Small Town Murder - #279 - STM Express - Bumbling In Blood - Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

This week, in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, it's a clash of two very different lives, when a man, with a long history of bad deeds & mayhem, holds a nearly year long grudge against a supervisor, at work. Eventually, this man figures that the only way he can get back at his boss, is by killing his entire family. He even tells others about his dark desire & even tries to recruit some help. The only thing is, he swears that someone already got to the family, when he arrived, and his story of why he's covered in blood, and in possession of the murder weapons, needs to be heard to believe that someone would try to use it!! Along the way, we find out that once a company leaves town, the town shouldn't still be named after them, that some people take small slights VERY seriously, and that it's hard to deny what you've done, when the murder weapon has your name on it!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to small town murder express yay yay indeed jimmy yay yay indeed indeed choo-choo choo fucking choo choo-choo all aboard the murder train everybody we are

leaving the station right here very crazy show for you today a lot of shows so we're going to get to it in just one second just want to say patreon.com slash crimeandsports is where you get all your bonus stuff. And this week you're going to get two crazy episodes. Anybody $5 or above is going to get access to everything. Crime and sports bonus episodes, small town murder. This week we are going to talk

about the fabulous Moolah, who was a kind of the queen of female wrestling and did a lot of is accused of pimping the trainee women out. And it's a pretty sordid story for decades, for decades. She's accused, she's basically like Jimmy Savile of female wrestling. So, yikes. We'll talk about her.

And then, speaking of gross, Small Town Murder, we're going to talk about some Jeffrey Dahmer stuff. And it's going to be very, we're going to talk about some jeffrey dahmer stuff and it's going to be very we're going to talk about very specific parts of his confession how he got caught how he didn't get caught some weird coincidences it's just a crazy crazy episode you got to hear it to believe it so do that patreon.com slash crime and sports and if you're listening to this right when it comes out this friday or the weekend following even the what is it like the 6th, 7th or 8th of May? You can still get the virtual live show that we put out on Thursday on Cinco de Mayo. So you can get that.

Shut up and give me murder dot com. Get your tickets there. Available till Sunday night. Anyway, let's do this. Yeah. For that. Let's clear the lungs here. Yes.

Clear it out. It's still new. here yes clear it out it's still new it's still new and shout shut up and give me murder let's do this jimmy okay let's go on a trip here we haven't been here in a little while we're headed up to pennsylvania oh pa old pa here western penn Pennsylvania, which we've just been in, as a matter of fact. We just drove through pretty much this. No, we drove south. We didn't drive west. But we've been through this area.

I drove through it driving. Is that south? We drove like through the tip of West Virginia over there down to Cincinnati, so we didn't drive straight west. No, Columbus. Yeah, Columbus, I mean. We didn't drive straight west, though. We didn't drive to Cleveland. That would have been kind of through here.

So this is Ambridge, Pennsylvania. It's in western Pennsylvania. And the, wow, it's a weird, we won't talk about the town very much, but the name of the town, it's ridiculous. At first it was called Old Economy for some reason. Old Economy, like the economy. Yeah. And then the locals just called it Oconomy because that was easier for them.

And then it was changed to, this is crazy, it was changed to Ambridge because the American bridge company yeah owned most of the town ambridge is in first two letters of american and it's a bridge it's a bridge so it's it's named after the american bridge company which made steel here so they just named the town after it it was a company town it's one of those places that you'd probably you know i don't know if it was like the coal miners if you'd have to spend your money at the company store and all that kind of shit but it was a steel thing here it was all steel and then uh then of course steel started to dwindle and the ambridge company the american bridge company ended their operations here in 1983 oh no so the town should have renamed itself like it's one thing if you employ half the town but then you leave you don't get to be you know advertised here anymore sorry what are we

doing here who would who would do that right you know that's like keeping the married name of someone you hate i don't understand that either when people do that change your name why would you keep your name that name that you don't like so um there's a book about from a guy who grew up here and it's called rust belt boy and it's about the decline of the town in the steel industry it sounds like a bad kid yeah this is basically like the billy joel song allentown that's this town like that's the whole thing like there's no more jobs and everybody's miserable and there's like you know guys are real naked lathering each other up in the showers it's really we hate alan we're gonna keep the name we're gonna keep the name exactly a real dickhead he's a real asshole this place declined in 1930 there was over 20 000 people here wow right now

there's 7 000 so holy shit it went right in the shitter as you can see like as the steel industry declines you can see the declining population here so uh yeah it's not not a lot going on here uh in terms of things to do quickly but i did find one that celebrates the fall harvest and it's just they say food music and activities for the whole family it's six to ten dollars i don't know how that works but i don't know you you call it it's called earned ted it's earned ted dan dank fest erdkant dank fest looks like ernie ted and dan got together and made a festival kind of like ambridge is cramming these words together. I just thought the name was very, very weird.

The music doesn't tell you who's performing, so you know that's going to be good. Okay. You know it's going to be excellent music when they don't tell you the names of the bands. You just know then you're set. It's Earn Ted and Danny Kay Fest. Danny Kay Fest, yeah. It's all them performing. It is.

it's them doing it's all them performing it is so that said so we've set the town set the town up here a dwindling steel town a little depressing the very ambiguous uh festival yeah ambiguous or ubiquitous which one were you saying you said ubiquitous which one which which word i don't know you guess it ambiguous i think is what you meant it's murky I don't know. You guessed it. Ambiguous, I think, is what you meant. It's murky. We don't know what's going on there. Who knows? It's between $6 and $10 for admission, and it is ambiguous. It's ambiguous.

Are you amphibious, Jimmy? Do you write with both hands? Jesus. You just Chris Washburned that situation. There's equity in this. That was awesome. Oh, goddammit. I love choo-choo, everybody.

Welcome to the show. All aboard. Let's talk about this crazy-ass murder that we have here. We want to get it in in the time, and there's a lot here. So we want to, first of all, I have to give credit to an article that I found. It's on a few different websites a guy named rick halperin wrote and he had some very good information that he clearly got some uh document some clearly uh got some uh freedom of information act court documents type shit oh yeah good for him thank you very much for that and uh we'll talk about this so let's first

talk about charles eugene cross okay we're Charles Eugene Cross. Uh-huh. Okay? We're going to go to 1981. Yeah. So this is the town is really kind of, the company's leaving in two years. So things are not going well. Right. It's a blue-collar town on the decline, that sort of thing. This is a good place where quarterbacks come from.

Yeah. You know, it's one of those deals. Around this time. Absolutely, yeah. come from yeah you know it's one of those deals around this time absolutely yeah you better have something something clicking because otherwise shit's about to go awry if the mills aren't even an option anymore it's tough so charles eugene cross is not not a quarterback i'll tell you that much in 1981 he's a roofer oh boy and uh he's a roofer with a wife named deborah and a pretty lengthy criminal record is that right oh yeah good he's done a lot of jail time he's a roofer with a wife named Debra and a pretty lengthy criminal record.

Is that right? Oh, yeah. Good. He's done a lot of jail time. He's a lot of things for him. You know, your standard, your burglaries and your aggravated assaults and domestic violence and all sorts of shit. We'll talk about him. He's 34 that year in 1981.

He's a big guy. 6'3", 225. Shit. On a roof? Yeah. Big guy. Beard. Curly hair. Kind of a big guy 6'3 225 shit on a roof but yeah big guy beard curly hair kind of a big yeah big kind of intimidating guy uh but and glasses he wears his co-workers all describe him as goofy though say he's kind of a goofy personality just kind of a kind of a weird guy like oh that goofball you know that sort of thing everybody's worked with the everybody knows the

goofy guy on the job site you know what i mean usually not the giant is the biggest dude on the fucking roof big huge guy on a roof he's like you know lenny on the roof crushing mice's head in his pocket i petted it too hard and they're like oh god damn it damn it. Well, he trusts- Charles Eugene. Western Pennsylvania weathered plywood. Oh, God, standing up there. So a little background on him, I think, is necessary here. He's a third of four kids in his family. His parents' names are Lillian and Eugene, so his middle name is his dad's name here. Grew up in Aliquippa and then ended up moving in his middle of his

childhood to ambridge so kind of a local here his mother was a drinker big beer drinker hell yeah now it's western pennsylvania so this is relative to the household in western pennsylvania in the 80s and i say this because i have relatives in pennsylvania they all had some multiple taps in their house like in the house taps and uh booze and drinking is just kind of a way of life drinking beer so in the home multiple no multiple kegs not just one yeah like they all have a big setup at the bar there. It's just how it works. House shopping going, that's where we keep the kegs. So I put the bar here. Okay, that's good.

That's good. So to say somebody is excessively into beer drinking in this area means they drink enough where you wouldn't be able to walk around on a daily basis, and that's how they operate. His father was a guitar player and a wife beater, so that helps. That's good. Perhaps she's drinking so that she doesn't feel it, James. That's what I mean. He doesn't grow up in a good environment, to put it that way here.

They ended up getting divorced. By the way, his family calls him Chucky, which is even worse. In 81, that's not a Chucky, which is even worse. Yeah. In 81, that's not a good time. No, well, not yet. Prior to that, I guess, right? After that, Chucky's bad. Yeah.

Because it wasn't the child. I'm saying, I mean, they called him that prior to the movies, obviously. Prior to the movie, yeah. So he got away with one. That's good for him. But he's Chuck or Chucky and all that kind of shit. So once they get divorced, his dad never comes back. He just leaves and never comes back.

Done with the kids. So he, I guess at one point there was, they had a child custody hearing with the father and the mother were there. And this is according to his sister Rose. His father stood up in the middle of the hearing interrupted everybody ended the whole thing and said quote i don't want any of those little bastards they're not mine and then he walked out of court that was it he just left they never saw him again that stings i don't want any of those little bastards they're not mine peace out and he fucking left wow that's awesome that

is uh that's a mic drop right there it's certainly making a statement those little bastards that's amazing um at one point they were walking down the street a couple years later and they ran into him oh no by chance yeah after he called them little bastards hey fella yeah hey fella well charlie young chucky ran up daddy daddy you know holy shit i saw my dad this is a quote from his sister here quote chuck grabbed him by his legs and gave him a hug and my father took his hand the palm of his hand and pushed it against my brother's face and says, Get away from me, you little bastard. Don't ever touch me. You're ruining my pants.

And he kept walking. Don't you remember what I said in court? You're ruining my pants. You're ruining, you little, get away from me, you little bastard. Don't ever touch me. Oh, my, you little urchin. That is horrific, man. I just had him pressed.

Didn't even throw like a handful of change at him or anything. Just fucking walked away. You're ruining my pants. That is brutal. Cramping my style, kid. Fuck. Back then, it was you're creasing my pleats, my friend. Like, what are we talking?

This is like the early 50s. That's my dad. My God, that hurts. You're a little bastard, as a matter of fact. I said it on court record. You should know. I've called you a bastard on many occasions, including in front of a stenographer. Like, people took this shit down.

Like, a typist was like, little bastards. Somebody little bastards in shorthand and then they this is how much of a little bastard you are like you not meeting your dad till you were in your late 20s is that better than this i think it is i don't know i think it is at least for years, I assumed this is what he would say. But he could be doing something completely different and just be like, you didn't know. Longing for my son somewhere. Yes, even if it's a 2% thing, you could have that fantasy. Once he's put his palm to your face, shoved you away. Called you a bastard. You little little bastard you're ruining my pants i think the fan there's no more fantasy don't ever touch me

don't ever touch don't ever touch me that is horrific we're laughing because it's so horrifically if you don't understand how comedians operate, when you hear something this blatantly awful, you're just like, my God, that can't, wow. That is horrifying. So then his mom, Lillian, married Arthur Hurley, who was a guy who used to rent a room in their house. Oh, that's weird. He was just kind of a drifter who rented a room and then hung around and married his mom.

Stuck around long enough for a marriage. Perfect. He liked to drink as well. So between him and the mom, they got along terrific while they drank and got in fights and yelled at each other. He used to beat the mother in front of the kid. And at one point, Jesus, God, this is horrible.

Could she find, could this kid be around any worse guys she was still talking shit to him i guess while he was beating her so in front of the children he threatened to cut out her tongue he pulled a knife out yeah again fucking horrible so um there was a time in american history that just beating women was commonplace that is unbelievable i'm so glad that it's called the 1950s yeah i mean the most popular show on tv is i love lucy and by the way i fucking love i love lucy lucy's yeah an icon i love the whole thing but at the end of it at like half the episodes ricky would pull her onto his lap and start spaddling beating her and the crowd would howl oh god this is the good while she would go

oh ricky kicking her feet and wiggling what the fuck yeah you know like yeah this is crazy i get the you know that it wasn't real but it's right it's you know it's comedy but general that was what was happening for i mean that was yeah they're laughing because that's silly and not happening at least he's not punching her about the head and face yeah she's not gonna have to get yeah that's it's crazy so it's an unbelievable i'm so thankful that now when women when there's violence on women people are like oh my god what the why would you do that what happened there yeah so this i I guess, his sister said about him this. Charlie said that he really felt terrible.

He felt like the, they all felt like they were the trash of the community, they felt like, which is understandable. His sister said about Charlie, or Chucky, quote, he felt like he was worse than scum. He felt like the rest of us. We were rejected. We weren't wanted. And we weren't loved. And we were never, weren't wanted and we weren't loved and we were never never accepted in anything um she said he was a chronic bed wetter well into his teenage years oh my

which is never a good sign as we know for uh for well mixed with other things sure and uh which they've also kind of debunked that a little bit too there's just a couple people that had that in common but it's certainly uh and it's not good no it's a sign that there's something trauma like yeah the kid is the sign that there's something. Yeah. The kid is the kid. There's something wrong. There's trauma usually is what that is. Yeah.

So they used to tie the bedwetting into being a serial killer. But then they were like, oh, no, it's the stuff that causes the bedwetting that causes that. It's the trauma from whatever's going on around them. So the classmate said that he was like a nice nice kid but he would smell of urine a lot and he wasn't he was kind of uh the dirt he was the dirty smelly kid yeah he was the smelly kid he was an average student he was good in like shop class that was where he excelled um he he failed both the fourth and the sixth grade oh no so, he was the kid with the beard in seventh grade, which is tough. And also he's huge, too, which doesn't help.

Yeah, no kidding. He's a giant kid with a beard in seventh grade, which you can be a bully and stuff like that, but you're not going to be accepted socially, really, otherwise. You're going to be the big dummy, and you have to fight to pick on people. But apparently he was nice. The school awarded him an A for citizenship in his senior year of high school. So, yeah, he was apparently nice. Well, he was 33.

Yeah. But he was 27. So, really, I mean. He should be pretty nice by then. He had to take off the day of work from the mill just to go there and accept it. That was the problem. He was like, listen, I got to talk to and see we're supposed we got some big beams coming in today we gotta you know it's a lot going on he read the newspaper and drank coffee at lunch break

i gotta go to my kids mike i gotta go to career day in my kids second grade class so i don't know if i have time to be there citizenship but he had problems this is all on the surface uh at eight age eight chucky tied another boy to a tree okay which is not good uh lit matches blew them out and then touched the match heads to the skin of the kid and burned him yeah he was burning kids like that he torched he tied him to a tree and tortured him for a while when he was eight which is not a good inclination to have at a young age you shouldn't you shouldn't even think of shit like that at that age uh he didn't get arrested or anything like that but you know they uh the cops talked to him yeah like listen sunny boy uh he was arrested three times between the age of 14 and 16. Oh, my God.

That's a lot. Shoplifting was the first time. Another time he broke in, I guess, to his parents' landlord's place. Yeah. And, you know, where they lived. And he stole three guns from him. Oh, my. As a teenager.

Jesus. Between like 15, he's doing this and then he uh he uh he said that he only wanted to shoot the guns is what he told a psychiatrist that the court made him see for that one uh he said he just wanted to shoot them he wasn't going to do anything he just wanted to play around in the woods with the guns and fucking you know he didn't have any so that was all uh another time he was arrested for wow uh destroying a classroom an english class in high school i don't know how he got the citizenship award maybe you know what this was like his junior year or sophomore year maybe he got the citizenship award just for not destroying some shit by then they're like he's come a long way showing up and going home he's come a long way well he destroyed the classroom and then he also

took the teacher it was a music class apparently in an english classroom and he took the teacher's guitar and smashed it in front of him as well he like honky tonk man jeff jarrett at the guitar on his desk in front of him watch this yeah i just picture him like smash smash and it's going while he's holding the neck of the guitar with strings flying everywhere, just losing his mind. This time when he had to see the psychologist for it, he just said, quote, it was just something to do. Yeah. Just something to do. Common response.

So he did. He graduated 66, citizenship award under his arm, and immediately joins the Marine Corps. Oh. Going to Vietnam. I mean, he's gung-ho for it, which, you know, I mean, if you're going to. That's the difference. Yeah. This kid seems like the type of kid who would enjoy going to war.

You know, this would. Yeah. You know, but he gets and this is tough to do. He gets kicked out of the Marines after 18 months. We're talking year and a half. Yeah. Yeah. For going AWOL and stealing a garbage truck.

He stole a garbage truck to go AWOL in. Something to do. Something to do. Well, what he did was he wanted to be home for Thanksgiving and his girlfriend's birthday. They were in the same week. So he was like, I'll kill two birds here, steal this garbage truck truck and go she is going to be so impressed when i show up in this when i roll up in this big giant fucking with flies around it garbage truck when i when she hears me emptying the cans out in front of the house she is going to really be

impressed so he claimed he stole the truck just to get away from some kids who were trying to run him over as he walked along the road he was walking down the road people tried to run him over so he jumped into a nearby garbage truck and stole it and drove away and it didn't come back the origins of of grand theft auto yeah that's what that is oh no holy shit they can't get me in this tank yeah instead it's a garbage truck for him didn't like just stay in the truck which you know could take a budding from a car or drive down the street and then you know like get out and call the cops at a pay phone no he just took it yeah he just drove it home to see his girlfriend on thanksgiving it was like well i mean i already had it, so. Brilliant.

Easier. He was convicted in military court, obviously, and sentenced to five years probation and given a discharge from the service. We were like, no, thank you, garbage truck guy. here, came back to Ambridge, got married to a woman named Linda, worked in a bunch of manufacturing jobs, and then moved to Virginia in 1971 with his wife and became a professional fireman. No kidding. So, yeah, he did a real flip-flop here. Turned it right around, yeah.

Yeah, he's doing great until he has an affair with his wife's 14-year-old sister. No. Yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, boy, he lived super Virginia. He has an affair with his wife's 14-year-old sister. No. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, boy. He went super Virginia. For like a whole year.

Oh, Lord. When he moved to Virginia, he really moved to Virginia. No kidding. He went in hard. They were like, no, no, no. No, that's West Virginia. Jesus Christ. Wrong Virginia, sir.

We try to have some semblance of a society here this is crazy show some decorum west virginia that way capitals right there boone county that's where you go when you hear the pill bottle rattle you're in the right place they make laws down the street jesus christ so that relationship relationship he that molesting of a 14 year old girl that rape stopped lasted for about a year so she realized or he realized or no he was arrested until he no till he's arrested uh-huh not for that unfortunately damn it but for raping a neighbor woman this guy's out of control he's out of control man um yeah uh the details of the crime aren't available because back then virginia destroyed all their criminal records after 10 years they would destroy them so you wouldn't have anybody's

how about not those ones you know what i mean yeah not the murder rape robbery and assault those never get destroyed mount rushmore of those stick around nope at 10 years well time to shred them boys nope it's been 10 years they must have had a you know everybody we've we we did a scientific experiment every 10 years your brain reconstitutes as a different person so yeah uh he he claims that it was consensual sex that she whatever. But you know what? You were raping a 14 year old either way. So you know what?

There you go. So either way, I think you would you deserve that. So his sister said that it wasn't true. It wasn't consensual. The details. This is his sister. Rose said the details were actually that he held a knife to the woman's throat while he raped her. So, you know, Aggravated rape.

It's, yeah, way worse than that. Which back then, that rape conviction carried a possible life sentence. He was convicted of both rape and sodomy, and he was sentenced to 15 years with five suspended. So. That is so light. That's light. 15 years, five suspended. Yeah yeah you got a prosecutor jesus man i don't know what was going on there so he serves about a little more than five years

and then he's paroled and he seems like a good guy to let out on the street if anybody has if anybody has potential to blossom i feel like it's this guy you know what i mean he just hasn't been given the opportunities that's all that's all it is know what I mean? He just hasn't been given the opportunities. That's all. That's all it is. Yeah. He hasn't been given the opportunity to really grow, I think, is the problem. So he serves that, 1979.

But his wife leaves him while he's in prison. He's got two young daughters, which I'm glad he's not around them. That's good. His wife divorced him while he was in prison and she got remarried so they're gone um and her husband adopted his kids so thank god out of the picture we don't need this she's so far the smartest person in this story by far i got away from him far far away and on the other side of the coin though james this exacerbates things i can't believe i

got that word right uh the everybody masturbates everything everybody in his life has abandoned him this is not gonna help uh psychologically this is terrible no yeah he's he's he's got a lot of problems so he leaves where he was virginia and comes on back to Ambridge. Right on back to Ambridge. Oh, boy. Right on back to Ambridge at 32 years old in 1979. He's all alone. Yeah.

Comes back. He gets a job at the F.D. Strano Company, which is a roofing company. Uh-huh. So that's where he gets a job. So now he's roofing. Okay. He had it all. He had a nice family, and he's a professional fireman.

He could have done all this, but he's a disgusting monster, so he couldn't quite accomplish it. While at work, he meets a man here who's his supervisor in the roofing crew. And his name is John Lusick, well, senior. He's got a young son. So John Lusick, L-U-C-I-C. I believe that's Lucek, right? Could be Lucek. Could be Lucek.

Either way, John. No problem, John. His wife is Denise, and she's 27 years old. They've been married almost nine years. Yeah. So they got married young, both of them. They have two kids. nine years yeah so they got married young both of them um they have two kids they have a daughter named danielle and a son who's eight and a son named john jr who's four okay so they are doing

very well they're they're the opposite of what's going on with with chucky okay they're what chucky wishes he could have had and been and done exactly well i don't know chucky would have screwed this up chucky would have been like oh yeah then i can you know attack a neighbor at night point that's she got a sister yeah she got a little sister i can fucking molest that's i don't think john is looking to molest anybody he just seems like a decent guy who's trying to make a he's a hard-working guy who gets promoted to supervisor at the roofing company yeah and he the boss, yeah. And they saved up some money. They bought an older house at 1530 Dust Avenue.

And they bought it from the company, the guy who owns the company, the Strano family. They sold him the house. Nice. So he kind of got like a discount, you know, because he works for the company. They really like him, yeah. Oh, he's a good, everybody says this guy is a, a you know by the book and a hard worker and kind of guy that's going to rise in this kind of company he's going to be a supervisor and he was so uh yeah they own this whole construction business and uh john was a foreman there so

and he's worked there for like six years at this point so you know it's it's it's fine so before they moved into the house the stranos the company remodeled the interior of the house for them wow and part of that remodeling crew is our buddy chucky yeah old chucky cross here so he was hired by them in 1979 god damn it that shows this is like the only yeah the only two jobs you should be able it seems like carnival worker as we found in our oklahoma episode either carnival worker or roofer those are the only are you willing to you know work in a fucking traveling carnival and be in a strip mall parking lot every other weekend eat corn dogs for a living yeah or you want to like hot tar in the sun which one those are the only two things that you're qualified to

do and if you're roofing right now while listening to this, I'm not attacking you. If you're listening to this show, you're probably okay. But you know on either side of you, there's guys that you wouldn't let your kids around. You fucking know that for a fact. And if you've done it long enough, you've seen why. Yeah, look to your left. You leaving that guy alone with your family? Nope.

Don't think so. You know exactly what I'm talking about. There's somebody right now laughing on a roof, pointing at a guy next to him going, Jesus Christ, this fucking guy. You. You know he's got a record longer than your arm. Yeah. Yeah. He definitely does meth before he gets on the roof in the morning just to make it through the day.

He might walk out to his personal vehicle and do it on the street. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, oh yeah. 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 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 Erin 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,

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religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity.

The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. There was an HBO documentary, what was it? High on Crack Street, I think was the name of it in the 90s. And it was just roofers? No, it was this guy and they were like this, I guess you could call them functioning crackheads. Yeah. And he was a roofer and he'd like smoke some crack in the morning and then do roofing all day. He'd work, you know, 10 hour day, work his ass off and then come home. They'd eat a little dinner and then instead ofing all day. He'd work, you know, 10-hour day, work his ass off, and then come home. They'd eat a little dinner, and then instead of, like, having a few glasses of wine, they'd just smoke crack until, like, 10 o'clock at night and then go to bed and wake up.

But they had, like, they kept their schedule. It was really weird. Yeah. He's working. They lived horribly, but they, like, barely kept it together by the strings of everything. They had a place and a job. It was bad, but, yeah, they were roofers too. So anyway, he was part of the crew that did the whole deal.

Remodel, yep. So a month after this, after they remodeled his house, he ends up having Charlie, or Chucky here, invited his coworkers to a wedding because Charlie gets married. So he invites them to a wedding, and John and Denise came as well. So, I mean, yeah, everybody knows each other. Then in the fall of 1980, there was a little fallout between John and Chucky. They had a little work-related confrontation. And, yeah, so I guess John had been chucky's boss on the roofing crew and i guess he

yelled at chucky for doing something in front of a homeowner he chucky didn't like that and held a grudge we're talking this isn't unusual either by the way this is he's the foreman if someone fucks up on a crew they get yelled at that's it so uh he didn't take kindly to that though and um other people all had run-ins too no one took it personally except for chucky he held a grudge about it this is in the fall of 1980 so like 10 months later he's still angry about it still pissed off he reported he confronted john afterwards and warned him never to do that again. And from then on, they used to argue all the time. Uh-oh. Constantly.

Charlie would glare at him all the time. People said Charlie would harass him on the job. You can't harass your boss. That's really weird. Also, he would talk to coworkers and tell them that he was going to kill John. I'm going to kill that son of a bitch. You know that? I'm going to kill that son of a bitch.

Hell yeah. One day in 1980, toward the end of 1980, he's riding in a truck with a guy named David Cottrell, who worked on the roofing crew as well, headed to a job. And he cross-ass him. Chucky says, let's go over to john's house and rape his wife that was his solution that's his suggestion for the day hey rather than going to work like we're supposed to let's go rape the boss's wife that was his fucking solution how do you how do you walk that back how do you go just kidding or the other guy how do you just laugh that off

how do you not go i'm gonna call john right now i'm gonna call the cops right now what are you talking about this is crazy then he said well i mean if john shows up we'll have to kill him so you know either way but let's go do it and the guy said he just ignored him he just acted like oh he's blowing off steam because he said he's goofy everybody said he talks shit all the time i'm gonna stab that guy i'm gonna kill that guy he doesn't do it you know i'm gonna rape people's wives he just throws around these anecdotes just tosses them off like it's like a that's that's not good tosses them off that would be different in england but still still it's very strange. Horrible. Horrible. He's a horrible fucking man. So on August 4th, 1981, so this is like 10 months after their confrontation, Chucky approaches another employee, a guy named Raymond Ours,

and he tells him, I'm going to kill John's wife and kids. What do you think of that? He goes, tell you what, Raymond, would you help me with that? Are you interested? Yeah. Now, Raymond, everybody says, is a little bit bit slow as we'll talk about um oh boy he's a little bit slow but he does you're not not like you know technically or anything he's you know whatever there's nothing on his driver's license that says anything he's got he can drive fine no you know i'm just saying

there's he's allowed to vote and everything he's a little bit slow that's all yeah he's not like uh whatever so um he said um he said no thank you i'm good actually i don't want to kill the boss's family but he hours tells other people in the crew hey this guy just asked me has he ever asked you to like kill this guy's wife and kids because that's weird right so they were like jesus christ they were like you know that's just him he talks a lot of shit he blows off steam he threatened to rape the wife a couple weeks ago i get it no big deal and it's not like he's been in prison for that recently or anything so we didn't check his background but obviously yeah wouldn't you how do you get a job if you've got rape well then again 10 years later who knows it's it's gone. Virginia, yeah. It's been torn up. Plus, it was in a different state back then.

Computers aren't the same. I don't think they were. If you showed up and you were a big guy who said you knew how to do roofing, they'd probably hire you. I can lift shingle. Cool. You're hired. I can't imagine some company doing full federal background checks on roofers in 1979. I can't imagine that.

They hired anyone who showed up it was like being a carny probably so if you're willing if you had the back for it and we're willing to stand in the sun and with what you want to do this job sure shit all right you know do we tell you what we pay all right well come on then come on let's do it let's do it so he uh now denise john's wife was with her son spending the afternoon at a friend's house, a woman named Paulette, Paulette Battisti. So about three thirty, this Paulette realized that her husband was going to be home from work and she needed to start getting dinner ready and all this type of shit. Yeah, he wanted to. Well, I guess she said he wanted to eat dinner so he could cut the grass out and get that done tonight.

So anyway, the kid, the four-year-old John, he wanted to stay and watch cartoons with this lady's kids. But this lady said no and, you know, whatever. She said, no, no, you go with your mom. And so Denise and little John go home. Okay. little john go home okay um a neighbor here a friend or i'm sorry a friend of hers and a woman named robin mamey at four o'clock talked to denise on the phone she called her and they talked for about 45 minutes after guiding light was over the soap opera yeah this woman watched guiding light and called denise at four at promptly 4 p.m because that that's when Guiding Light was over. That's how she knew it.

So 45 minutes they talk. Now the roofing crew finishes up a job back at the warehouse, which is close by, by the way. We're talking 10 blocks away from the warehouse is where John and Denise live. So they get there between 4.30 and 5. They finished a little early that day, the roofing crew.

So everybody punches out and they're going home. And John wasn't there. John was working with another crew somewhere else. So he hadn't gotten back yet. He was still out on the job. So he had a couple more hours to go. So about 5 p.m., the woman, Paulette, who Denise was visiting that day, she sends her daughter over to borrow two eggs from Denise. Yeah.

Okay. So she said she watched as the girl walked behind the houses and went to the back door. She said, I could see Denise come to the back porch. And she said, Denise waved to me as she gave my daughter the eggs. And yeah, that was that. So anyway, it's about a 10 minute walk from the company, from the FD Strano company to the to John and Denise's house. All right. at the Strano Warehouse, Robert Piltz and Joseph Durbin, see Charlie Cross running across a park across the street there. He was coming from, like, away from the, he was running toward the warehouse, basically.

So he's disheveled, he's frantic, and he's covered in blood. Oh, boy. Doesn't have his glasses on. They said it's the first time they'd ever seen him without glasses. He's one of those. He's like you. If you take your glasses off, you're like, let's go. Where am I now?

Who's in the room? Who's here? They're getting freaked out. Yeah. That's why I have several pairs of glasses that if I lose them, I can put a pair on to find them. I've seen you in a hotel room misplaced them for a moment and it's the you it's a panic and i'm like oh that's i feel like i feel it for you i want to help you oh god where are they jesus that looks so painful i'm the girl

from from scooby-doo i'm so vulnerable oh no you pick them up. I could be murdered at any minute. No. And you put one. It's just got one lens and then it breaks apart. So he's all fucked up here. No glasses. He had a cut on his nose and one hand wrapped in a white towel. Oh, they got a good look at him. He ran right up to them. Oh, okay. They watched him run all the way up and he shows up and he's like, he's babbling about

being on a service call and he fell off a ladder and he's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So he runs inside the building, goes in the bathroom, washes up. Then he gets a soda from the soda machine, and he's standing around. He's still visibly upset, and he changes. That's when they're like, what happened to you? You fell off a ladder? And he's like, well, let me tell you what really happened. Oh, boy.

He said, I went to John's house, John and Denise's house there. He said, because Denise had called earlier in the day to talk to John. And while he answered the phone and he talked to her, and she asked him about doing some sort of remodel work there. So he was like, I went over to the house to give an estimate to go walk around and look around. He said, I got there and they're all dead. They're all dead. Denise, the kids, they're all dead.

Denise, the two kids just dead. He said, please don't tell anyone. What? The other. Yeah. The employee said, you have to call the police, dude. You don't have a choice in the matter. This is crazy. So the police other the yeah the employee said you have to call the police dude you don't have a choice in the matter this is crazy so the police station's right down the block it's like

two two minute walk so he walks a few doors down still covered in blood mind you his clothes and everything and walks into the police station that way and he's like there's dead people in the hall they're all dead in there you might want to check that out. I was told to call y'all. I got to go. Yeah. It's fucking insane. So this guy at the police station calls his partner, his cop partner there. And they arrive at 6-0. He got it to the police station at 6-0-4.

All aggravated and all that sort of shit. So they said, okay. So they walk into the house. He leads them into the house. They said, you know, come back here. They arrive at 615, the cops. And the first thing they see is, well, first of all, everything's covered in blood. There's blood everywhere, all over the house.

They see the bodies of Denise and of John Jr. as well. There were's four. He's four. They were side by side on the floor of a small bedroom at the top of the stairs by the second floor. There's blood everywhere. Walls, ceilings,

all over the place. It's horrible. He has no clothes on, but it's because he's about to take a bath. The tub is a third full of water. There's tub toys are set up. She was about to put the kid in the bath there.

So then they walk to another small adjoining bedroom, and they find eight-year-old Danielle as well. And she has been strangled and stabbed through the heart with a screwdriver. Good Lord. And there's a blood-smeared pillow stuffed in her mouth as well that they find. been she's been jesus strangled and stabbed through the heart with a screwdriver good lord and there's a blood smeared pillow stuffed in her mouth as well that they find this is horrible this doesn't get talk bad about me in front of a customer that's that's what i mean this is this is from a beef about right feeling slighted in front of a customer i guess who knows maybe he didn't do it treated better tomorrow maybe he didn't do it let's wait let's wait for his story you never know maybe he

this could be legit here uh these poor fucking people man jesus christ these poor kids this is terrible um they said um yeah denise the mother she died of being strangled and then having her throat cut with a sharp knife or other instrument they said it was a sharp metal instrument of some kind and john jr died of slashing wounds to the throat so this is absolutely fucking horrible they found blood in the hallway on the first floor of the house and along the stairway up to the second floor so they just followed the state followed the blood trail until they found them. They believe that at least one of the victims was killed downstairs

and carried up to the second floor. Vicious. Vicious. There is no signs at all of any sexual assault on anybody, though. That is, I guess... Just a vicious murder. Just fucking horrible.

So after they see the bodies, you know, Chucky's there, they's there they say well you know we're going to place you under arrest because you chat with you a little bit so they get a search warrant for the warehouse that he works at and they find a utility knife hidden in the rafters of the bathroom that he had used the previous evening when he came in. And on it, it's the knife. It's a utility knife that they use to cut shingles. So it's very sharp. And on it, carved into it, is the name Cross.

I wonder who this belongs to. That's a tough one. There's blood residue on the knife. And it's a mixture of the blood of John Jr. and Denise. Yeah. Not good. Oh, and some of his, too, as well. And, oh, by the way, there's blood from all three victims on his shirt and pants.

Okay. But he said he went in there and discovered them. The pillow found with Danielle there, they found a fingerprint. There's a bloody palm print on it that matches old Chucky just perfectly as well. Oh, no. So that's not good at all, obviously. No signs of a struggle here at all. So this was like a surprise.

Yeah. Because he had been in the house. She'd gone to his wedding. She would let him in, you know what I mean? If he said, oh, John sent me here to look at something, she would let him in. She couldn't text him in 1981. Yeah. So the next door neighbor, Stella Ricci.

Wow, that's very Italian. Yeah, it is. Stella Ricci. Sounds like a wine brand. Wow. I'll take the, let me get the Stella Ricci Pinot. Yeah, I'll take the Stella Ricci. That's a good one.

That's a sweeter one? Yeah, I'll take the sweeter one. So she said she heard shouting between 445 and 515. She said she didn't think anything about it because, quote, you don't pay any attention to yelling when you have families with kids. You don't think of a murder. You just think that the kid, you know, maybe the kid was jumping off the couch and you go, hey, what the fuck are you doing? Who knows? So she said there was normally no yelling at the house.

The couple was she said they have well-behaved kids. They didn't even yell at their kids. They were just it's a very peaceful environment here um now poor john he's working when he learns about the murders oh my he's at a job site and um yeah his boss said i talked with him he's very hard he's a very heartbroken individual he's taking it awfully hard i'm sure no shit yeah this whole thing shocking yeah shocking that his whole family's been butchered and he's taking it hard yeah you'd think he'd be like well you know easy come easy go i'm gonna go uh to go cruising for chicks tonight who's in you know sometimes you have a tough day fuck who's single that's not what he's gonna say if he says that

then i worry that he was involved so um now he goes to court here because obviously he's arrested. The case has to be moved to Montgomery County because of the obvious publicity that happens over this. You butcher a whole family. You know, it's one of those here. So his lawyer right away says that opening statements, Chucky's going to testify on his own behalf. He's got a story to tell about how all this happened and how he did not murder these people. He said that he will tell you that this is the, so the prosecutor said, though, he'll tell you that he punched out from work and proceeded to go to the home of his boss, John, and he'll tell you why. Then he said,

his lawyer said, the defense attorney, further, Mr. Cross will testify as to the tragedy he discovered. He will tell you his reaction. He will tell you further that he left the residence on foot, returned to the Serrano warehouse and talked to whoever would talk to who worked there. So the main issue is that because they say this is premeditated. He asked this other dude if he wanted to help that same day. So they call old Raymond hours to the stand and he's the star witness. And the defense stresses inconsistencies in his story, but also tells the jury to ignore. He goes, it doesn't matter.

He said, ignore his lack of schooling. He goes, it doesn't matter that he that he dropped out in the 10th grade that's not what i want you to concentrate on so they're saying he's stupid but that's not why don't ignore that or please do ignore that please he said i don't want you to think that because the young man can't read that i'm going to hold that against him that could happen to anyone the defense attorney said that in his opening i mean you know just because he can't read and he's you know i don't know he's a little bit shady character i've heard things that's all i'm going to say uh you know, just because he can't read and he's, you know, I don't know. He's a little bit shady character. I've heard things.

That's all I'm going to say. You know, don't bring your kids around him. That's all. That's all. So hours, he said that he went straight home after work because their whole thing is maybe we can blame this on him. Like maybe he'll fuck. Maybe they'll buy that shit. So he says he went straight home after work.

You're not pinning this shit on me. You know, I didn't do it. So he said he went shopping with his sister. His sister testified that he was shopping with her. Right. So he's got a pretty good alibi. People saw him at the store. He was confused on the stand.

They asked him, what did you do prior to that? And he didn't know what prior to meant. Raymond Hours. So that was a problem. It took like five minutes for them to understand that he didn't understand that and then to explain it to him. It took a while. So that was a confusing part. The defense attorney said, why would anybody who wanted to kill someone go to hours to get him?

You saw him. Are you going to go to ours? Are you going to ask that guy? Jesus Christ, man. So the assistant, the district attorney said that ours, quote, was certainly not the brightest person in the world. This poor bastard is getting knocked. All he is is a witness who came forward like a good citizen. And they're like, listen, we know he's a dipshit so the prosecutor's saying that yeah it's not the

brightest guy he says but he said his simplicity made him the perfect partner to try to recruit this is the prosecutor with a star witness he said that cross would have been foolish to approach a more intelligent co-worker quote someone who was going to hang him who better to go to than raymond hours that guy doesn't even remember his own last name this is the prosecutor yeah he said he said that raymond hours may forget a lot of things but you better believe he wasn't going to forget this no one would let him forget it so it's pretty last name but not this not this not being asked for murder here so this is fucking wild so anyway his story here the scientific evidence by the way is just off the charts there's blood on him blood all over his stuff he hit his knife in the rafters there's no it's all there they brought fbi guys in

talk about all of the different blood it's on his green work pants khaki work shirt a white work t-shirt work shoes work socks and his glasses he's fun mixtures of everybody's blood yeah and they don't have dna at this point but the uh the profile examined was shared by between this is one of the kids between 0 oh five and two percent of the population. So, yikes, that's it's it's damning. And then the pillow prompt palm print puts him right there as well. So it's it's pretty damning. He's got to have a pretty good story to get out of this one. I want to see how good of a story he has.

I can't wait. OK, well, he testifies. He takes the stand. Okay. Well, he testifies. He takes the stand. He says he left work at 510 to go to his boss's house to give an estimate for repair work on their bathroom. He said that he received a phone call a week or two earlier from a caller he assumed was Denise because the caller had asked for John. So, you know, the caller suggested that maybe Cross could give her a bid on some repair work. The caller suggested that maybe Cross could give her a bid on some repair work. So he never mentioned the repair work to John in the two weeks. Like, hey, do you want me to come over and give you an estimate?

He just decided on August 4th to walk up to the house and... The wife shops around. She doesn't tell him. No. He said, I'm going to take the initiative here, go get some business and give it a look-see. He said when he arrived, he knocked and received no answer. So rather than leave, the door was open a little bit, so he said he went inside and called out for Denise. He didn't get any answer. He was like, huh, where are these people?

Now, you would leave, correct, at this point? Okay, no. He said he went upstairs and into a bedroom to look for them. That's what you do. You need the work, yeah. You need the work bad. This is, wow. If he didn't kill everybody, this is very much initiative here.

You can't call him lazy. So there he said he found Denise and John Jr. covered in blood. He said he started to step over the boy to get to Denise so he could check her pulse, but his knee gave out. He's got a trick knee you see his knee gave out and he fell on top of the little boy getting his blood all over him on his shirt obviously fell on top

of him he said oh no he said I fell on top he said so next he knelt beside Denise knelt beside her and picked her up and cradled her in his arms wake up I need to show you the bathroom

what kind of tub do you want pedestal sink I know we're not laughing at her this is ridiculous that this man is saying this so he said he knelt beside her picked her up cradled her and checked for a pulse on her wrist and neck he said he found no pulse her, picked her up, cradled her, and checked for a pulse on her wrist and neck. He said he found no pulse, so he laid her back down gently.

He said at this point, he broke down and cried. He said, quote, I broke down and cried. He said in his crying, he was bent over, sobbing, getting blood on his glasses, obviously. And he said at that point, his knife, his razor-sharp utility knife, fell out of his shirt pocket and into a pool of blood. Yeah. So, because he pulled out a handkerchief to literally, he pulled out a handkerchief to dot his eyes, get the tears out, and that's, he pulled the utility knife out, fell into the blood. Now it's got everybody's blood on it. Great.

Perfect. Yeah. So, yeah. He said also the screwdriver, which is what the little girl was killed with, also fell out of his pocket. And that fell into a pool of blood as well. So, you know, that goes. He said he picked them both up and walked into the little girl's room where he found her lying on the floor with the pillow. And, oh, God, it was so bad.

He said he removed the pillow to check and see if she was breathing, but she wasn't breathing and there was no movement. So he, quote, replaced the pillow the way he found it. Just stuffed it back into her mouth. Yeah, you know. He then returned to the bedroom where he first found John Jr. and Denise and moved the bodies around back because he said, quote, he figured he'd better put all the bodies back the way he found them. What a story.

Then he said he was as he was going downstairs, he fell down the steps. What a day. What a day for this. He fell down the steps and broke his glasses. That's how that happened. It wasn't that, you know, Denise punched him in the face while he tried to stab her in the throat or anything like that. So

this is obviously probably the most ridiculous story ever. Yeah. I hope the jury is in stitches. His defense is who would be that stupid? That's his whole defense. This is a quote from his lawyer in closing.

Why would someone plan three murders and not have transportation? Why would someone be guilty and go straight to the police station? Because he's a fucking moron. That's why. That doesn't mean he's not a murderer. He also said if that was a fabrication, his story, he could have sure come up with a better story than that. If you're going to fabricate a story, make it good. How?

He's covered in blood. That's ridiculous. It's absolutely asinine. The verdict comes in and he is found guilty of all three murders. Extremely guilty in the first degree. His wife at the time, Deborah, erupted into tears and ran out of the courtroom yelling, leave me alone. His friends tried to comfort her. Wow.

She yelled no as it happened. And it's crazy. Yeah, lady. It's really, really ridiculous. So during sentencing, Cross says this. This is what this moron says. OK, now he's up for the death penalty in the electric chair here. says okay now he's up for the death penalty in the electric chair here he says quote this jury of 12 people have found me guilty of a crime that i did not commit i stand before god almighty as an

innocent man while you founded me guilty founded me while you founded me guilty the guilty parties are still on the street eventually they are going to kill again when they kill again possibly a confession could come forth if you send me to the electric chair it wouldn't help me any if you send me to a penitentiary for life at least i could be released and get on with my life i plead with this jury that you come back with a life sentence and it is going to be a long sentence since i have time waiting for me in virginia of 15 years because he's back. That's reinstated. From my understanding, I will spend 20 years before I'm eligible for parole here.

That's 35 years I will be spending behind bars. I have nothing more to say. Just have mercy on me. And they tell him, you, sir, may fuck off. Hop on in the electric chair make sure to wet yourself down first eat dick sir fuck you yeah death um now he ends up having it overturned his death sentence then having it reinstated really then having it overturned again and then finally having it reinstated one more time. That is a brutal stay in jail, man. Three death sentences he has here. Oh, boy. Three of them. Because, like, in 1990, they had a new governor, and he just started signing death warrants left and right.

Like, let's get cooking, boys. I mean, fucking signing away. And then that came under review because he was trying to like really push people through yeah and they were like let's stop with these yeah let's stop with these damn appeals and get people in that chair so uh yeah he was supposed to be executed october 2nd 1990 they had a date and everything but two weeks before a judge a federal judge blocked it here uh oh no a beaver county common pleas court stayed his execution he tried to say it was ineffective assistance of counsel because they didn't bring his sister up there to talk about his childhood and how harrowing it was. But his sister told in her private investigator testimony, talked about him raping women at knife point, tying kids to trees and shit.

So she wasn't going to be very helpful in saying he's a nice guy. You can't bring up the part where his dad said don't touch me ever until if you're going to bring that up you also bring up the part where he raped a child and a grown woman you can't do yeah it's fucking insane yeah his life has not been anything that you can know and i get that his childhood was rough but he joined in that shit when he was you know at a very early age his citizenship award isn't going to get him out of this you know what i mean so in night in uh 2005 because he had after his third death sentence that he's gotten they really want to kill him in 2005 a federal judge overturns his three death sentences, prosecutors appeal the ruling,

and he was up again to be sentenced for a fourth time to death before the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. But they didn't have to. They didn't have to bother because on March 12, 2008, at age 60, at 7.25 a.m., he died in a state correctional facility in the infirmary. Oh, he was sick. For being a fat twat.

That's what he died of. He died of assholeism. He died of being a jerk. Yep. One of the cops that walked with him and went into the house and found these bodies, it says he's never been able to erase the memory of it. Oh, I'm sure yeah horrible he says quote i was raised to feel bad when someone dies but i don't that's what he said about him dying i guess this ends a very very sad story and um yeah he was one

of the longest serving death row inmates in this in the history of the state of Pennsylvania. Really? At the time? He was there for 27 years, 26 years on death row. And yeah, he deserved it because he was a twat. And that is Ambridge, Pennsylvania. And the story of a town named after a bridge company and an absolute scumbag. And they deserve a twat. And poor John, he ended up moving away from town i think to move in with some relatives at first to recover from this that poor man oh man i just hope that his life i hope he could i don't even know how you put the pieces

how do you do it how do you do it how do you gather i i hope he was able to because i've it's as bad as you can feel for a person that their whole family was wiped out because you told a guy that he didn't do his job right which is your job that's crazy told a dickhead he's a dickhead in front of somebody yeah and oh god forbid so anyway the stunning part is just the that's his pen it's like he's gonna kill the guy's family and then he's gonna show up to work the next day and that the boss is going to be like you got me there hey you got me that time that's a good one that's a son of my whole family you bastard i'll get you i'm gonna put you on the worst job i have hold on let me get my schedule it's ridiculous so he's gonna make him the supervisor oh you've done it you've you've killed this isn't grease this isn't wrong, you don't just kill people and move up.

So anyway, that's that. That's the story. If you like that, let us know about it and everything like that. Follow us on social media, on Instagram or at small town murder at murder small on Twitter. Check us out there.

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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. 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 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.