jonathan Ostrowski, Eric Komodowski. What? Yes, there's two skis right after each other.

Lindy Tristram. Tristram. How dare two Polish people donate at the same time? How dare they? Anne-Marie Gearhart, Jenna Fisher, Renee Tabata, Brooke with no last name, Maggie Silverman, Brenda Hopper, Michael Oling, Oliver. That's what that is. Christy Thomas.

Yeah. Pamela Dennis. I almost did it again. I'm fucking real. I am. How dumb can you possibly fucking be? Emma Johansson, Stephanie Ojeda, Wade Osborne, Casey Millar. If you think I'm bullshitting you, there's your proof.

I almost did it twice. Stephen Hess, Jennifer Phelps, Jamie Street, Rebecca Manners, Justin Suter, Britain Edwards, Rachel Pack, Jimmy Lewis, Jessica Teague, Mandy? No, Nancy. Nancy Daly, Chris K. Wicken thomas smith i think i said that i don't uh mackenzie bolin ren uh ren mcknight alay alaya or alaya turner alana i think it's alana i'm not sure i apologize john lasso chris pierce all uh peter reagan felder uh don mcbride John Lassa, Chris Pearsall, Peter Regenfelder, Don McBride, Casey Aspinwall, Kim Radisky, Larissa D., Will Scroggins, Ashley Veo, Kitty Anderson, Carol Williams, Jesse Hartman,

uh clardia baity uh e gal or ego i'm i'm not sure that could be somebody trying to be slick and smooth you may have got me uh ease no ease ease type easy type easy tire and battery that's what that is there's a why uh so google them see if they're in your area uh joe with no last name heather marie uh james martyr rj rj perry caleb fairy free uh sunny johansson jillian uh amborn derrick walton liz vasquez thanks liz for everything you're always so nice to us kelly wolf don marie bevin uh katherine collado uh meridian mailer nailer meridian nailer uh Naylor, Meridian Naylor, Vanessa Fajardo, Peyton Meadows, Dana Matthews, Jamie with no last name, Ryan Benner, Carissa B., Maya Robert, Reagan Shalkley, Suzanne Mandel, Brian Evans, Susanna Rodriguez, Liz Dibble, Liz Nelson, Amy Spicer, Jess Willis, Reagan Shalkley. I said that. Thank you, Reagan.

You're so nice to us. Matt Phillips, Louise Rayfield, Justin Miller, Stephen Rood, Martin Brown, Catherine Judd, Stephen Musgrove, Kathy. No, Jackie. Kathy? What? Jackie Sukup, Christy McDowell. Andrea Webster. Tyler Williford.

Clay Thorson. Pierce DeCoursey. DeCoursey. Urban Farms Foods. Gianna DeLuca. Adam Udaini. Rebecca Ivani. Or Ivani.

Hey. I'm probably not Ivani. Crystal Walker. Jacqueline Edmiston. Marshall Walker. Stephanie Igoa. Nathan Little. Jennifer Ballot, Tanya Hall, Jude Kendall, Talisha

Welker, John Aston, nope, that's Austin, Scott McDonald, Gary Howard, thank you very much, Tara Monzo-Stratman, who came to the St. Louis show, and all of our Patreon supporters. You guys really, we cannot over or understate

the amount of help and how much we really fucking appreciate your support. Jimmy is slinging live hard truths right now. Thank you, guys. That's the truth. Like we said before, you make it possible for us to make a show that we think you would like rather than a show that we think sponsors would like. You make our road easier and you make it so much so much more comfortable to get to you guys and be at shows it makes it possible when we can't we can't take flights that are 900 from kc to st louis and you guys make it just so convenient to

be able to rent a car and make it to those shows and do it comfortably your support helps us do that kind of shit and we can we can actually live like human beings. Right. And dignity is so lovely. I mean, a little bit of dignity anyway. No, we're not asking for too much. Hanging on to dignity. We are comedians. We expect to not have much dignity, but just a drop sometimes when you're on the road,

that little drop of dignity goes for miles. It's so weird. It can take you so far. Rather than riding a greyhound, we're able to be in our own world. It's like a quarter tank in a Prius. We can take you so far. Rather than riding a Greyhound, we're able to be in our own world. It's like a quarter tank in a Prius. We can go forever on it. You can set the AC to how comfortably you would like it, James. That's right.

It's great. It's all good, but Jesus Christ. That said, what if people wanted to find you and set your AC? How could they do it? You can find me at WismanSucks, W-H-I-S-M-A-N-S-U-C-K-S, on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. And really, if you guys follow us, sometimes the show doesn't get the tweet. Sometimes we get the tweet of tickets being available somewhere that otherwise you wouldn't be able to see. If you're looking for things like that and you want to be in contact with us, that's where you find us.

Where can they find you? Definitely. If you'd like to murder me in my home with a fireplace poker, you can do that by finding me very easily at Jimmy P is funny or just copy and paste my last name, my whole name, I guess, from the show description to whatever you're looking for. And you'll find it in there. It's probably easier. You're not going to remember how to spell it.

You could find his driver's license online. It says undisclosed 17 addresses ago. Undisclosed bunker. 17 undisclosed bunker drive. With that said, I think it's time this week. Hope you enjoyed it. By the way, bonus episode this week will be on the documentary Stevie. We're just going to talk about

Stevie for a while because we've talked about it so much on both shows. We feel like we're going to need to go in depth on that. Then we'll do another murder case in two weeks on our next bonus episode. But until then, it'll be there. That's at the $5 level on Patreon and above. And also I think Stitcher Premium is where you find those. One of the episode. But until then, it'll be there. That's at the $5 level on Patreon and above. And also, I think Stitcher Premium is where you find those.

One of the two. But yeah, give us your money, not them. It's better. They're fine and all, but we'd rather have it. All right. You know how that works. But thank you guys so much for everything. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.