Small Town Murder - #292 - A Liar, A Killer & An Idiot - Cottonwood, California

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

This week, in Cottonwood, California, an average man, tells everyone that he's much more than average. He says that he is, in fact, an international assassin, hired out by both the government, and a mysterious operation called "The Company". He convinces several morons that he is telling the truth, and gets them to "join the organization", through murder. The target? His girlfriend's husband, of course. But when several plans fail to achieve the desired murder, the whole plan & target changes, and an unspeakably awful murder occurs, on a very innocent person, sending shockwaves into the community!!Along the way, we find out that not all of California is the same, that people can tell when you definitely were NOT a Marine sniper, and that you shouldn't recruit for a murder plot, based on who is the stupidest!!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. This week in Cottonwood, California, a liar and some very stupid people put together a complicated murder plot, then bumble their way to one of the most incompetent yet vicious

killings ever. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another just absolutely insane edition of Small Town Murder.

Fantastic. And we will not disappoint today because it's bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. Quickly, before we get to the show, just want to thank everybody for everything that you do for us. Your reviews are helpful. Five stars wherever you're listening to this whatever app you're listening on you can head over to shut up and give me murder.com if you want more for the from the show you want merchandise

we got everything you can imagine is on there all sorts of crazy stuff you can imagine there's probably going to be a john wayne gacy t-shirt at some point with his uh with his wonderful song from patreon and all that most importantly get your tickets to live shows there we are coming it's uh july 15th we will be in new orleans there is tickets to that show we're in atlanta the next night that's sold out keep checking back maybe people might return a ticket or two for atlanta but new orleans get your tickets now and go there even though it's insanely hot there. It's going to be... It's going to be bad. Let's all suffer it together. We promise it'll be well

cooled in the theater there, so it'll be fun. Do that. Patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get all the bonus stuff. Oh, boy. Not enough that you get Small Town Murder Express every Friday for free in the feed. No, no. Patreon though. You're also, you want even more stuff, you're going to get it there patreon.com slash crime and sports anybody

five dollars or above you're going to get access to everything we make bonus wise and that is that includes crime and sports bonus small town murder bonus this week which you're going to get some fun stuff for crime and sports we're going to talk about we're each going to present our top five sports movie list. I can't wait. Excluding a couple of just favorites that are going to be on in there for both of us, like Major League. We'll talk about Major League, but it won't be in our top five. You know, we'll have a couple of honorable mentions, but we're going to get in depth about all our all time favorite sports movies because this is a popular subject. And then award show.

Yeah, it's good stuff then for small town murder we're going to talk about back by popular demand old timey murders we go back through the newspaper archives and find just some of the craziest murders we can find from anytime in the last 150 years it's a good time and then also i'm going to mix in some just weird articles that i found some just just strange things. Like what? Like some alien stuff. Like a clown that got murdered in his dressing room at Madison Square Garden, which I find amusing as shit.

So check all that out. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. New episodes every two weeks. There you go. Do that. And you get a shout out at the end of the show. Yes, you do. Jimmy is going to mispronounce your name horribly

while trying his best to get it correct. So that said, time for the the disclaimer this is a comedy show we're comedians uh the show though even though it's insane it is all real there's nothing embellished for comic effect or anything like that all real facts all crazy stuff and we're gonna make jokes about crazy murders but the thing that we do here this is how we work this is we make sure we go out of our way not to make fun of the victims or the victims families why is that because we're assholes but we're not scumbags that's how that works so if that sounds good to you we're going to have a good time if you think true crime and comedy should

never ever go together i don't know maybe we're not for you but we might be just no complaining later let's let's say that so that sounds good to you wherever you are at home cleaning in the car maybe not in a very public place but you can say it under your breath but try to shout it otherwise clear the lungs and shout shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's go. Let's go. We are going this week, my goodness, all the way out to California.

Oh, beautiful California. This is not where you're thinking. This is inland, baby. Oh, boy. Different times. This is a desert. This is militia country. No, it's up north.

So this is, it's on the I five up north by, uh, Redwood and all that stuff. It's in, in, in it's, it's different type of place.

Cottonwood, California. We're going to, it's east of San Francisco. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's about two hours and 15 minutes to Sacramento, about three hours and 10 minutes to San Francisco. Oh, it's Yeah. It's about two hours and 15 minutes to Sacramento, about three

hours and 10 minutes to San Francisco. Oh, it's out there. It's out there. And then 11 hours. It's a long car ride in one state to Borrego Springs, which was our last California episode. Episode 234, way back then, Sickness, Solvent and Snuff Films was the name of that one. 11 hours. 11 hours. That one was gross was gross by the way if you want to go back and hear a real gross one that one was still in the same state isn't that crazy it's like texas texas and california you can do that in because we drove for what 40 hours through texas i want to say to get halfway through it yeah yeah 86 hours i think it was 36 hours all the way to get halfway through texas something like that so this is in Shasta County, like the cheap soda that you see out there.

Area code 530. Motto is, Jesus, this is just a wordy motto. Motto quote, where Shasta County's Old West history began. Oh, my. Jesus Christ. That's too much, man. That's a lot. That's too much.

Couldn't you say where it all began? Where Old West history begins. I don't know. Something like that. But where this county is. We want to be specific. We need to be truthful with the motto, everybody. Really pin it down.

Well, I mean, Old West didn't begin here. I mean, this county. Okay. Can we all agree on the county? Okay. They made that motto. History of this town. It was a stagecoach town where basically

you know people would stop on the way to shit that's all it was the gold rush yeah the gold rush oregon trail this was on also so you go through there the first post office was opened in 1852 um it was established as a settlement in 1849 which is when a lot of things were because that's when the gold rush was. So hence the San Francisco 49ers. There you go. That's why they're them. Cottonwood here.

Yeah, it's between Redding and Red Bluff inland there. So to give you an idea, not Redwood. Redding is what I was thinking of. So many reds. I just threw Redwood in there too. 1849, it was known as a stop for supplies and some food before you head up to the oregon trail that way so it was just there um in 1859 a bavarian immigrant named jacob foster purchased 240 acres on the north side of the cottonwood creek and that's the town of cottonwood

now so okay one german dude just crushing it just yeah donuts and sports cars just it's doing it's crushing it foster uh he built a hotel on his land and then it became and then it became a real town because people would actually stop and stay for more than to take a dump and eat something they would actually get a room and hang out in 1872 it became a big shipping point for cattle and lumber and agricultural products that would come from the sacramento river valley so really it would be like a stopover to stage everything and do that sort of shit and then uh then the railroad came through and once the railroad came through then forget about it now you got a town what are we talking about here it um it's grow this town keeps growing for some reason.

People keep coming here. I don't know if it's just Northern California is very, very expensive, but it's not commutable. You can't commute two hours and some change to Sacramento every day. Sacramento should be affordable. You shouldn't have to live two hours away to work there. When you drive around you you don't think wow this is a real expensive city when you're driving around sacramento you'd think oh hey this looks like columbus ohio terrific like it by the way we'll be in sacramento in

august there uh still tickets left for the crime and sports sacramentites in the most affordable appearing expensive city in America. That's right. That's what it is. They like it low key there. They don't want to show off at all. Like, yeah, my house is worth a ridiculous amount of money, but I like it to look like shit. I like the whole place to look kind of run down.

That's what I'm looking for. I want it to look like there's a water shortage here. That's all. Which there is, by the way, in case you're wondering. So in 1997, they filmed the movie Almost Heroes here, which is Chris Farley's last movie. That's the one with him and Matthew Perry, and it's his last movie. It's like an Old West type movie. And then in 1961, they filmed the movie Hell is for Heroes, starring Steve McQueen here. And this was Bob Newhart's debut appearance in anything.

Really? Yeah. So that was filmed here as well. So Steve McQueen went through and I'm sure had sex with every woman in town because he was the most popular man alive back then. Accounting for a boom in population. That's it. A huge boom after that once he left just a bunch of good-looking kids being born all over the place no one could

understand it self-assured good-looking kids that drive fast and love motorcycles love them motorcycles and bullet mustangs and you name it so uh here are some reviews of the town it's there's no bad bad reviews of this town here's five stars i'll burn through this pretty quick here we live a slower pace of life in our small quaint town oh boy that's the first thing our neighborhood has ranchers who raise cattle some of us have horses goats gardens and pets well gardens and pets go everywhere the rest of it is specific to you. Yeah, people in Brooklyn with both of those.

We have cats and birds and we eat dinner and stuff. It's great. I grow tomatoes on my patio. This part of Northern California is surrounded by mountains. It's pretty. It is pretty up there. Plus, we are 25 minutes from Shasta and Whiskey Town Lakes. Cottonwood is the perfect balance for peace and quiet.

It's actually actually, or he, whatever, says quite. Peace and quite. Our neighborhood homes sit on acres of property. We have space between the homes. We can see Mount Shasta from our house, and some neighbors have a view of both mountains, Shasta and Lassen. Our biggest store is Holiday Market that sells farm-raised beef, chicken, local honey, and a large selection of organic foods. This sounds like a guide for newly moved here people.

We have no traffic or sidewalks and are five minutes from the freeway. Okay, that's nice. Here's four stars. From the review, it doesn't sound like four stars. It's more like a three, but we'll give them the four quote there are some of the most kind people in the community good surrounding schools great teachers there are also ton a ton of tweaks and drug addicts hell yeah drug and gang life is huge fucking tweaks tweaks that's what i like tweaks look at these tweaks walking around that sounds like i don't even know that's almost sounds like

an like uh like a gay slur well you know what i mean like someone's like man all these tweaks walking around i don't like it you know that song that word's gonna get ripped from the lexicon so that is weird tweaks that's that's that's a that's what that's a slur for a gay meth addicted person that's what that is that's what uh you know a redneck will call them tweaks he's a slur for a gay, meth-addicted person. That's what that is. That's what a redneck will call them, tweaks. He's a tweak. He's a tweak. A tweak and a twink. Both of them.

He's a bottom on meth. That's a tweak. Tweaky twink, and I don't like it at all. I ain't going to like it. Tons of drug addicts, drug life. It is not very safe at all. Well, that's not good if it's a goddamn. We'll be the judge of that, by the way.

We have statistics. The surrounding cities are not very safe as well. It's very close to mountains in Sacramento and lakes, which is nice. Sacramento is two hours and 15 minutes away. That's not close. That's not close at all. The shops are cute. You could raise a family here, small town feel, but the drug thing is an issue for sure.

The sports here are awesome. Lots of competition. The weather is amazing despite the droughts that's part of weather so despite see what i mean four stars seems like it doesn't sound like a four no not at all maybe three tops population of this town here 3 280 people it's been going up like crazy by the way um There are, it's like 53% female. So that's way above the average here. Median age is young.

There's a lot of kids zero to nine. So, and all the, anybody above 60, there's nobody here above 60. People leave apparently. 41% married. Almost twice the divorce rate of the rest of the country. That's nice. 32% single with children, which is way higher than normal for whatever that's worth. Race of this town, 77% white, 0.0% black, 0.0% Asian.

Is that right? If you've been to California, there aren't a lot of places you go where there aren't any black people or any Asian people. That's just not a thing. It's rare. It's rare, especially in any proximity to San Francisco, within driving range of San Francisco or Sacramento or any population base. That just seems really on purpose or something. That's weird. 17.7% Hispanic here, here though and uh 1.3 percent hawaiian pacific islander what community there i guess you know a decent sized community uh

religion here only 27 religious there we go very nice not bad here on the people here mostly other christian uh besides that there's five percent catholic four percent mormon and the rest are all other there uh 0.1 jewish so not a lot of jewish people here in the last election in shasta county 33 democrat 65 republican and 2.3 independent uh unemployment rate here a little bit higher than the national average yeah but not too much higher uh the thing is the median household income it's only 42 000 a year rest of the country it's about 54 so that's not good the cost of living though is right around normal 100 is average here it's 102 not bad a little bit less than everybody else. Yeah, median home cost here, $322,000, which is too much.

But for California, it's, I mean, San Francisco. Yeah, it's not bad for California. Yeah, in Northern California, in like an urban area, you can't get someone's garage, like the apartment above their garage for that price. Literally, you can't do that. So if we've convinced you, damn it, you need to be on the I-5 freeway right smack in the middle of California. Halfway to Reno, we have for you the Cottonwood, California real estate report. Your average two-bedroom rental here is a little bit below the national average.

It goes for $11.88 a month is the average two-bedroom, so that's not bad. Here you go. If you really just want to be here, you don't care where you live, this is for you. Two-bedroom, I don't know how many baths, if it's a bucket situation or what, but it's 600 square feet, and it's a shitty trailer. It's a trailer, and it's a piece of shit. It's a bad situation or what, but it's 600 square feet, and it's a shitty trailer. It's a trailer, and it's a piece of shit. It's a bad trailer, even. It's not even like, oh, it's a trailer, but it's decent.

It's bad for a trailer, for a bad trailer. There is a picture of a bathroom. It looks terrible. On the wall? Yeah. Well, this is our goal, everybody. Someday I'm going to have me and my own turtlet to sit on that's what I want

so yeah it doesn't look good it's falling apart also I mean you couldn't tow if you tried to tow this thing it would just be the hitch you'd be just dragging the hitch with the the thing would be in pieces 11,900 bucks for this though it is the price

of a used car so that's not bad. $11,000. For a home. Here's a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,800 square feet. It is raised ranch, very basic looking inside, very western look. Looks like it was recently remodeled with the barn doors and all that shit type of thing. It's one of those type of deals where it looks rustic on purpose. There's nothing in Trends of Homes that I hate more than barn doors.

No. Big Yellowstone fans, these people, I feel like. Just watch it on repeat. $699,000 for this pathway. Holy shit. Seems a little pricey. Then, three bedroom, one bath, 1,198 square foot. Not that big, but it's a gigantic farm property.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a big farm property. All sorts of shit here. There's a milk barn. There's all sorts. Oh, yeah. Grain silos, dairy barns. Oh, my God.

Yeah, you can just go here and put on your overalls and and do it even if you don't use the shit it's cool just to look at it all it's neat to look at two million two hundred fifty thousand bucks though maybe it's operating that thing's real maybe look at somebody else's farm and buy a house if you want to do that because that you need to work on that that's it that one requires shit every day you need to do that. You need to work on that. That one requires shit every day. You need to pay for that shit. That's expensive. That's a lot of money for a farm.

But I mean, for a lot of property and a farm, if you had some good money and you wanted to retire and be a farmer, this would be the place to do it. And it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. You'd probably want a better house, though, if you had that kind of money.

No one with millions of dollars wants to live in this house. It's kind of a shitty little house. My mom's friend had one in upstate new york and the son lost his arm on the farm because he was why is that funny both of us laughed when he said that i almost spit my water out kid lost his fucking arm james why is that funny ha ha poor kid with blood squirting out and we're like ah look at him his arm's moving on its own that's hilarious every time i think about wanting something like that when i retire i think a kid lost his fucking arm what am i what are my chances i'm already missing a finger

you're you're in for it already i don't want to actually farm but if you get someplace like that and watch others farm, you can go look over your shit and go, good job. Good job. Yeah. Make butter. Thank you. You know?

Again, but that stokes my fear of losing everything, like hiring people to do things. Somebody's going to lose a fucking arm and they're going to own my farm. I think that's part of farm work. I think that's almost like in Tiger King when they got somebody lost an arm. They're like, I mean, I'm fucking around with tigers. You know? She's like, what do you want from me i'm fucking with tigers that's what i fear that's i feel like it's gonna happen they're gonna be like yeah i'm on a farm i expect to lose a limb once in a while i mean if i get out of here with two three limbs

i'm happy i need a dozen of that person willing to lose shit lose appendages for my benefit of milking these cows. You can find them. I'm telling you, they're out there. There's people who love it. They want to do it. So things to do besides lose your arm in a farming accident. Hot Rods and Hogs is the one event.

There we go. Hot Rods and Hogs Car and Bike Show. Wow. There is like, imagine the. This is very Steve McQueen. Well, this is also in that area of California. This is also a lot of. Yeah.

This is going to be quite a militia event. Yeah. Moonshine driven vehicles. This is going to be interesting. Presented by the Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce. It is $25 to register a car. $25 to register a bike full color magnetic dash plaques to the first 200 entrance after that you can go fuck yourself though they only got

that's it so show up do that you they have like hot dogs there they should call it hot rods hogs and hot dogs then that's there you go look at you you name it better add that in there yeah that doesn't surprise me honestly hot rods and hot dogs hot rods and hot dogs that sounds i'd way go there i'll assume there's bikes too i don't know so then there's the happy valley strawberry festival oh yeah look at that i want to go to the strawberry we had another strawberry festival a couple months ago our famous generous servings of sweet fresh strawberries, ice cream, and shortcake are only $8. Take me there. Take me here.

You go to a high school and eat strawberries, apparently. They have arts and crafts, delicious food, and refreshing drinks like strawberry shortcake, kettle corn, french fries, hot dogs, Polish dogs, tri-tip sandwiches, nachos, yeah,os yeah okay homemade tamales pulled pork snow cones yeah i want to go here yeah i want this this is good shit continuous

entertainment well my my want is waning now because i'd rather have no entertainment than bad entertainment that's the thing yeah unless it's really bad and then i'm fixated so if there's like um you know if there's a band of like five kids all of whom lost many limbs and farm accidents and they formed a band together somehow i'll watch that that'll be amazing you know what i mean something like that not not to laugh at their disabilities but to i'm sure the music will be terrible yeah that. That's what I'm thinking. I mean, I want them to do well, but let's be realistic here. If you've got one fucking arm and one leg, you're probably not going to be a great guitar player.

That's all I'm saying. Oh, the guy from Def Leppard figured it out. Yeah, and he was fucking terrible at it. No offense, but I mean, if you listen to Def Leppard albums like we have joking around, and they sound like a band at one point. And then all of a sudden it sounds like they have a drum machine. And you're like, what happened now? Oh, it's that electronic shit.

Nice of them to keep them in the band, though. That was very, yeah. It was nice. Yeah. But it would be like if you got your throat ripped out by a panther and had no gift of speech anymore. And I'm like, you're still on the show, and you just go here you're still singing well when shit pops up i don't know if that would work you know what i mean we might have to i don't know if the show would be the same when it's in your range hit those notes hit that note jimmy you do it background just do it so uh there is a pet adoptions the 4-h swine club pancake breakfast

what i guess you're celebrating pigs and eating bacon that sounds nice swine club that sounds gross it sounds smelly there's a rodeo auto racing nightly entertainment this is all for strawberries wow um saturday auto racing as well as lawnmower races then there's a demolition derby on sunday yes oh boy local bands play throughout the day god damn it shit there we go you ruined my good time and then finally come see the pig races and washboard willie can't miss all washboard willie come on then it says where else can you go to spend the day being entertained while eating a corn dog and drinking your favorite drink i don't know home with unlimited entertainment options with the internet i don't know anywhere else why do all of these

festivals resort to some hillbilly shit i don't know i don't know what the obsession is but whatever i don't understand people with minimal talent i don't understand it either i get they don't want to pay a lot for entertainment but just don't have any entertainment you have speakers put a fucking spotify playlist on and have fun you don't need these people playing cover songs when you could play the real songs that are better talking about so crime rate in this town what we're interested in here property crime is slightly below the national average so not too high uh violent crime murder rape robbery and of course assault the mount rushmore of crime slightly above average so one's a little below one's a little above but they're both right in the range of normal so

kind of average when it comes to that that said let's talk about and of just a bonkers ass murder let's do this okay uh holy shit we have to go back to 1997 where this whole mess starts okay that's gonna be our our nexus here that's gonna be our baseline first let's talk about a guy um my goodness this guy i don't even hard to describe him because you don't know where to start it's one of these guys todd jesse garten g-a-r-t-o-n so todd todd here i told i've already told you i had a friend named jesse garten what is his name todd jesse garten stop it todd jesse garten unbelievable i had a friend named jesse garten Todd, Todd, Jesse Garten. Stop it. Todd, Jesse Garten. Unbelievable. I had a friend named Jesse Garten in high school that we, I think it was a middle name.

And we told him if you add an S to your last name backward, it smells snot rag. And that's what we called him forever. Wait till you give it about 20 minutes and you're going to really go no fucking way. Oh my God. Wait, it's going to create. Okay. So, so he is Todd, 27 years old in 1997. Okay.

Not Jesse. No. Well, it's going to be very interesting. Definitely not Jesse in our story, but still. Now, he grew up in Shasta County, grew up in this area, and his family moved to Portland, Oregon when he was 15 years old in 1985. So they go there. And that's where he went to high school, was in Portland, Oregon, obviously, when he was 15.

He didn't just drop out and be like, you know what? I'm just going to live the Portland lifestyle from now on. And, you know, whatever that is, I'm not sure. I'm going to put flannel on and figure it out as I go. So he would talk to his – he's a liar. Let's just say this. Todd is an enormous fucking liar, number one. Yeah, which is even more hilarious because later on he's like a pudgy guy who's completely bald.

He looks like – he looks ridiculous. He's a ridiculous man like when you look at this guy you go look at this fucking schlub and then he tells you these grand stories where you're like seriously bro come on so he needs to write a book like that called liar yeah we're a very handsome man every time he lies he starts to look worse and worse and at the end he's bald and a fat gross man he's just a handful of hair comes out every time and he's just another chin his jowls grow bigger he's like what's happening what's going on so he ends up telling all of his friends that he uh he talks a lot about the irish republican army the ira which in the 80s was

a big deal and you know with there was you know attacks and bombings and all that kind of shit going on so it was a big deal so he even had an ira tattoo on his arm in high school which in the 80s not a lot of 15 year olds in the 80s had tattoos like real tattoos that wasn't normal at all. And political ones. I was going to say, and one of like an international fucking, it's weird. So he claimed that he had gone to Ireland to assist the group in carrying out acts of violence. He's telling kids in high school this when he gets to Oregon.

Like, yeah, you don't know me. I've been in the shit, man. I've been on the ground. I've been planting bombs in train stations and shit, brother. It's tough out there, but you've got to fight off the English oppression. That's the only way. I'm 15, but I booed up. I'll do it.

I have done it. I mean, back when I was 12, obviously, it was a different time. Back in the day. Back in the day when I was 11, 12, I really had just a bloodlust for violence. It was a different time. Back in the day. Back in the day, you know, when I was 11, 12, I really, I had just a bloodlust for violence. It was a different type of thing. I've matured a lot now, and, you know, I'm looking at my golden years. I'm looking to just kind of relax and, you know. Fuck the queen.

You know, yeah, just kind of going to hang out here and diddle the homecoming queen, if that's an idea. You guys just hand her on over to me because I'm obviously cool. Check out my tattoo. But that's an idea you guys uh just hand her on over to me because i'm obviously cool check out my tattoo but that's his deal he's going to a new school and this is going to be his persona here so i believe this i don't know if his lying would happen before this but this is really when he kicks it up a notch when he can go to be whoever he wants at a new school you can be whoever you want especially one in another state where no one knows you. You can be anybody. That's really going hard to get a tattoo to solidify the lie at that age. That's real deep.

IRA, brother. So that's what he says he's going to do. He also would collect news articles about the IRA, and he had them all. He'd do clippings, like magazine clippings and newspaper clippings. And he had them all he'd like do clippings like a magazine clippings and newspaper clippings and he had them all taped inside a big book like you know serial killer like um like a crazy um like a crazy like uh movie villain murderer that would have like strings on his walls with people yeah very concentrated serial killer like saw kind of murder i believe is what's going on here that's what they would do

um he also had he kept this he had them all taped not in a scrapbook though i pictured at first like a big scrapbook you know like like a grandma has with her grandkids, except, you know, with bombs and shit. Instead, he has them all taped up on the back and front covers inside of his anarchist cookbook copy. Oh, he's got one of those, of course. Everybody, if you grew up in the 70s, 80s, 90s, I don't know, whatever, in that time period of like when we grew up and the kids a lot older than us by like 10 years, you all knew the who had the anarchist cookbook like i got this anarchist cookbook there was always one copy floating around every every like six or eight hundred kids every like not not school there's a there's like there's like six seven per school in high school that's how it works so every like pod of group of people you can imagine there's one anarchist cookbook to go around and this is

pre-internet so they couldn't just look this up you look up shit and it was about like building bombs and explosives and they had like make i remember i'm the one kid i knew that had it and was uh he tried to make his own napalm for some reason because it was in there and i'm like what do you need your own napalm for it was crazy i don't know what the fuck he was doing but um if he failed obviously shit at your house i don't care man yeah he was it was a monstrous failure and he didn't try anymore but you know he got into drugs and just started doing that which was much yeah much more lazy welcome to the small town of chinook where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper.

In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery+, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent VB 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. 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 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, 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 anyway, there was that. So he, in 1986, he a young lady all right he meets a young lady named lynn in 1986 when they're both 16 and uh you know they're they get it on they love each other right away it's a it's a passionate relationship it's uh they're ready to go man she's she's into the bad boy she doesn't care about his his ira ties leanings. That's okay with her. Or tattoos.

Or tattoos. That's cool, man. So, yeah. But she ended up being kicked out of school for, like, an entire year during their senior year. Really? God knows for what. But she gets kicked out of school, so they see each other less because she's not in school. Isn't that amazing in high school

like i mean ruin everything i know i can see her after school and on weekends and stuff but i mean she's not like in school i i need a chick i can see before math and after english you know what i mean like if i don't have that what am i doing it's not even the same classes but still yeah it matters let's see that schedule oh yeah we're not we're not we don't have any of the same classes we're gonna have to you know i think we should just maybe be friends because you know every 51 minutes we get to see each other for four minutes yeah so that's cool right god high school is so fucking weird but such a bizarre time the relationship ends because she's suspended from school that's just so. They live in the same town.

It doesn't make sense. So by 1987, though, the next year here, he's 17 years old, big swinging IRA dick tattooed all the way down to his knee. He meets a new young lady who he's interested in. And her name is Carol Ann. Carol, she goes by but carol ann it's a full name so carol now carol uh they meet when they both have a very very cool job at arby's yeah so at some point he was like i got the meat baby you know you know he got was one of his lines like you want the meats i got i got some i got a slab for you, sweetheart, and she swooned.

I mean, I assume that's what happened. So they began living together in 1987. At 17? 17 years old. I don't know. I guess Arby's was paying some good jack back then. You could really make some. Also, how bad is home life that you got to get out?

A dual Arby's salary is very odd. Well, I think they just loved each other that much. I mean, that was a big deal. Now, in 1989, he still hasn't graduated from high school, by the way. He's 19 years old at this point. He comes back to Shasta County from Portland in 1989 and graduates from high school in Shasta County. So he finishes up high school there, and he brings Carol with him as well.

So he was like a sophomore, a junior, and he's had like a live-in girlfriend for two years, a very odd person. The whole thing's odd. Perhaps him fighting in a liberated army uh is is accurate then i mean he's well he's doing you mature a lot when you commit these type of acts really you do i mean when you're fighting for liberation slash part of a terrorist organization depending on your viewpoint i think it's a i think it's a you know it's it it at least matures you to the world a little bit. You kind of know what you want.

You want to make roast beef sandwiches and love Carol to death. That's all. Certainly hardens you to the plight of a high schooler. I would imagine so. So in 1990, he enters the Marine Corps. Okay. There you go. Enters the Marine Corps. Okay. There you go. Enters the Marine Corps.

Now, the problem is, while he is in the Marine Corps, he proposes to Carol. Okay. That's good. That's nice. It's been his sweetheart here for so many years. They've been moving around together. The issue is that he, the whole entire time, has been corresponding, especially while he's in the marines been corresponding with love letters with lynn back and forth oh my his old high school flame here so he's in the marines

writing her love letters she's writing him letters back he's also asking carol to marry him yeah so i why two two women are interested in this man i have no idea wait you have to it's at murder small on twitter and facebook at small town murder on instagram you have to see the picture of this goddamn guy and you go what what the hell are you talking about it's wild man it's wild so he proposes to her now he's supposed to be married in march of 1991 to carol that's the plan so he tells lynn all right um um bad news i'm marrying carol so he finally decides what he's going to do he marries he says he's going to marry carol so lynn responded oh no you're not because i've been planning on marrying you you know since we were 15 and now

we're talking again and now you're going to marry some other broad from arby's shit now so she's not even upset she's uh putting her foot down and peeing on his leg yeah she's saying absolutely not is what she said yeah so i'm gonna marry and she said you are not young man you're gonna go back to your room and think about that for a while you're mine so in order to and he said well no i already said i'm marrying her there we have invitations picked out and shit. It's a thing. She said, okay, Lynn does. And Lynn sends Carol all of the letters that Todd sent Lynn while Todd was in the Marine Corps. Sent her the whole batch and wrote a letter with it saying, I understand you think you have a fiance, but obviously he's been writing me letters. And he's a piece of shit and you clearly don't want him anymore.

So you should totally dump him. Look at this. Isn't he gross? Ew. You know, I'm going to take him when you throw him back. I'll take it when you're done. But for now, you don't want him. Carol, though, said that's all right and married him anyway.

In March of 1991. What the animal magnetism this man must have at this point in his life. I mean, wow, because there's no reason for it. There really isn't. He's a good liar. That's what we get. He's a good salesman and shit like that. He's like Gacy.

He's got no physical attributes. He's dumpy. He's balding. He's paunchyy he's not that smart but somehow he has a game he has game he can just throw out some bullshit and get some people in there so uh he's discharged from the marines as a lance corporal in 19 september of 1991 so he was only in there two years which is a short time corpor Well, a Lance Corporal is a low rank. It's only a second or third rank, right?

Yeah, that's not a high anything, but that's his rank, is a Lance Corporal. So, I mean, he didn't, like, fly up through the Marines and up through the ranks or anything. This is important later, is why I say this. Nothing wrong with being a Lance Corporal or anything else, that's fine, but he will have a whole different story

of his service, obviously. Oh, that's fine. But he will have a whole different story of his service, obviously. Oh, really? Oh. He can't just say, I was in the Marines for a couple years, and, you know, that was that. It's got to be some fantastical. I was in the Marines only for a couple years, but that's because I was a brigadier general,

and they had nowhere else to put me. I retired in two years because, you know, I was at the top of everything. I was on the Joint Chiefs of Staff for about six months. And that's too much pressure for me. I don't want to come in. I don't want to live in Washington. I'm just not a politics kind of a guy. I want more of a country thing.

I retire with the grandchildren. Oh, no, I was 20 years old. Yeah. Bush one was fed up with me being smarter than him. That's all. He couldn't take it anymore. Really. It was all of that.

I was telling everybody Reagan had Alzheimer's. They didn't care for that at all. So, you know, I said, fine, I'll retire. I'll retire. That's fine. Full pension and everything like that. So I'm going to live out the rest of my life. That's the kind of bullshit.

I'm going to start with me. He's such bullshit. Everything is bullshit with this guy. It's fucking wild, man. Oh, my God. It's amazing. So they moved to Bend, Oregon. That's where he and Carol moved to.

Where he works, and this will be a pattern with him, he works various jobs for different lengths of time. No, actually. Including he was a bartender for a while. Just whatever he can get here and there nothing that's like a career these are all jobs he's a local band promoter at one point which has to be the saddest loneliest job in the world a local band promoter let me tell you about these guys i'm serious tell you what you come no listen hear me out you come to the kinkos at 12 30 p.m lunchtime that's where they all work now when they're on their lunch break i'll have them play

a couple of tunes for you in the break room we got to play them quiet because the store will be open there'll be customers there but i think you're going to be able to tell their talent just by that i really do bring sandwiches too because i don't have a lot of money for food they'll all have electric electronic instruments and then you can just put headphones on and listen to them play. We're going to do it that way. Matter of fact, I'm just going to send you an MP3. How's that? We'll just do that.

The local band promoter, that's what he does. So they live there for a few years, scraping by with various things. And then in 94, 95-ish, they end up returning to shasta county so coming back to northern california here and this is when uh todd begins to work for his father's company which is g and g fencing it's probably where i should have started in the first place exactly but he wanted to strike out on his own yeah and. And then he ends up. Strike out, for sure. He ends up, yeah, I was going to say, head hung low with his bat dragon behind him is where he comes back to Shasta County. Exactly what it is. So they do that.

Yeah. He's also a sales representative for Rancho Safari, which is a company that, what do you think they do, Jimmy? That sounds like a software company. No, they distribute camouflage gear and archery equipment. Couldn't be further from a software company. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Rancho Safari should sell camouflage gear and archery equipment, but it sounds like something, like a startup in Northern California.

Sure does. Yeah. They do like some shit Theranos was trying to do. They're like, we have a blood sampling thing where we actually do that, but we clean your blood and then put it back in you, and then you're all better again. That's Rancho Safari. We call it Rancho Safari, yeah. We take the blood you've got.

We've got one IV in one arm, one IV in another, and we pump it out through filters and put it right back in. Put it right back in. It's groundbreaking. You'll be amazed at it. It takes all the HIV right out of your blood. Our company, we started it three days ago, and it's worth $26 billion already. Did I mention I'm one of the richest people in the country now, even though we've done nothing and this is just an idea?

Isn't that neat? And my voice has changed in the middle of this conversation. And my voice has changed in the middle of this conversation. So I'm telling you, you really should invest in Rancho Safari, the greatest technology in blood cleaning, filtering, and reinsertion on the market today. And we're going to change the world. We're going to change it. For real. It's going to change.

$25 billion right there. If you need me, I'll be on my yacht yep and that everybody is our uh our our playlet entitled startup america ta-da there it is here's an idea that won't work awesome here's 30 billion dollars you're the smartest person ever this person's worth 12 billion dollars and there's no fucking actual cash and they haven't done anything yet isn't that amazing well our company will change the world incredible crash boom pow prison lawyers federal government oh my goodness we can't let that ever happen again hey look at this person over here you're the smartest person in the world what are you up to eight Eight billion dollars. They have eight billion dollars. Isn't that amazing? Do a story on them.

Stop. Stop. Welcome to America. Holy shit. It's a fucking revolving hamster wheel of these idiots. And I'm tired of it. God damn it. So anyway, if you haven't read about Theranos, you should.

It's crazy. I read the book about them. And oh, man, is that a wild start. She's pregnant and thriving right now. She should be thriving in a prison environment. She should be thriving, tending to the prison garden or working the, whatever the, I don't know, whatever the prison jobs are. She should be a model inmate, for sure. Yeah, inmate is the key thing there. So Rancho Safari.

So he's working on the side distributing camouflage gear and archery equipment, of course, because he's like an IRA assassin slash ex-Marine. So that's what he's going to do. Once you're a Marine, you're always a Marine. You're always a Marine, and we'll see. I don't know if they're going to want to claim him much after this. Now, a year goes by with no contact. They're back in Shasta. Lynn and Todd aren't talking at all.

So he's just he's me and Carol and we're selling fencing and I'm selling camouflage and all that kind of shit. Then Lynn writes him a letter after about a year and says that she's getting married also. So there's that. What do you think of that? So I'm getting married. getting married also oh that's so there's that what do you think of that so i'm getting married um they remained in contact but d but lynn marries a man named dean noise n-o-y-e-s nose noise let's call him noise so dean noise that's a cool fucking name his name is no yes no yes yes dean no yes. I love it.

Thank you for noticing that. That's the best last name ever. I go, N-O-Y-E-S. No yes. And I'm like, come on. His name is no yes. I'm like pausing, like, N-O-Y-E-S. I want to meet him so bad. Notice what that is, please.

Dean, no, yes. His name is no yes. Dean, not too sure about it. Dean maybe. Dean maybe. Dean unsure. Dean possibly. Dean the magic eight ball over here.

My friends call me eight ball why is that well the name is no yes maybe possibly ask again later so also it's fine to try again dean try again man they call me they call me there's a lot of names what is that how many sides are on that thing about eight there's about eight names for me i want him so bad to his friends call him eight ball i want it you know they wanted to call me eight ball that's what they call me buddy eight ball so dean the walking magic eight ball over here no yes no yes so now while this is all going on before this is all this happens before they uh dean and carol move back and they're and they're doing their not sorry not dean todd todd and carol when they move back to shasta county he worked for the fencing company and all that kind of shit this is before that uh she marries Todd and she marries Dean, Lynn does,

and they become friends, the two couples. The two couples, they become friends in the early 90s in Bend, Oregon. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, they become buddies. Carol and Lynn speak regularly together. They're friends and, yeah, the whole deal. Now, the other thing about this is, according to Todd, that Lynn was like still trying to get with him this whole time, that she was with another guy and they were, you know, hanging out as couples. She was still trying to get with him. But he, of course, discouraged the advances because, you know, he's such a good, good guy at this point. Anyway, Todd and Carol, when they moved back to Shasta County, they lived in Redding, California.

And on weekends, he's going to travel to hunting equipment shows across the region for Rancho Safari, obviously. And these trips take him to Oregon a lot. Again, one of the trips was to Eugene, Oregon, there with a friend of his who we'll talk about in a little while. to Eugene, Oregon, there with a friend of his who we'll talk about in a little while. And on this trip, he also hooked up with Lynn and met and hung out. And he claims they, of course, didn't have sex, though, because that would be untoward. We can't have that. I mean, listen, I signed an agreement that I would represent Rancho Safari to the best possible ability and not besmirch their name at all. I feel like extramarital affairs.

I could put this camouflage company in bad public light. I'm not going to do it. I won't do it. It'll damage their reputation. Now, during all this, he's not making that great of money. Carol is the breadwinner here. She works at the Anderson Insurance Agency, and she brings home, actually pays all the bills and everything like that.

Now, during this time, this whole time here, Todd is telling all of his friends that, yes, he has been in the Marines, obviously. And obviously, he was in the IRA when he was a small child. That's clear. We know that for a fact. So, in addition to that, though, he is also currently a sniper for the federal government as well. Oh, for Christ's sake. Did you know that the federal government just has a whole sniper team they employ? Not like in a unit of a military thing or a police organization. They just have their

own like bullpen of like just just g snipers you know just g snipes they call them and they just yeah they're generally uh regional uh sales people for uh that's camouflage companies it's the best way because that way they have an excuse to be on the road and they already have camouflage so no one's gonna see him it's perfect he tells his friends that you know yeah it's a hassle i mean honestly i don't even know why i signed up for this it's a total hassle um you know i've had to participate in several assassinations already it's really getting to be a drag i've had to go to south america uh to i've assassinated i can't even count how many drug kingpins at this point it's starting to to get old really. Is that what he's telling people?

Yeah, I go down to South America to take out drug kingpins obviously because this is the time when the whole Pablo Escobar thing is blowing up huge and the governments are after him so he's using this as like, yeah, you know, they send me on these hit teams for, you know, you know how it is. You've seen the news obviously.

So when you hear about somebody died, it's probably us, really, who did it. But shh, don't tell anybody. The worst. Hey, I could be next if you tell anybody. Seriously, this is heavy shit, man. Or you could. Jesus Christ.

Don't put yourself in danger. Hey, you know what? As a matter of fact, don't stand in front of the window right now. Seriously, don't stand in front of the window. I don't like this at all. No, I just saw a tree move out there. I know you have birds in the trees, but I don't like it like it i think you don't know how we move us government snipers it could be one of them asshole he's an asshole he also told several people including a prospective

employer of his that he had been a lieutenant in the marines not a lance corporal there is a difference between a lance corporal and a lieutenant those are very different ranks yeah vast amount of difference in those ranks so you uh not good to say that if you didn't actually do that and uh he also falsely claimed now jimmy one time sort of said he was in the military to get like 46 cents off some jack in the box didn't even claim it they just he just asked if they had a discount and they applied it he didn't say i am in the military and at the time honestly we that 46 cents so bad yeah this is when we went to south by southwest we were sharing a hotel room motel room in an awful disgusting dirty motel we had like no gas money

all we ate was subway from gas stations where we split these terrible sales that's all we were doing so this 46 cents we were treating ourselves to like four dollars worth of jack-in-the-box we're like we'll get some fries to sustain us through the night that's how bad it was at the time and do you guys do a military discount they're like we do and then they just gave it to me they just gave it to him all right and he just took it now that we're like yeah that's stolen valor that's not cool this man claimed he earned a purple heart oh god which is a way different than getting 10 off some curly fries and a chicken thing that was much different a purple heart purple heart you're qualified for all kinds of shit after oh you're doing and a navy commendation as well which is another award so yeah he's metal he displayed these medals in his house so he went

to some swap meet and bought some yeah some dead guy's family with crackhead kids that sold a purple heart to somebody for four dollars now he has it in his house so some of these friends a couple of them will talk about you know kind of doubted it a little bit but a lot of most of them believed him yeah he talked a lot of shit uh one longtime friend uh he told quote i believe our one longtime friend said of him, quote, I believe he could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. So he's good at being full of shit. So Lynn Lynn back to Lynn and Dean, the Magic 8 Ball. They were married in 1992. But by 1995, they Lynn and Todd were having a pretty regular affair by this point yeah yeah uh they would

just hotels all throughout oregon oh really oh yeah you know how it is with rancho sierra you're always on the road so you get a lot of opportunity to do this he wrote her love letters and poems Oh, boy. Poems. He called her Maliki, M-A-L-I-K-I, which is his word for angel. I don't know if he made it up. He made it up. Because that sounds like it's from the Hawaiian Christmas song. Yeah. Her name's Mary, sir. I don't know.

It's his word for angel. So there you go. They also had matching necklaces that they wore, like the Celtic cross deal that they had matching around their necks here. Lynn purchased them while in high school as a symbol of their love for each other. And in 1996, 10 years later, they're wearing them still. Wow. These matching. They're both married to other people.

They live in different states. But their souls are connected, Jimmy, by the necklace. So this is so stupid. Now, 1996, 1997, this time period here, he and Carol are in Shasta County. Now, he tells his friend, Todd does, his friend's name is Dale Gordon. Dale Gordon's a moron. We'll talk all about Dale. Dale Gordon is a fucking whack job, this guy. Wait till you hear this guy later on.

These people, every time I look at one of these people, I'm like, oh, God, this is going to be great. Wait till you hear this. It's so crazy. So he tells his friend Dale Gordon that, yes, I am. Don't tell anybody, but I am a paid assassin. This time he doesn't tell him, though, he doesn't work for the government. He doesn't tell Dale. He works.

Well, no, it's a very it's organized, though. He's not like a lone hit man. He doesn't have like a startup business of his own, like John Cusack and Gross Point Blank or any shit like that. He says he works for a company. He's just. Yeah. Just like yeah, just like any other Fortune 500. He went to HR. He filled out an application. But it is an organization called, quote, the company.

Oh. And they're just an organization of hit men. And it's just a, it's very organized, highest levels of everything. And it's all ex. We have team meetings. Yeah, it's all, you know, ex special forcesspecial forces, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the top mafia. You got a quota, and it's good for you, your quota, because that means you're going to make money every month. Otherwise, you could go months without a hit. Then what?

But if you don't hit numbers this month, you guys, the president's going to be pissed. Yeah, you're going to get a worse territory. They're going to send you to, like, Wichita, and then you're fucked. You know? Then what? Because BTK's killing it out there. Yeah, he's already got that covered, so then what happens? So he tells Dale Gordon, he starts talking to Dale, saying, listen, this is what we need to do here.

He starts talking to Dale, saying, listen, this is what we need to do here. Me and you, especially you, by the way. Not really much me, but mostly you. You need to do a hit. It's an assassination from the company. They need this done. And you're going to get paid for it, don't worry. But you're going to participate in this hit, Dale Gordon.

Well, who are we killing? You know, Lynn, husband dean the magic eight ball we're not gonna kill no yes we're knocking off uh maybe possibly try back again later we're knocking him off no that's the plan that's the plan hey you know what yes we're just we're cogs in the machine of the company jimmy what are we supposed to do in the machine of the company, Jimmy. What are we supposed to do when the company says someone's got to go? They got to go. That's it. It's worse than the mafia. I'm telling you, it's rough here, man.

So they start talking about this. Oh, don't worry. It's not like it's going to happen this weekend. They talk about it for about a year and a half. They just keep talking about it like this is a very this company does not have a lot of good organization you think somebody would be checking up on that work order after a while right you think it's really in the red around here if we're waiting all this time to make a sale it's a slow moving type of thing we're still we're still making

money off 1994's killings right now let's so they talked about it as gordon said at least 50 times maybe a hundred times over the pretty much whenever they hung out they'd be like well yeah i'm gonna kill that guy it was like they're you know did you see the yankee game or whatever like whatever you and your friend you know that how are you and your you have a bunch of friends and you have subjects that you can talk about with them and you're like oh this friend is sports and this this friend is the comedy and that yeah you know what i'm saying when you find a friend where you can talk about like more than three subjects that's when you have a friendship like us you know what i mean that's when you have a best friend otherwise it's just you have these compartmentalized friends and

uh this was their thing they talked about the murder was that murder thing have a couple beers talk about the murder what do you say oh boy so uh this all now todd tells uh todd said that listen you will be paid dale gordon twenty five thousand dollars for a murder like this not any chump change here you know that's in the might not be a cop territory if we're from our our thing that we always talk about here and he didn't agree um he didn't say that's in the might not be a cop territory from our thing that we always talk about here. And he didn't agree. He didn't say that's a fine amount, but, you know, they said it would work out anyway. They said there's a life insurance policy and plus the company and, you know, you'll be taken care of. Don't worry about it.

Dale's such a dummy. He doesn't go, how does the company get paid by the life insurance? It doesn't matter. They want him dead also well there's a he'll bring he does ask that question at one point and todd just tells him well he was also embezzling money from somebody so that company is also paying the company too so everybody's in it together dean needs to go period this is how the world works dale sorry i don't know you i don't you have your head in the sand over here you you know, playing with your Teddy Ruxpin, not realizing that this is the way the real world works. But it is.

It's all murder all the time. Here we go. All murder. And everyone's killing everybody and paying everybody. So they lead this whole thing is they. This is crazy. Dale Gordon said he and Todd. Holy shit.

They were practicing. OK. Murder. Gordon said he and Todd, holy shit, they were practicing murder. They had a gun with a silencer and they were practicing using the gun with the silencer. Target practice? Yeah, sort of. This is all

murder preparation, you could call this. They tested these guns out and we'll tell you how in a minute. They also destroyed Todd's Ford Bronco in order to cash in on his insurance to fund this endeavor, obviously. The company doesn't pay up front. You put it up, and then you turn in your expenses at the end of the month, and then they cut you a check, obviously.

Yeah, it's corporate America. What do you want? It's got to go through accounting. Like, we can't just cut a check. Okay, and one for the ranger. They're like, you had two appetizers of chilies. What the fuck? I realize this is murder and everything, but just get some potato skins and move on.

This is crazy. It wasn't even happy hour. You paid full price. You're paying full price. If it's happy hour, get get two but if it's 7 30 i'm sorry you get one appetizer or the cheese sticks you make a choice what happened to spinach dip fine just that then one appetizer no alcohol i'm sorry those margaritas are like seven bucks. That's how they get you. So no. It's on the company. You don't buy alcohol, you son of a bitch. You know the company rules.

Just this one time. So one Ford Ranger and two appetizers. It's fine. Two appetizers. Never again. In addition to that, one Ford Ranger and one egg roll and spinach dip it's all a light-hearted nightmare on our podcast morbid we're your hosts i'm alina urquhart and i'm ash kelly and our show is part true crime part spooky and part comedy the stories we cover are well researched he claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people.

With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother 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. 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 now to practice with the silencer because they had to practice with the silencer in order order to do that, they, as Dale Gordon put it, he and Todd, quote, killed every cat in the neighborhood. That's fucked up, man. That's a sick, crazy serial killer thing to do.

So they went around every cat in the neighborhood practicing with the silencer, killing these cats. Have they ever heard of a can maybe i mean go down in your basement and shoot something it's silenced for christ's sake i don't know if it's because cats would be hard to shoot i'd imagine because they're small and and shifty so if you can shoot a cat you can shoot a person pretty i don't understand that but that's pretty that's sick that's fucking sick so that's sick even for this show you know what, but that's pretty, that's sick. That's fucking sick. So that's sick. Even for this show, you know what I mean? That's something.

So 1997 comes along in spring of 1997. Um, Todd tells Lynn, look, Lynn, we need to talk. Okay. You know, your husband, Dean, he's having an affair on you. Oh, you know that? Did you know that he's having an affair? Yeah. He's been fucking around. He's a bad guy. Lynn, he's a an affair on you. Oh. You know that? Did you know that? He's having an affair. Yeah. He's been fucking around.

He's a bad guy, Lynn. He's a bad guy. I can understand you're hurt, obviously, right? You're hurt. You're crying.

You're hurt. I'd like to comfort you, and so let me offer you a service quote. I know a few people who could take him out, if you want. Yeah. So, he's cheating on you.

Would you like to kill him? Is what she, what he proposes to her wait till you find out about your cat wait do you find yeah you notice a lack of cat in the neighborhood there's a reason for that so now later on in that year uh lynn actually receives a call from the husband of the woman with whom Dean is cheating on her with. Okay. Now, when confronted, she confronts Dean about it. And at first, when I read this, I'm like, oh, this is probably Todd faking this shit.

You know, he's like, I am so-and-so. I'm with the company. Instead, he says, it's actually true. She confronts Dean, and he says, yes, I did have an affair, actually. So it's true. Wow. We don't know if todd was just saying this guessing yeah full of shit and it just happened to be that he was having an affair just like the you know just a lucky ass guess threw a dart out the window and hit the right target type of deal but that's what happened basically so it's at that point lynn tells todd okay go ahead and have him killed go ahead and take him out yeah yeah she said do that she says listen todd dean's

going to be taking a trip to san francisco in the future and uh you know maybe do it there she also sent todd a box with keys to their cars to dean and hers cars uh also the keys to their home in gresham oregon pictures of dean and information about where he usually parked and went after work you've got a relationship where you have two homes yeah just divorce the man and take half what do something yeah nope they're gonna she's she wants to have him dead and she even explained she figured it would be easier this way then it'd be more of a pain in the ass on the kids she figured to have a big custody thing and all that this way if she killed him there's some life insurance and the kids could be taken care of and her life would

be easy so oh my god so much easier to kill than divorce is her plan. So he, at this point, Todd begins discussing real plans, putting into play real plans to kill Dean and brings in another fellow into the mix here. Norman Gerald Daniels III. Norman Gerald Daniels III. Who's also a complete jerk-off, by the way. He's not as regal as he sounds by his name by any stretch of the imagination okay so they met in 1993 at a shasta college computer lab i guess they're taking classes and they realized they'd both been in the military so they became friends obviously this guy he doesn't have the extensive background of todd with his high level assassinations and

bombings and such but taking out drug kingpins lieutenant todd but in 1997 they ran into each other again just by chance because daniels was working at the quote uh by the way the first word is spelled k-i-k-i-n okay kicking kicking the kicking mule mini mart in anderson california that's where he's working in his late 20s so didn't even realize that was spelled wrong the kicking mule mart that's where this norman gerald daniels the third is working so norman's wow this is crazy so todd tells norman that listen i'm an assassin for the irish republican army in case you didn't know that uh just gonna let you know and you sir former military guys uh you know erudite smart fucking worldly man such as yourself working the kitchen the kicking mule mart you could make a lot of money if you joined up with our ranks and became an assassin like me.

It's pretty cool. You know, who doesn't want to do that? So he boasted of, at that point, Todd said, oh, yeah, I've done it all with these IRA guys. I killed English soldiers in Ireland with other members of the IRA. We blew those guys up. He said that what there is is it's a whole network. It's like there's different social networks. He said there's a woman in New York named Sasha.

That's all we know. Her name is Sasha. She said, no, she doesn't give her last name out, obviously. Jesus. Now, Sasha is what he would call an information broker who trades information on the black market and assigned hits for this underground operation she's like a placement specialist she's an underground headhunter essentially like she's going around matching hits with hitmen okay like there's we have an order for a hit in uh portland who do we have in portland oh todd's

there good put todd on the portland and then put the uh yeah put the san diego give that to this other guy that's what they're doing there's an office with a yeah that's sasha okay that's what she does for a living so holy shit gig it's i mean it's pretty it's easy i guess you don't have to do it all now todd also tells daniels here uh What's his name? Norman Daniels tells Daniels that he was sent on covert operations in South America with orders from the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, to assassinate drug dealers, of course. And he said that, don't worry, though, if you come on with me, it's not like you can get in trouble. It's I understand your apprehension of like, you know, can't go around killing people. But people in the CIA, the highest levels of the CIA, you can't tell everybody about it. But the highest people in the CIA protect me and, you know, my my group. So if you join us, you'll be protected as well.

And he even says, here's my purple heart. So you can see how you know i'm brave obviously here i i earned this while i was a lieutenant in the marines yeah so none of what he's saying is true nothing there's not a fucking thing here that he's a fence salesman who sells camouflage to people in fucking tents in a field on the weekends that's what he does probably never never met a single person named sasha no he met a guy with an irish accent once and it gave him an idea that's what happened he heard bono talk and he was like you know what there's something here sunday bloody sunday and he's like i'm a part of that i did did it all. I see my future. I see it now.

Now, Todd also says that there are several contracts on Dean's head. So, I mean, so many people want him dead. You have to get in there and get him so you can get the money before someone else gets it. Like Cannonball Run. It's to say they're bumping into each other, these assassins, to get to him. They both pop up in the same room. They can't get through the door together they're both stuck in it both of them have like

guns guns with silencers in their offhand hey get back no it's mine no you son of a bitch it's mine well we'll split the money okay so several he said because Dean embezzled money and that so Norman Daniels agreed to

okay I'll go with you and gordon there and i'll provide support for the plan and if you if you're just a support guy uh todd tells norman here that i'll give you a thousand dollars after lynn receives dean's life insurance payment if you participate in this whole thing okay i can't believe that was never a movie james a cannonball run style uh contract for hire. There has been that, though. There has been that. It's gotta be, right?

Late 80s, early 90s, it was a couple movies like that with bumbling, you know, I see. What was that one? One guy that doesn't know that he's about to be murdered and there's like 60 people trying to kill him. There's like a bunch of two-person teams.

Yeah, and they're like arguing. One's got like, they of two to two uh two person teams yeah yeah and they're like arguing one's got like they just had to sleep in a barn last night with a dress shirt on they wake up with like hay in their hair with the over the shoulder holster i think it does from the early 90s we just wrote it we yeah and it's it's it's and it should have been made 30 years ago because it wouldn't be because it wouldn't work yeah it's too cheesy now but in 91 oh that would have been sweet i'd have crushed crush it that would have rivaled teen wolf at the box office i do like the uh i do like the uh like the the stephen king fucking dorian gray story i do enjoy that of like the whole the vanity and the every time you tell a lie you lose yeah

that'd be fantastic yeah i like that whole that whole thing that's not bad it's pretty good stuff well one one we can't one already should have been written one lives in the past and one stephen king if you're listening you can have it how's that that's yours it's all yours chief i know you're probably searching for ideas you look through your emails looking for something anything to come come up, because I know the writer's block is obviously a problem for you. You've only written 600 books in the last 12 years. Throw that one in. We'll write the foreword.

It's all good. Yeah. Just give us some credit. So October 1997 here. Oh, by the way, here. Sorry. Initial plan. Oh, by the way, here, sorry.

Initial plan. Their initial plan for the murder is Todd plans to kill Dean in San Francisco while Dean's attending a conference. That's what he's going to do. He discusses this plan with Gordon and Daniels, his two idiot henchmen. And the trip ends up being canceled and they never follow up on that plan. So they just it was a plan, but it didn't work. Yeah. Throw it away. on that plan so they just it was a plan but it didn't work yeah throw it away now october 1997 right around this time carol todd's wife remember her remember poor carol carol uh we discover that

carol is pregnant at this point oh boy oh yeah um todd tells everybody by the way for years that he doesn't like children very much he thinks children are a pain in the ass who will take away from his freedom he told he then told people that he did not want the child and that it was not his now i was just gonna say he's not wrong now for feeling this way i get why you feel this way but then you have to go and you do and then you love your kids and you do your thing obviously at first you feel like oh my, my God, my life is over. But then it's not. And then it is again. And then it's not for a while.

Even when it is planned, it feels that way. Yeah, it does. But he's not thrilled with it, basically, is the deal here. Now, a few months later, after she's coming along, Todd and Carol apply for life insurance. And Carol is approved for a policy of $125,000 so Todd is the primary beneficiary obviously this is

with a child you do this so you make sure that the other yeah the kid in the other party are taken care of so next plan to kill Dean okay here it is now this is Gordon now and Todd. Todd and Gordon.

They begin to, not the other guy, not Daniels, Gordon. They begin planning to murder Dean in Oregon at his home or possibly where he works. Either way, they're flexible. We're flexible here. They tell the Daniels guy, the other moron, that they're going to travel to Portland in October 1997 to scout the area. We're going to scout it out. On October 10, 1997, Todd and Gordon rent hotel rooms in a hotel in Portland. They're scoping it all out.

That afternoon, they went to Lynn and Dean's home in gresham and walked through the house while lynn was there like she showed them around so they know the lay of the land if they're going to kill this guy they can't be like where's the back door you know we have to know where we're going so there todd draws a sketch of the house and how it's laid out inside and all of that and later todd and gordon drive by Dean's workplace in downtown Portland. So that night, Lynn and Todd fuck in a hotel room as well. So full on, this whole thing's going. Cut to January 3rd, 1998 at this point. Now, January 3rd, 1998, Todd and Gordon, his buddy Gordon there, they return to Oregon.

They stay in a hotel in Eugene where they meet up with Lynn. Obviously, Todd and Lynn fuck. They talk to Lynn about killing Dean. And they show her several guns and knives as well as ammunition. I don't know if she's got to pick out the one that looks the most like she'd like it to happen to him or what. But I'm not sure. the most like she liked it to happen to him or what but i'm not sure and also uh like additional magazines for the you know for rounds and uh handcuffs latex gloves a first aid kit all this shit just in case we hurt ourselves i don't know yeah i'm just in case we change our

minds midway through and try to remove the bullet from him and sew up the wound you never know to remove the bullet from him and sew up the wound you never know we're not sure but he had been told uh todd told gordon that they were doing this to quote show lynn that we're really going to do this we're here in oregon we have weapons it's fucking go time so um they do have sex lynn and todd they spend the night in the room together then they go their separate ways now maybe this is just what gets them primed to fuck you ever think of that it's possible yeah maybe just like talking about dirty weird murder shit like we're gonna kill him right yeah maybe that's how they get off and then afterwards they're like all right never mind that's crazy obviously we're not gonna do that you know it's real seriously fuck it really is

it's that was a lot and i'm kind of hungry now, so never mind. Who knows? Just talk about it and come hard and move on. You don't need to follow through on this shit. Yeah. So late January or early February 1998 here, now we have Todd, Gordon, and Daniels here, the three idiot amigos. The three moron amigos here. They meet at the Moose Lodge in Anderson, California. Yeah, yeah.

Where all the best plots are hatched. The Moose Lodge. There's a lot of assassins there, I imagine. Weren't they all in the military? I picture them wearing the hats with the moose things on them like old time. And they're talking seriously with serious looks on their faces while the moose things are on their head. And it's making me laugh. So they discuss two plans.

First, maybe we'll try to kill Dean at his workplace. And if we can't do that, we'll just enter the house. We have the keys and we'll shoot him there. Fuck him. You know, I mean, if the Menendez brothers can do it, why not us? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, they can do it. Sitting in a living room, how hard is that?

So they also hear Todd discusses plans to pay these two at that time for their roles in the killings as well. They discuss numbers and shit like that. February 6th, 1998, they drive to Oregon. The three fucking dipshit amigos here drive to Florida. Fucking dipshit amigos here. Drive to Florida. They bring a variety of guns, a silencer, walkie talkies and shit so they can talk to each other. A whole like they're going on like a South American drug kingpin hunting trip is what it looks like.

Handcuffs, latex gloves, the whole hit kit. So they get to Gresham. They check into a motel, stash the equipment in the room. Then they drive to a parking garage near Dean's workplace where they plan to kill him the next day. They're like, all right, here it is. We'll scope it out. The next morning, these three morons get up early and drive to the parking lot to await Dean's arrival. But Dean never shows up.

Oh, okay. Okay. Where did he go? arrival yes but dean never shows up okay okay well uh unbeknownst to todd lynn got cold feet here at the last minute and lynn told dean to drive their other car that which is too big to fit into a space in this garage she said i need that car for this you take that car knowing that he wouldn't park in that garage and they wouldn't be able to kill him at that point so yeah she saved dean's life by sabotaging it at that point so these three fucking complete dinguses sat in this garage waiting for him and it never happened so they then realized he must have parked somewhere else i don't know probably after four or five hours of staring at each other, wiping drool off each other's chin. Then they left and checked into a different hotel for some reason.

I don't know why, but later on that night, Todd will shoot a rifle out of his hotel window into a deserted field. Just to buck, buck, buck, bitches. You know what I mean? Sometimes you just got to let off some steam. That's how he's chosen to do it. Finger litchy. I don't know what to do.

I don't know. So later on that afternoon, the next day comes around. Lynn comes to the hotel. And she's like, listen, Todd, we got to abandon ship on this plan. No good. It's too late to do this. And why are we doing this? And Todd goes, we have to do it now.

The wheels are in motion um can't stop he's gonna be pissed i got i got expenses can't stop won't stop you know what i'm saying yeah i got a i got a crew here i have to pay what are we talking about here um so you know he said we'll try to kill him this evening but we're gonna kill him so sorry i don't know what to tell you right so later on um she's like all right well i guess if you got to do it you got to do it and she leaves i mean you can't tell a guy that's building a fence after the footing's been poured to stop you gotta build the fence the posts are in what do you want just a bunch of posts around or a fence now i got rebar sticking out of concrete it's going up

the kid's gonna impale himself on this if we don't start doing something. So she later on that day called Todd and said she'll try to get Dean and his brother out of the house so that the killing won't occur in the home. I'll try to get them out of the house. I'll tell you where they're going. You can go kill them somewhere else. I don't want blood on my carpet and my kids. You know how it goes. So that night, Todd, Gordon, and Daniels, this triumvirate of IQ, fucking top IQ people. My three dumbs.

Yeah. My three fucking numbskulls here. They leave the hotel, and they park near the residence of Dean and Lynn. They're all armed. All three of these fucking morons are all armed. The three cretins here. They approach the house and Todd goes to the front door

to try to open it. But he can't open it. I don't know if he's got the wrong key or what the deal is. So he's all ready. Total hitman. Ready to go. He's an international assassin. Problem with the key. So they all run back to the car imagine these three grown men morons and all their gear playing dress up all of their dress up horse shit

fucking a key and a lock foils their shit they all go to the door come on shut up we're gonna do it it won't work run and then they run away like three children who rang the doorbell who runs first the guy in the back or the who rang the doorbell who runs first the guy in the back or the guy holding the keys probably the guy holding the keys right he's the guy yeah he's waving him like come on follow me let's go run pointing at eyes and and holding up two fingers and waving different directions oh you know he did that he was like he held a fist up and then turned it the other direction and then then lowered his arm and they all went in one direction. And he did like a one finger up, then two, and they all like, yeah, doing like bicycle turning hand signals.

And like, you know, that's what happened in this thing. Military operation. Can't get past the dog. Eye black under their eyes, you know, totally. Yeah. Get night vision on and shit, glasses, goggles. Stand fast. These morons

run away and they go back to their hotel. And then in the morning they go back to California. So they just, that was a failure. Thwarted easily. Thwarted by quick set just not didn't

work they got a schlage it's a schlage this is a quick set they don't match they don't match up it's not it's a quick set it's not gonna work fucking abort abort

this is absolutely asinine this is the dumbest thing ever so they get home and they're like rather than go okay let's stop this is stupid they're like all right new plan these fucking idiots so at that time lynn thought dean was embezzling money from his employer. That's what she said. She thought he was making too much money. So Todd planned to use this information to extort Dean. Yeah. Then once he got some money out of Dean, then kill Dean once he's been extorted to his maximum.

That's the plan here. So make a trail of communication between the two of you, then kill him. That's the smart thing to do. But also, that's like the craziest complaint a wife has ever made about a husband. He's embezzling. Yeah, he's making too much money. He's making too much money. There's a problem.

He's doing something. So he's going to do this. So he returns to Gresham. Todd does in May 1998. Todd does in May 1998. With Lynn's assistance, they stage a break-in of the home, of Dean and of the no-yes residents. They take a planner, like an electronic planner, one of those 90s deals, a laptop, which must have weighed, what, 30, 40 pounds back then. I was going to weigh you down.

It has a backpack. It's got a backpack and some computer discs and equipment so that's what he takes they make to set the stage of this place gets robbed right so it's dangerous here so now uh todd also planned to kill dean on this trip if the opportunity arose as well i mean i'll come and do this the initial whatever but if he pops up i'll kill him. So following the stage break in, Todd calls Daniels, his buddy there and his compadre and stupidity. And he calls him in the hotel room and he says, do me a favor. Send me an anonymous email insinuating that someone knew or send Dean an anonymous email telling Dean that someone knows he's embezzling and threatened to harm his children if he doesn't cooperate. Jesus. Well, tell your

boss and harm your children. So Daniels does that. So Dean receives several cryptic messages from the same anonymous email address. And by the way, Todd's computer will have evidence of all of this, that he's accessed the accounts, which emails were sent.

Because I don't think in 1998 people that didn't know shit about computers knew that even if you erase something, it's still there with the right people looking. So I don't think he knew that. And now with a 12-year-old looking. Now with a 12-year-old, anybody can see that shit. And people still don't know that you can't erase things shit no i mean that's how btk got caught for fuck's sake so he continues todd does to continue to discuss the possibility of murdering dean uh with lynn after

sending these emails uh and all this type of shit so this goes on now there is a guy who thinks that todd's full of shit it's a guy named charles hawkins old chuck hawkins who sounds i'm chuck chuck hawkins i'm chuck and there's a word hawk in my name yeah very tough they were on the same bow hunting team oh todd and todd and chuck are on the same bow hunting team and he says that he would often ignore the bullshit that todd said he said quote i just pretty much knew he was full of shit just in general he has a long line of bs he leaves out there and i didn't want to listen to it i love this guy that's the worst when somebody does that he told todd had told this guy that he's a paid assassin he he was a sniper in the marines now

he's a sniper and he's a lieutenant with a purple heart he's a sniper uh and uh you know all that type of shit so while they believed in this guy was like no this guy said quote they said well why didn't you believe he was a sniper and all the things he said he said quote because of the shape he was in it would be like me saying that i just got out of being a marine sniper. He was overweight, probably 40 pounds. Didn't look like a Marine sniper to me. Yeah. You don't see a lot of sloppy snipers out there. They usually keep pretty trim, I think, most of those guys.

I know a guy, James, in his 50s that's retired from the Marines that was a sniper. Still looks amazing. They keep in good shape. They want to keep their breathing at a certain, be able to pace it and do all that. There's a certain, you can't't be you can't have like a i just had jack in the box at three in the morning last night wheeze and and keep your there's a there's as i there's a rhythmic breathing to snipers that i've seen a thing i it's a whole thing that you have to do or else i mean

we're talking we're that far away any movement at all sends the shit 100 yards off in the wrong direction. You're trying to put a bullet in somebody's head from a mile away. You have to be steady. Perfect. So during this whole time, Todd, I don't know where he finds time for all this shit. He's also been a volunteer youth soccer coach for a whole season during all this. Kids can't make the game this weekend. I have some company

murder, you know, assassin plot stuff going on I gotta deal with, but we'll be back to play the ladybugs later. Don't worry about it. I gotta reconcile this week's expenses. Yeah, you know how it is. I gotta see HR. It's a lot. He attended a childbirth class with

Carol. Not one class, but a class that they went back to a whole bunch. He admitted that at first he was being forced to go, but everybody said, including the instructor, that he became an active participant in the class and tried hard. Yeah. He learned that the child would be a boy. Oh. They found out it's going to be a boy, so they named him.

He named him Jesse. Uh-huh. There you go. Jesse Garten. There you go. N garden there you go named him jesse what year and 97 way way way younger than him and bought him a rifle oh my god two jesse gardens in this story they were going to call him jesse james and then he bought him a rifle as well he's not even born yet and he's already got a rifle that's interesting so early april 1998 okay this is uh you know this is a couple months after the three morons drove to oregon to murder dean it didn't quite work out um he explains uh

you know all this type of shit he said that listen daniels if you want to be part of the company i know the dean thing didn't work out but you're gonna have to fulfill a contract to be a part of this deal if you want to be a part of it and dean's like well yeah i'd love to yeah he said you're gonna have to complete one assassination this sounds like a timeshare pitch is what it sounds like or like you know what i mean a multi-level marketing timeshare deal he says you complete one assassination then you get two free later now then he says you become a member of the company right and once you're a member you know membership has its privileges he's just given he's just given mottos of yeah bullshit he says you know if you agree to do this the company will send you a package revealing your target you'll just get a package in the mail and you'll look at your target and uh he says todd says listen now that you're going to

be in the company you got to know some things. We have code names. My code name is Patriot. Patriot. No one else took that before me. I was surprised. I looked for the email address. I was like, Patriot at the company dot com.

Amazing. I didn't think they'd have it. Figured that'd be the first thing to go. I was super surprised. I thought I'd have to be like Patriot 12. You know what I mean? Patriot 25 at the company dot com. I really assumed it was going to be like Patriot 12. You know what I mean? Patriot 25 at the company. I really assumed it was going to be three numbers at the end.

Yeah, something like that. So he says that here's my business card. And on the business card, it says Patriot. Todd has business cards made up. And he also, on the Patriot business card, is Todd's pager number. This is the Patriot's card, otherwise known as Todd's beeper number. Is it not called the Patriot? The Patriot.

Patriot me. So later that month, they bought, Daniels and Todd bought a handgun, cleaning equipment, a holster, two boxes of ammunition. And then Todd advised Daniels what gun to buy. Then Todd paid for it, gave Daniels the holster for it. And he says, I'll help you, you know, with whatever you're doing here. I'll help you with your plan. I'll help you become a member here. I got a sponsor.

It's like she's you're going to be'll help you with your plan i'll help you become a member here i got a sponsor it's like she's you're gonna be on my downline so i need to it's a yeah it's an assassin pyramid scheme like we had a vampire pyramid scheme with the pocket robin episode this is like an assassin pyramid scheme come on two more hit men i'm a trainer level they send me a cool watch and i get way more commissions. Come on, man. I'm shocked this is the first time we've heard of this in just like regular-ass hits. I know, right? We've never had this level of crazy before.

And I guess this is the gun Daniels is supposed to use for the murder. Now, April 27, 1998, Todd bought a label maker, label tape cartridges, a manila envelope, and a pager. He bought all that stuff that day. We have records of it. That night, he delivered the, quote, target package to Daniels. Here's the target package. The package was in a manila envelope with a label on it, and it had a wax seal with an imprint that Daniels thought resembled a trinket that Todd had up in his office. It looked like he pressed it into the thing and made it.

This is the official seal of the company. Yes, that says Mattel. There's a copyright date on it. It's the chest plate of a Thundercat that's what yeah from last week oh my god so as he oh jesus christ as uh daniels opens the envelope todd says keep in mind before you before you break that wax seal if you opened it this once that seal is cracked, you either carry out the assigned killing or be killed yourself. And that's the whole thing. That's the

plot. There's rules. There is an HR department. There's a lot of you know, they have a company whole manifesto they set out. Now the package contained a pager, some photographs, and some newspaper and magazine excerpts about the IRA for some reason, the Irish Republican Army.

So all three photographs depicted his target, who is Carol. What? Eight-month pregnant Carol is the target. You have to be shitting me. That's the deal. On one of the back of one of the pictures contain information about Todd and Carol along with a timeframe in which the murder has to take place and other instructions. Oh my God.

So Todd looked over the package contents with Daniels and Daniels was upset. Yeah. And so he was like, oh man. And Daniel said, Todd looked upset. Like, oh my God, it's my wife in this package. That's what he said. Oh, he said, he like put his head in his hands., my God, it's my wife in this package. That's what he said. He said he like put his head in his hands. He's like, it's my wife.

They want my wife to be killed. It's like a test that I have to pass that if I don't assign the hit of my wife, then I'll be killed. Oh, my God, the company. Why did I get so twisted up with such people? Ah, the company. Why didn't I just stay in the Marines career? Why did I do this? Why didn't I just stay in the Marines' career? Why did I do this? Why didn't I just stay in the Irish Republican Army?

Why didn't I stay in the IRA when I was a wee boy? I was only 12. I could have been a general by now. My God, not Carol. That's what he did, really, seriously. This is so silly. And Norman, what'd he do? Well, Daniel said, I can't do this.

He goes, I can't kill your pregnant wife. This is fucking crazy. I know this. I know her. Like, this is bonkers. What the fuck are we talking about here? I'm not doing this. So he said, can you call someone and have them change the target?

Just switch it. Is there a number? I'll meet a guy at a 7-Eleven. We'll trade envelopes you know what i mean it's not a big deal who do we call yeah who do we call he's no idea it's like it's just like the internet who do i call if there's a problem so todd picked up the phone and started dialing didn't even look up a number picked iticked it up and like, beep, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, like started fucking. Like he knew it was a.

Off the top of his head, bro. Oh, God. I'm laughing so hard I'm going to have a stroke. That's a genius liar move. Well, it gets even better because at some point, rather than have a pretend phone conversation, he types in like six numbers. Hold on. I'm going to get the COO on the note.

This is bullshit. Wait a minute. Hold on. I'll get Sasha on the line. She'll know what to do here. Sasha is going to fix this. Director of operations now. Come on, Sasha.

Put me through. Jesus Christ. We opened opened an envelope it's my wife sasha i don't care if he's in a meeting this is my wife god damn it i can't believe you picked up the phone i swear on my purple heart i'm getting this fixed i swear on every man who i commanded in the marine corps every man that served under me as a lieutenant this is the best story ever holy shit so daniels what's he do he probably does about six numbers but then he stops has an idea todd hangs up the phone and says well you know what at least it's not me that's what he says he didn't tell you to kill me so i'm not gonna have them because they're gonna be mad at me now yeah so then todd explains that listen i have to tell you some things my friend that you don't know about this is what it

is and because you're thinking carol's this nice pregnant woman who works for an insurance agency just this nice average lady but in reality what you don't know about carol is she used to be a member of the ira as well she was a member of the irish republican army this high school girl from oregon who i met as a member of the Irish Republican Army. And yeah, no, she would. Her cheerleader gig was just it was a cover. That's all it was. In Ireland, you can just send in, you know, an American cheerleader. They just blend right in over there.

It's like a Shriner hit in New York City in the 70s. So he said that she's also worked with the company as well. She's an assassin. I know you didn't know that, but we're an assassin couple. That's the thing. So, you know you know i mean it's undercover blues yeah we're like what's that fucking stupid movie where there there is a dumb shit movie about the blues yeah there's a different one another dumb one where they tried to be i don't remember who's anyway moving on oh it's dumb the one with uh angelina jolie, right? Thank you. Yes, exactly.

Brad Pitt. That's the one with Brad Pitt. There you go. There you go. Mr. and Mrs. Jones or whatever. Mr. and Mrs. Smith. There it is. There it is. Thank you.

I never saw it, but I know that's the plot from the trailer. So anyway, there's that much. We are actually Mr. and Mrs. Smith. This is right around the time this movie came out, too. Oh, yeah. This is late 90s. This is ridiculous. So he's just using movie plots.

I don't know if he read Variety with the upcoming movies oh they're making a movie universal's making a movie about oh that's a good idea hey i'm gonna tell someone this shit so he said that they uh he said but she betrayed the group yeah and now there she's obviously clearly by this envelope being targeted for retribution and this is you know it's a i know i'm married to her but the company is above all of this i can't you know so todd tells daniels listen destroy these photographs and documents but keep the imprinted wax seal so they know that way you show that to like a cia guy in case you get in trouble and they'll know that you're part of the company and they'll let you out and you opened an envelope obviously clearly so that means that after the meeting todd tells daniels that daniels should have uh should receive an introductory email from the company like he joined a 24-hour fitness what

the fuck is that with the spa policies and when the basketball courts open what are we to wipe down the gym equipment when you're done what the fuck are you talking about it's an international assassin group that sends an introductory email get all the orientation packets sent to your email what the fuck is going on it'll explain all your 401k options we'll get you there oh my god dan because he said you should have already received this and he said daniel said oh well i would have thought it was spam and probably deleted it already i wouldn't have known what that is right so todd goes oh jesus i gotta have the company resend it to you now yeah god they

don't like resending the introductory email they hate it you understand you got to be ready for it he said fine though you didn't know so on may 6 1998 daniels receives an introductory email from the email address this is amazing, companyt at usa.net. Company T. The company at usa.net. So welcome him to the organization. Welcome to the company. Thank you for joining the company.

We'll tell you all about your 401k package and your stock options. We have three tiers of insurance. You can pick whatever fits your needs. You know what? Whatever you need. By the way, you're going to have to fill out the tax forms. We need to find out what you're claiming, how many dependents and all that. It's a company policy.

It also informed him on how he would receive coded messages and how to interpret them, explaining that someone also will be assigned to follow him and make sure he did his job correctly, until he can be a trusted assassin in the companies under their wing here. Obviously, he said that Todd responded to the email on Daniel's behalf because he's like, I'll say I know what they want to hear. I'll take care of this. Click, click, click, click. So, yeah, he said all did all of that. Now, this is amazing.

did all of that now this is amazing um there is a the person who sends all the orders through emails yeah who is obviously todd but the person he signs it as from the company is quote colonel sean oh yeah colonel sean says you need to do this okay everybody in a giant company like that has a title and then their first name their first name yeah because he's a cool ceo you know how it is colonel sean doesn't want people to like he wears jeans to the office he's chill no sport coats no tie you know there's a there's a there's a keg in his office he brings you in to sit down he says can i pour you one and you're like yeah fuck it yeah kick back there's like a like a's like an acoustic guitar you can fucking strum on while he's telling you who you're going to kill.

It's the no-shoes zone. Pinball machines all over the place. You know that kind of office. An NBA jam. Colonel Shaw. Yeah. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife.

Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you The Official Jinx Podcast. We'll be revisiting all six episodes of Part 1 and watching along with Part 2 as it airs on Max, starting April 21st. Bye-bye. The Official Jinx Podcast.

Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. Colonel Sean. So, you know, he said, The official Jinx podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. Colonel Sean. So, you know, he said Colonel Sean's going to send an email killing orders and all that sort of thing. And, you know, how all that goes. So over the next week, Daniel's exchanged a few a series of emails with the company T at USA dot net email address regarding his assignment. He's going back and forth. This this show should should be called who is dumber because it's just a dumb contest who's the biggest moron this is certainly a stupidity contest oh gordon will come back to the hill comes charging to the front of the oh man is he stupider than most people right now fading back oh yeah no i'm telling you he's a he's he comes around like the home stretch he waits for the home stretch the jockey holds him back a little bit they sandbag him and they really start whipping him in the final lap here so conserve the energy for those last 500 feet

you gotta yeah that's what i mean that's when a lot of races are lost jimmy you don't want to fuck it up one of these emails that he got received uh contained a threat on daniel's life if he failed to kill carol um the company's email address was registered to a physical address in northern ireland as well in case daniel's decided to check up on the trail that's the i mean that's just what's your address and he somebody put it in there so that's what it's registered to um and the company's emails were found uh later on they'll be of course on todd's computer he's the one sending all these fucking emails so murder prep here we go as daniel's prepared to murder carol for his assignment todd provides assistance and advice

because he's an experienced assassin so he's you know this guy's just getting his beak wet in the whole killing game so he tells daniels listen kill carol while i'm in oregon so that way i'll have an alibi we don't want me to fucking get in trouble for this he tells daniels here this is how you dispose of the murder weapon and uh all of this stuff now daniel said hey listen can i get i can we i need to request extra money i sent an email in literally i sent an email in for extra expense money to the company yeah and they refused it they told me i can't have any more expenses they said they literally said one appetizer it's a one appetizer limit you guys are telling me there's no petty cash around here this is ridiculous i need things so todd said i'll i'll

just i'll help you out that way you can started. Because it's like multi-level marketing. You have to buy a couple of packages up front. They're not going to lend you the money to buy the packages from them. That's crazy. Get these in your garage. Duh. So Todd then advises Daniels, all right, here's when you kill Carol. May 16, 1998.

Because I'm going to be gone all day at a gun show. So that's when you kill her. Now, Todd also asks Lynn to help out in this killing as well. Let's get as many people involved in this as humanly possible. Let's get as many witnesses that can turn state's evidence as we can involved here. So in the fall of 1996, he had discussed killing Carol as a way for them to reunite with Lynn in one of their motel rendezvous. He said, what if we what if Carol was dead? Wouldn't that I mean, we we tried killing Dean. Obviously, that's he's bulletproof.

But what if we kill Carol? I mean, then we'll figure Dean out later. Yeah. So now Todd began saying that because of the earlier incident in Oregon, Lynn had no choice but to help the company with one of their contracts because they tried to do something for her. It didn't work. So now you're in too deep, Lynn. You got to do a favor for the company or else you're a dead woman. Yeah.

He later revealed to Lynn that Carol is the target and there's nothing he could do about it. Listen, you're going to have to kill my wife. It's not for me. I don't make these choices. You're going to have to kill my wife. It's not from me. I don't make these choices. You're going to have to kill my pregnant wife. Sorry. So at Todd's request, Lynn often spoke with Daniels via email, online chat rooms and instant messaging and even on the telephone in the weeks up to Carol's, you know, the planned Carol's murder here. Todd tells Daniels that Lynn, the reason why they're talking so much is because Lynn is one of the people assigned by the company to keep an eye on him.

There's someone watching him physically, but she interacts with him to, quote, psychologically evaluate him on behalf of the company. How the fuck? How can he be this dumb? How the fuck? It's an ongoing job interview. They're going to keep talking to you. How stupid are you? Every day, all day.

Yeah. This, of course, would allow Lynn to give Todd updates on the level of preparedness that Daniels is going through. Oh, are you ready here? Do you have this? You're all set? Very good. Wow. So, May 16th, 1998, Todd and Daniels work at a gun show that day. Carol spends the morning with her friend, Tracy Jones, there.

They're both pregnant. Yeah. And they spend the day touring the maternity ward at the hospital and looking at newborns. Yeah. This is some pregnant activity right here. Yes. Yeah. That's, by the way, a very pregnant woman is the only person who can do that and

doesn't look crazy yeah you know what i mean anybody else if they don't have if you were walking staring at the newborns and they're like which one's yours and you're like oh i don't have a kid in here at all i'm just looking at the babies they should take you away but if you're like nine months pregnant and you're looking at babies that's like okay that's cute that's the only time that's cute and not weird or nuts or crazy to see what's in there there they are criminal yeah that makes sense so they tour the maternity ward peek at the newborns at mercy medical center they do all of that then carol stopped at the gun show to say hi at about 1 30 p.m here uh and leaves with daniels she gives daniels a ride i guess todd said that yeah daniels is gonna she's giving

daniels a ride home now uh todd had previously recommended you should kill carol this day because everyone's going to be at the gun show and killing her at home you know there's a sparsely populated area no one will see you out there it'll be you know fucking beautiful but carol dropped in uh dropped by the show after the doctor's appointment. Daniels went home with her there. Now, OK, this is fucking crazy. They get home, Carol and Daniels here. They get home. They watch a movie together.

OK, they watch The Killing Time, a 1987 movie starring Kiefer Sutherland. OK, that's what they watch keifer sutherland movie time about two lovers with a murderous agenda that's what it says here so um now they todd stayed behind to sell the rest of the camo shit high demand that day so you got to do that now after the movie daniels leaves to return the movie and carol went to her room to go lay down okay um now he was unable to he couldn't bring himself to kill her before this before he left to bring back the movie uh he said he left the house to bring the movie back parked on a side street and walked through a field leading to Todd and Carol's back door.

He stopped halfway through when he feared Carol, who Todd told him was a trained assassin. Yeah. So she's like pregnant or not. You know, he's that belly. It's probably a false belly. She's going to pull a machine gun out and not blow. Yeah, just mow me down. Right.

So she he was scared that she was gonna see him and kill him first so he's like i'm an assassin going to kill an assassin you got to be on your game for that shit you know what i mean first assignment first assignment i gotta kill an assassin come on man she's only hindered by a pregnant belly she's still better than me i've never done this never done this so he then drove back to the front of the house and went inside trying to calm his nerves. And he said, quote, I'm pacing and I'm running my hand through my hair. Finally, it comes to me. I'll do it fast.

I'll just do it fast. So he said he walked into Todd and Carol's bedroom and made small talk with Carol. You know, just talk. They were talking about the dog jack the dog um which this is her boss's dog that she's keeping an eye on right there just watching and yeah that's a cute dog blah blah blah um daniel's the whole time has a 44 revolver in his back by his tucked in his waistband hand cannon this is a lot of gun a ridiculous ridiculous amount of gun, just way too much gun. He says that Daniel said he said to himself, quote, I said now or never in my head as I was talking to her about Jack, I was contemplating what I was about to do.

I thought about my son. I thought about my family. I really thought I was a dead man. And he said the reason I wanted to take her by surprise is because todd convinced me that she was an assassin and if i don't get to her first she could get to her gun and kill me because she's obviously got a gun with a silencer under her pillow clearly so he said that he turned away so she wouldn't see him with the gun uh but she said he does say at this point he shoots her and he says her eyes were on him when he shot her in the face

with a 44 caliber oh my god from three feet away what maybe fuck that's insane she tried to cover her head with both hands which obviously doesn't matter he fired four more shots including a shot in the chest and one in the back as well the one in the back also hit the killed the baby hit the baby and son of a bitch killed the baby as well so i mean and this baby was due in two weeks i mean it was ready to yeah it's a it's a fucking baby in there so um he said quote she was still moving and i didn't want her to suffer. He said, as I was shooting at her, she had rolled over. It seemed to me she was attempting to get under the bed. And so

he said he shot her because he wanted to put her out of her misery and he felt bad. He said he left immediately driving to a stop and ride parking lot as Todd had told him to do. And the idea was to make it look like a carjacking. So he drove her car and left it out there in the fucking parking lot there. So she had gunshot wounds to her lower torso and head and chest back, the whole deal,

and dropped her Jeep off over at the parking lot. And then Daniels went home and p Todd with the message all done going home. Whoa. Todd called Daniels to ask whether the message was for him. No, I'm killing someone else's fucking wife tonight too. And Daniel said, yes,

it was. Then Daniels left a message for Lynn and the two later communicate, communicated online and over the phone where she told him to dispose of any evidence. He also emailed company T at USA dot net with the message package delivered. Holy shit. Later on that afternoon. Let's enter the Gordon guy back into this. Now, Gordon lives with Carol and Todd at this point, by the way.

He's staying in the house for a while here. He's got a girlfriend named Sarah Mann, and she arrived at Todd and Carol's residence there. And I guess they were all, Gordon, Daniels, Todd and Carol and her, were all planned to go out that evening. On the way there she said she saw daniels driving the jeep which was him leaving the house she entered the home but didn't see anybody there she didn't go into their bedroom because you don't go into people's bedrooms she entered the home no one was there she watched tv and played on the computer for a little while dear lord with two bodies upstairs yeah well they're

right there uh so gordon ends up getting home our gordon shows up followed 10 minutes later by todd todd asks where's carol yeah you guys seen carol um went outside then quickly came back in todd does then asked someone to call 9-1-1 because their jeep had been stolen jeep stolen so the girlfriend that was driving here, the one that was playing on the computer, she said, I just saw Daniels driving the Jeep. But he said, no, no, Jeep stolen. Got to call 911. This is crazy. You're out of your mind.

No, you didn't see that. That's crazy. Jeep stolen. So then Todd went into the bedroom. I'm going to go down to the bedroom and call 911. This is crazy. And when he gets in there oh no Carol

so he calls 911 does you know trying to resuscitate Carol giving her CPR and all this type of shit so when the deputies arrived he was you know covered in blood next to his holding her head oh God I was giving her CPR it's a horrible

thing just this poor carol man she did nothing to anybody this is crazy she didn't do shit to anybody had no idea all this is going on meanwhile this asshole's got like five different lives he's leading i'm shocked that was the choice that's not where anybody expected this to go that's the thing stunning so um the emts show up they're obviously unable to revive her. She's pronounced dead at the scene. She's been shot five times with a.44 at close range. You're not coming back from that.

So that night, Todd and Daniels talk on the phone. And Todd asked Daniels if he knew that Carol has been murdered. Did you hear Carol got killed? Yeah. Like he didn't know. And he said the police were looking for you. Police looking for you man carol got killed and he also said you know just get rid of the evidence bro what the fuck are you doing so daniels here who was at a friend's house asked todd for a ride home to get rid of the gun but todd's like i can't fucking be

seen with you shit no i'm not doing that so the next morning daniels asks lynn to have the company protect him you gotta have the company protect me man i think i'm fucked here i think i'm yeah yeah call sasha get the cia people on the line because i think i need to be relocated like i'll hide out in like turkmenistan for six eight months i'll come back he'll die down tell corporal sean i need a meeting i need colonel sean tell colonel sean we'll chit chat so lynn told daniels that todd wanted daniels to return home and dispose of the gun uh though todd warned that the house is being watched so be careful todd also mentioned the possibility that maybe you can flee to new york after you get rid of the gun well we can set you up type of thing deputies find the jeep in a parking lot a few miles from the house where daniels had left it todd tells uh uh todd later on tells because now you know she's carol's

dead he's talking to carol's family saying oh my god someone broke in our house stole our car killed carol this is crazy he tells her father father that Todd tells Carol's father that they also stole our savings from the house. We had our cash in here. It was stolen as well. Just robbed, man. But the father said he doubted that they had any money at the home because he said that his daughter, Carol, had asked him for her birthday money early so she could buy maternity clothes. So probably don't have a lot of savings laying around, liquid savings. You know what I mean? had asked him for her birthday money early so she could buy maternity clothes. Oh, wow.

So probably don't have a lot of savings laying around, liquid savings. You know what I mean? Yeah, when you're asking for money for little stuff. Yeah. So the next day, obviously, they talked to Todd. The cops do. The detectives asked him if he killed his wife and unborn child. And he said later on, he'll describe, that question just broke him mentally and physically.

He was horrified by it. He said, quote, it's barbaric, the thought of it. What gain could you get from the death of your wife and child? It's terrible. That's what he told the press, by the way. That's his press quote. He said we had a $10,000 insurance policy. That's minimal.

That's nothing. He said some of that money was used to cover her funeral, which took place the moose lodge by the way really classy and uh where he said i gave my wife's eulogy that day we'll talk about that as well the father here carol's father james holman said that carol supported herself and her husband with her job and he said that they were struggling like any other young couple and it was terrible um uh todd said he continued uh or i'm sorry uh uh carol had was going to keep working at her job at the bell insurance agency uh and bring her baby son to work whether they told her she could bring the kid in with her she'd keep working and uh yeah the office had even been redecorated to better suit the child unreal yeah that's very good work environment god damn

it yeah took up all the sharp edges you know all that kind of shit put a bunch of plastic things no shit um so uh her mother carol's mother said that she last saw her daughter in april when carol and todd came to visit and uh she also has three older brothers in Portland. And everybody's obviously pretty bummed out about this. Carol was known as a very nice person. Yeah. They said this is her mother said, quote, We while we understand and encourage the police to consider all possibilities. We do not believe Todd had anything to do with our daughter and Jesse's death. We asked the community to be supportive to the feelings of the Garten family.

So please don't say that you think he was a part of it when we're the we're the her parents and we don't think that so stop already now todd here um they said that he there was somebody suing todd here in court uh rick clark of bella vista suing him for ten thousand dollars alleging that he's guilty of breach of contract for some fencing bullshit. They add that to the story about his wife being murdered, which is funny as shit. So now the memorial here, Lynn shows up for the memorial service, by the way. Really? She comes in, and they, of course, had sex in her hotel room, Todd and Lynn, during the memorial shit and a short time later he paid on his credit card for a credit report for lynn

as the first step in helping her find a rental house in redding right by him yeah so daniels gets arrested pretty quickly here i'm sure okay yeah as he comes home to throw out the gun there's two detectives who've been fucking watching him the whole time right and um yeah so they were heard he was coming back. They take him into custody. They search his home. They find the gun. That's the murder weapon.

They find clothing, footwear, all the shit he was wearing, covered in blood, her blood, the baby's blood, additional evidence, all this shit. It's a lot. So Todd said, my friend did this? That son of a bitch. He said he could not believe anyone who knew his pregnant angel of a wife could possibly kill her and his beloved unborn son this is ridiculous

um he said she had no enemies in the in the press they're interviewing todd like who could have done and he's like i wish i knew she had no enemies everybody who knew her loved her he says um but a shasta county sheriff's detective um ends up arresting daniels and uh you know norman gerald daniels the third he's arrested at his home he's being held on a million and a half dollars bail uh detect daniels tells detectives that yes he did shoot carol he admits to it oh boy he's not real bright then he uh he said i drove the wagon here to the riding stop i parked it i headed home and uh nothing else was taken from the home he added so the savings line was bullshit that's just him trying to get insurance money um todd can't believe this in the paper he said stunned he said quote he is a good close

friend of this family. We would have given him anything he asked for. Why would this happen? I just don't understand this. Can't believe it. Daniels has got to be pissed. Oh, God. So he said in the paper, he says that I told, I've been telling, you know, Carol's father and her whole family that the shooting probably happened because daniel was was daniels was jealous of me and carol's relationship obviously he was jealous and he

couldn't have a relationship of his own so he just couldn't he couldn't see us happy man todd also acknowledged that the i'm sure the detectives do have sufficient evidence to uh suspect daniels but he says he wants to be certain they aren't just arresting anybody because that is a friend of his so So if he didn't do it, he said, quote, I want the person who did it, not the person who's convenient to get. He's like, listen, I want this done right. Not yesterday.

So, yeah, you know, it has to happen here. Todd sent the, you know, talks about, he spent the day selling camouflage things and all this type of shit. He said, I thought it was weird that the dogs were in the house and the vehicle was gone. Super weird when I got there. He said, I found my wife lying on the bedroom floor.

He said, you know, my friend Dale Gordon had just got there. His girlfriend was there, and I tried CPR. It was just too late and terrible, man. He said, we've been trying for 10 years to have a child. And finally, finally, we were going to have our sweet baby, Jesse. And he was going to have his mother's birthday of June 14th. Wow.

Which is very weird because this is around when we're recording that. That's very strange. So he said the baby was the most important thing in the world to us. That's how close, the month she was due. She was going to be an amazing mother. This guy has fucking balls

the size of cantaloupes what a fucking asshole so Carol and her friend Tracy they talk about where she went and all that kind of shit Todd said you look back he said he talked about the last time he saw his wife was at the gun show

I guess see you later he said you look back and you wish you could have said a lifetime of words. Okay. In that last time. He said he can't wrap up the many attributes of his wife in a few neat sentences. He carries a photograph of her

in his pocket watch though. Heartbroken. He said, there isn't an encyclopedia that could sum up her grace and dignity. I know people. I know people in retrospect.

They always say good things, but she's perfect no one could ever hold a candle to her except this broad lynn who i fucking hotel rooms all across rural oregon there is her but besides that she doesn't hold a candle to her she just holds my cock in her mouth you know jesus she also was into archery carol she was good at archery she's also a really good musician they said uh she was such a nice person uh she's he just talks about recently some horses ran loose in the neighborhood and carol accidentally hit one with her car breaking its leg todd said she sat on the roadside crying and crying and crying uh she he said quote she would have rather that she was the one who broke

her leg if she cared that much about much about animals relate that to how much she cared about people oh carol yeah carol was a great person he's right about all this but he can't say it no you know what i mean um he said that todd said i didn't notice any unusual behavior about my murdering asshole friend there at the gun show he was just acting normal um you know he says daniels is a single parent who held down three jobs to support his three-year-old son is what he says so i he was a good friend of mine and now um i don't know he said quote it's just unfathomable that the whole thing happened they also accused daniels of murder for financial gain which is a special qualifier that gets you gets you up for the death penalty number one yeah but it's so weird who the fuck paid him that's a weird charge uh-huh there's

no one's charged with paying him at this point so it's like that's really weird but that's what they that's what they do when they ask the district attorney about that he says quote i can't talk about the specifics what i can say is we would not allege that unless we had good faith we could prove it in court in other words there's a conspiracy charge coming in other words uh dot dot dot hang on a fucking minute here um they said well will there be any more arrests he said can't comment on that and uh what's his name here uh mcgregor scott the district attorney he also says uh that detectives have not determined a motive in the killing. He said it's something we're really sifting through.

It's unclear to us. Now, they said they had considered Todd a suspect since day one, obviously. And because of that, they're trying to get him to try to contact Daniels. So they hold a mock arraignment for daniels in shasta county superior court it's not real they just hold it and announce it in hopes that he'll try to contact him before he enters a plea and does all this shit so he hoped that they had they gave daniels a fake defense attorney and they hope that Todd would call the fake defense attorney to get a hold of him, and then they could tape record the call. Who was that?

Yeah, obviously, yeah. He never called the attorney, though, and they had the real arraignment for him later on that day. After Daniels' arrest, though, Todd tells Lynn to tell the police that Daniels was jealous of their—tell him that you heard him say he was jealous of our relationship, because that's what I'm going to tell the police that Daniels was jealous of their tell tell him that you heard him say he was jealous of our relationship because that's what I'm going to tell the cops and um yeah and that she had only ever interacted with Daniels over the internet and uh also make sure you say that we have no romantic relationship me and you okay great good you don't know what I taste like let's move on there you go June 1998 detectives come to Lynn's house to talk to her seeing them approach from the kitchen window she calls todd quick because fucking cops are here yeah and he tells her to quote

remember the truth that we discussed and stick to that not the truth the truth that we talked about that truth yeah remember that so daniel's at they're like, okay, Todd's not calling him. We'll have Daniels call Todd. He's a fucking moron. He'll probably take the call. So on May 18th, the detectives have Daniels call Todd. Call Todd. In that recorded conversation, Daniels tells Todd that he, quote, copped a plea of jealousy.

And he said, quote, I'm going to. Oh, yes. quote copped a plea of jealousy and uh he said quote i'm gonna oh uh yes no that's what uh that's what uh todd said that he told him he said oh he told me that he was jealous and that's what it was he said i'm going to get on the phone this is what todd told him quote i'm gonna get on the phone to the big boys and see what we can pull here i'll see whatever monies you had coming goes to your kid or your family or something he says you know don't worry about that he says uh even if you get the death penalty you're going to get yours don't you worry about that quote we'll take care of you you're taking care of the company

even if you get the death penalty what that thousand dollars is going to go to your kid don't you worry about it well that'll cheer him right up when he wonders where dad is sent to your fam don't worry don't no really well no don't try to say we don't have to do it it's no problem at all it's the least we can do take care of the tax deductions and everything oh man so now lynn they talk to lynn she is making contradictory statements left and fucking right she's not good at this at all and uh they ask her a lot about the trip that he todd took there in april 1998 and she's making contradictory statements she told the detectives that she didn't see him that month and later said that she did and then she told another the

prosecutor a different story yeah it's not good so there's a bunch of evidence as well that kind of incriminating to Todd that Todd and Carol traveled to Oregon in April 98. During that visit, Todd met up with Lynn and they had sex, even though Carol was there, too. Not in the room, obviously. During the same month, Todd ordered business cards from a local printing store for someone called the Patriot. Yeah. from a local printing store for someone called the Patriot. Yeah. And also later ordered a flyer for Carol's memorial service at the same store.

He's like, I have an account already. I'm the Patriot guy. How dumb is this fucking guy? They won't notice that. Yeah. He also kept a receipt from April 27th, 1998 from office max showing the purchase of a manila envelope, a pager, a label maker, and several other office supplies that you would give

a hit package to. So they went, let's go ahead and arrest Todd. We're arresting Todd. So they arrest Todd at about 4 p.m. at a home, not his home, but a different home. This is two weeks after the due date of their son, by the way. They arrest him. So he is held at the Shasta County Jail on suspicion of homicide and conspiracy to commit murder. And bail is set at a million dollars.

Carol's father doesn't want to believe it. He says, quote, this has to be a monster to do something like this. Yeah, obviously. That's a fact man you're right truth he faces various felony charges in including the murder the conspiracy murder of a human fetus murder for financial gain murder for this murder for that lots of murder for jelly donuts murder of you know doesn't matter murder of the truth murder of the truth murder of common sense valor common sense there's a lot of things really so they said that um you know the the cop said to the press you can still

be a principal although you're not involved in the act talking about the conspiracy the father now carol's father's super pissed he says quote i didn't see any remorse from him during the funeral he was calm and putting on a show. If he needed the $20,000, I would have given it to him. So if he needed the fucking money, if that's what it's about, then they also arrest Lynn, too, because her stories aren't lining up. She's booked on a million dollars bail, two counts of murder. Same thing. She's living with her husband, Dean, and their two children, five and three years old. she tried to have the father of her five and three year old murdered that's fucking insane

they live together finally though when the cops cops showed up with a search warrant at their home and dean found out what's going on he took the kids and left really i'm done with you bitch yeah he was done he said that uh the shasta County detective, Steve Grasshoff, knocked on the door and they questioned his wife and then told Dean that their belief was that there had been several foiled murder plots against him, by the way. They've been trying to kill you for two years, dude. And Dean said in the understatement of the fucking year, said, quote, it's an eye-opening experience. Yeah. Yes. That's the understatement of the fucking year said quote it's an eye-opening experience yeah yes that's the understatement of the year if you don't have an appreciation for that i think it's an eye-opening experience i didn't know that i didn't know that was an option in here if you don't have an appreciation for life you do after this it's a day you don't forget yeah the day the cops knock on your door

and tell your wife's been trying to kill you for two years you don't forget that day no one ever does boy i'll tell you what that's like your it's like your first kiss you're just never gonna forget it boy mr kinda wow yeah um anyway so uh he said quote my opinions have changed drastically as to what anybody's capable of after this. Yep. So then Dale Gordon gets arrested as well. They bring in Dale. Now, Todd, by the way, during this whole thing, they're all in the same jail, the Shasta County Jail.

All these fucking morons, the four of them. So Todd threatens Daniel's life in jail and attacks him in an elevator in the jail. Why would they allow those people near each other? Well, let's find out. So he got a misdemeanor battery charge after that. There was a preliminary. I'm sorry. It happened October 1st.

Todd and Daniels were headed to the second day of their preliminary hearing for the homicide case. Todd spent the first day of the hearing listening to the details of Danieliel's confession where he gives them everything daniels had told he told about everything so while en route to court for the second day daniels was riding in an elevator when the doors opened on level three and there there was fucking todd standing there when the doors open and uh todd rushed him saying oh you're dead is what he told him and started attacking him. There was a deputy there. So the deputy told Todd not to enter the elevator, even though he did. Then Todd swung his closed fist at Daniels, hitting him in the head, face and upper torso several times.

Seconds later, more deputies arrived and separated the two. So, yeah, obviously he's, you you know whatever um yeah uh that's crazy so uh todd said i guess they said that quote that he quote threatened to kill norm if we ever turned on him that's why he did it so that's what daniel says so inmates are usually made to wear full restraints uh belly chains around their waist and wrists plus leg irons when traveling from jail to court he said but uh inmates do not typically wear the restraints in the jail and they were technically in the jail even though they were coming back from court or whatever so or going to court they didn't get in

that shit yet so this is this is fucking weird um i would say so now there's a fight over the ashes of carol by the way who wants them well the they, the cremated ashes of Jesse and Carol, her parents want them. Yeah. Her parents want the ashes, but they said they're unable to get their daughter's ashes because Todd's parents have them. Why? Because after the service, the ashes were given to the husband. They were given to the spouse and uh he then when he got arrested gave them to his parents and that's where they are so the father i know this is carol's

mother virginia said quote our family was denied the right to scatter carol and little jesse's remains because they had they were cremated it's been a very sad situation and the fact that we couldn't get the remains was especially hard on the family again. So, yeah, they said that Todd's parents said, well, no remains left. We already scattered them. What? We scattered them over some waterfalls. What the fuck? That's it.

Yeah. Now, her parents said that they were devastated. They were planning on making a memorial for Carol near their homes, and that was part of it. They said, quote, that is the only thing that we have left of her for her remembrance. We feel like we've disappointed her. Jesus Christ, that's brutal. You can't do that. Yeah, that's gross.

And they even tried to get a lawyer. They consulted with an attorney about getting the remains back, but the attorney told them they couldn't get the remains back unless Todd was convicted of this. Then you can get them back. But until then, he's the spouse. They belong to him. That's all there is to it. Also, that Carol's family was unable to benefit from the new state health and safety code because the regulation went into effect this year. So it says the law says no person charged with first or second degree murder or voluntary manslaughter has the right to control the victim's remains.

So but that came into effect after that. Now, Todd and Lynn in court, they let their the judge severs their cases. Lynn puts in a thing to have her shit severed and they're severed. So, yeah, she's charged with the conspiracy also to kill Dean. So are all. So is, you know, Daniels and and Todd and Gordon, all of them. So Lynn decides she's going to cop a plea here. She's not going to do this shit.

She pleads and she's sentenced to you, sir. Are you, ma'am? May fuck off 25 to life. Shit. 25 to life. She got for that. That's on a plea. That's on a plea.

They said she was up for the death penalty otherwise. So they said she was, quote, quite tearful in court when she agreed to that. Gordon gets a sentence of 10 years in state prison, which is the maximum for attempted murder because he was only in on the attempted murder part. So anyway, both of they they when they they both pled on this, Gordon and and Lynn, and they waive their rights to appeal with this as well. That's part of the deal. No right to appeal. They must serve 85 percent of their sentences before they're paroled. If Lynn's released from prison, she will be placed on lifetime parole as well.

That's part of her deal. Twenty one years. That's part of her deal. 21 years. That's yep. And it also, she had to sign an agreement saying she would testify truthfully in the trials of Norman Daniels and Todd. So anyway, Todd's trial comes up. It is insane.

They prosecution plays a tape phone conversation where he's the one where he called and was, you know, talking about all that. He says in the conversation quote todd asks him quote so you said you did it and uh daniel said i just went oh i'm sorry uh he then says quote i just went to the wall for you with record searchlight i can't believe you did that man um good job i guess so then uh he offers to hire daniel's a lawyer tells

him not to worry you know the company will take care of him blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah so uh they talk about his boasts you know the prosecution about who he says he is the defense attorney here tells jurors that listen this daniel's testimony and all these other co-defendants they can't be trusted no you can't trust them he said quote you will have to keep an open mind. You bet. That's rough when you're opening a defense case and you're going, I'm going to need you to keep an open mind here.

That's not good. You're going to get a lot of things today. Wow. He describes this attorney, the defense attorney, describes the co-defendants as, quote, failures whose interests in vampires, fantasy worlds and computer games were their own, not Todd's. So this is all this is their fantasy world they're talking about, not Todd's fantasy world here. He described Todd as a man who was excited about his coming son taking birthing classes with his wife and was busy with his successful fencing business

obviously i'm fencing everything i'll fence you in motherfucker that's right so uh now daniels testifies and he gets on there and uh the district attorney said i think told the press i think he wants to tell the truth and so he gets on there and uh they by the way about daniels the defense attorney said quote isn't he a sleazy little lying murderer that's what how he described daniels uh then said we noted that his friendship ended when he unloaded five wrens five rounds into his friend's wife terrible fucking person um so they talked about well why did you when they get daniels on the stand why did you believe all of his stories yeah what the fuck are you doing um he said well he had a he had a knowledge of the military he had a tattoo of a celtic cross and then he also had the same symbol marked on

one of his guns so i thought it was all legitimate issue stuff you can't do all those things yourself they said are you just trusting and he says quote it's a fault i guess i'm a trusting person i guess so for example if you told me you had a million dollars in the bank i wouldn't i wouldn't ask you for your bank statement no okay that's you could tell this guy anything. During this, Todd yelled at the prosecutor, by the way, in the middle of the whole thing. When Daniels, I guess Daniels had, there was a sequence of questions and answers. And there's something that they, they messed something up, the prosecutor and Daniels. I don't remember what happened here. But the prosecutor chuckled over the awkwardness of the whole thing.

And then he said, sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but he answered the wrong question to this and that yeah so todd yelled at the prosecutor he said quote he's just a murderer why don't you just go ahead and laugh what i don't know uh the judge told him to sit down and shut the fuck up and uh gordon dale gordon has the testimony of the day he gets up here and he says listen here's what happened i was living at the house and uh you know they wanted to kill the pregnant wife all that uh they i guess they were gonna you know whatever get the insurance policy i don't know that's what i guess ended up happening he said that listen once i got to jail is there like what are you how you been since you've been in jail? Gordon says, well, uh, been put on medication for having hallucinations. That's a problem.

Um, yeah. Including visions of being attacked by the devil, which is, that seems scary. Um, then seeing images of God as well. And he said, I'm still on the medication as of right now, sitting on the stand. And they said, so they gave you, they gave you medication. And he said, quote, I was completely out of my mind. I was completely insane. Somebody else in the jail podcast spells on me.

Sorcery. It's in the Bible. Oh, Jesus Christ. That's, that's what he said. It's in the Bible. Jesus Christ. That's what he said. It's in the Bible.

Then at one point, he said, I guess the defense attorney said that is this revenge on Todd. And Gordon said, quote, by telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The truth hurts, and I know it hurts, doesn't it, Todd? And he looked at Todd. And then the attorneys agree later that they saw Gordon, quote, flip off Todd in the courtroom. Doesn't it, Todd? And then he gave him the finger. This is amazing. The judge said that they wouldn't reprimand the witness out of fairness to the defense.

They will explain to the jury that, you know, that's not an official finger that was given. that's not an official finger that was given yeah gordon then said that he knows he's a quote terrible christian for lying to the police about a murder attempt on dean uh which they never did but he said quote the bible tells us lying lips are an abomination to the lord and i don't want to be an abomination to the lord i want to tell the truth as best i can okay you are a fucking 73 iq murderer not a murderer a uh an almost murder an attempted murder conspirators a would-be murderer so um yeah if they if the prosecutors say that gordon's lying and they call him on it he can face get the murder charges reinstated and face life in prison so um daniels confesses in court by the way that he fired all five shots he's all the things we said um yeah uh then gordon said

quote if he hadn't done what he did to carol i wouldn't be sitting here i'm pissed at him for killing my good friend carol garten so he's mad he's mad at daniels for doing this he also blames daniels for telling the police about the murder attempt on Dean. He says Daniels told everything. He told about what happened in Oregon, which was enough to send me to prison. Like that shit passed. Why do we have to bring that up? No one died. What the

fuck? They show graphic autopsy pictures. Very graphic here. Jesus Christ. I mean, it's bad, man. They show, it's like there's gunpowder burns on her face that's how close this is surrounded by a neat bullet hole evidence of close range obviously a black eye showed that another bullet fired into the back of her neck came to a stop in that eye socket it was right there shot in the chest uh in the back in the

back of the head it's not good uh the defense attorney said the back, in the back of the head. It's not good. The defense attorney said the pictures, hey, the pictures are very disturbing to Todd here. He said he vomited in court right off out of this. He had to puke from it. He was so horrified. The defense attorney said, quote, I'm having to talk to him and divert him all the time. His hands are always shaking. Imagine having to go through hearing about his unborn son with a bullet through its head.

Imagine fucking trying to pay someone to do that. Wow. Lynn said, Lynn testifies, said that, you know, Todd gets angry sometimes. At one point, he angrily threw her against a hotel room wall after an attempt to kill Dean in the parking garage didn't work because she had sent a different car he's lynn said quote he was furious he's very hot-headed he said there were other people involved and a lot of time and money invested the whole company here yeah she said she had changed her mind several times about wanting to kill her husband whenever she did todd would convince her that dean was cheating on her and you know all that she said quote it hurt he fueled my fire you certainly want to kill him don't you uh so uh she also said that

when she met Todd at her hotel room to ask what happened Lynn said that she didn't know they began to argue and Garten threw her against a wall at that point she said I was really scared he said at one point we're going to try the murder again. I said, well, I don't really want you to. And he said he wanted to go through with it. So she tried to appease him by saying she would get Dean to go to the movies that night so another murder attempt could be made. However, she kept him home and they had dinner guests coming over. No reason to go out.

And they had dinner guests coming over. No, no, you know, reason to go out. So she said that that she wasn't willing. She said she wasn't willing to pay Todd for the murder because she would need all of her husband's life insurance to raise her children. And if she and Dean married afterwards or she and Todd married afterwards, they would share everything anyway. So why fucking bother paying him? She said, my thinking was in the long run, it might be better for the kids

to go through a loss than a bitter custody battle. Are you kidding me? It might be better for the kids for their father to be murdered. I don't think so. Then Todd testifies on his own behalf. This is the type of guy who has to.

He has to. He's like Ted Bundy. I'm a salesman i'll tell these people what's up he denied he was involved in any plot to kill dean or in carol's murder he said that uh on weekends he traveled to hunting equipment shows across the region these trips often took him to oregon one was to eugene where he did meet lynn but they didn't have any sex that's crazy he said we've never had sex in any of the years since we broke up all the way to the time Carol died. We never had sex here.

He said, although Lynn did repeatedly tell him about her suspicion that Dean was having an affair, he said he never provided her with any information to confirm these suspicions, even though he's the one that planted the suspicions. He said in early 1998, Todd said he met with Gordon and Daniels at the Moose Lodge to discuss a trip to Portland. There, they did not discuss killing Dean. Instead, they discussed going to a hunting equipment show. It was just February 1998. The three morons traveled to Portland to promote Todd's business. They brought a variety of weapons and gear, but Garton shot none of the guns they brought during the trip,

even though they said he fired a gun out the hotel window. They spent the first night at a Quality Inn and visited downtown Portland. Yeah, rough. The next morning, they did not go to the parking garage near Dean's work. They then went to the Hampton Inn where Todd met Lynn, and that evening, Daniels and Gordon took Todd's car and went to a bar near Lynn's home while they were alone. And then the three of them left the next morning. So he said he returned to Portland on May 9th. Todd does, accompanied by Carol.

He phoned Daniels from a hotel during that visit to discuss an ongoing fencing project that was behind schedule. This is all innocent. It could all be explained away. Todd said he had life insurance through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and had acquired another policy through a private company in May 98. He said he didn't believe Carroll even had life insurance, even though they were both there to

do the policy at the office and the guy came in and testified. He said he never approached Daniels about becoming a paid assassin. He never made or saw a wax seal imprinted with a trinket from his home. That's crazy. Although he did buy an electric label maker. It was for his mother to give to her friend. Duh.

Not even for me. Jesus. Todd also did not buy Daniels the gun he used in Carol's murder, nor did he suggest buying that particular gun. He did give Daniels a holster as well as drive him to pick up the gun, just being a good friend. He also went with Daniels to fire the gun after Daniels had purchased it. May 16, 1998, murder day. He said he went to work at a nearby gun show. Carol visited him.

Later on, he received a message from Daniel saying, all done going home. He was like, I don't know what that meant, but I get home and, you know, Gordon and his girlfriend are there. I said, where's Carol? Noticed the Jeep had been stolen. I saw all this blood. I yelled for someone to call 911. I couldn't find her pulse. It was horrible.

He said that I didn't speak with Lynn or Daniels the next day. He said, but I did receive a call from Daniels and, you know, all that going on. So he told Daniels that he would speak with his dad and older brother, who he had previously called the big boys. So I didn't mean big shots in this organization. I was talking about my dad and older brother who are taller than me. i didn't mean big shots in this organization i was talking about my dad and older brother who are taller than me you didn't know that so then the jurors had to watch patriot games what the harrison ford movie yes this is from an article harrison ford made a cameo appearance for the jurors and the todd garten murder trial thursday shooting up the

bad guys and movie prosecutors say garten borrowed from when plotting to kill his wife. Wow. Garten is on trial here. So they said that the defense attorneys, Russell and Swartz and James Pierce, request to jurors view the 1992 movie in its entirety to counter the prosecutor's analysis of it. The prosecutor said it's the plot of Patriot Games and he watches it all the time. And the defense said, we're going to watch Patriot Games and you show me where that fucking plot is. So anyway, the attorneys at that point started a second movie owned by Todd called Whispering Death.

At that point, started a second movie owned by Todd called Whispering Death. It's a home produced film about gun silencers and how to make them that he made. So there's that. Weeks early. Yeah, that's interesting. They also said Daniels said he and Garten watched several of Garten's videos as assassination training films there. So they all these references, though, to to the patriot game shit is fucking hilarious uh the attorney says in patriot games portrays ira members as bad guys and the film's hero protects his wife and child from the ira patriot games is a no is no training film for someone

who's supposed to be an ira sympathizer wow that's amazing the defense attorney said quote but as long as i sorry, the prosecutor said, as long as it's relevant, I don't have a problem with it, though. I like Harrison Ford as much as the next guy. I'm not going to lie here. That's just a great movie. And he used Patriot as another thing. By the way, Sean, apparently, according to one of,

I think it was Daniels, Sean is another reference to the Patriot Games movie because uh in the movie the alias I guess uh it's a reference from the movie at some point I don't know what fucking reference it is now he all the prosecutor also said that they may have other movies shown or the defense attorney said other movies might be shown that they mentioned too including Sniper with Tom Berringer uh Ultimate Sniper with tom berringer uh ultimate sniper with tom berringer's older brother yeah and uh la femme nikita the usa television show i assume day of the jackal which is a old movie as well these are all movies that todd owned um so yeah

anyway uh they said this is uh this is serious there's an evidentiary purpose for watching this video. Who's going to spend a day in the thriller section of Blockbuster? And while we're going to watch all the action movies, that's right. Seagal, then Van Damme, then we go down the line. That's how we're doing it. So verdict comes in. Four hours of deliberations for Todd. He has found... Two thumbs up.

Giggity guilty. Two thumbs up guilty. Two thumbs up for Todd. He has found... They give him two thumbs up. Giggity guilty. Two thumbs up guilty. Two thumbs up for murder. Sentencing comes around. Death penalty is up here, and they're looking for it. They have victim impact statement, have Carol's father,

stepmother, two brothers. The family described Carol's personality and interest and her excitement about becoming a parent. They talked about Carol's personality and interest and her excitement about becoming a parent they talked about Carol's death and how seriously the death has affected them as a family as individuals the defense did not present any

evidence in the penalty phase which is a bad sign at the beginning they do their whole thing through the closing argument at the beginning of the closing argument before discussing the mitigating factors and arguing in favor of a sentence with life without parole uh todd's counsel says he quote has a message as counsel for mr garten to deliver to the jury he pointed out that daniel's role in the crime said todd was incarcerated and found guilty

and and concluded that uh quote to todd life without family freedom or honor has little value he's an honorable marine man you might as well kill him he's neither asking for he's he's asking uh he's neither asking nor he expects more than death from you so he said go ahead and kill him that was their defense we no defense. He'd rather die than live without his family and freedom and honor and valor and all that shit. So, yeah, the prosecutor said a mother was violently taken from her child and a child was taken from its mother and a grandchild from its grandparents. We can go all the way down the line with their great parents from this and this from that and a partridge in a pear tree. Yeah, exactly. And the leg bones connected to the knee

bone so um the prosecutor also says that death should be imposed in the most extreme types of cases this is one of those cases these murders were unusually cruel and because of that punish that because of that the punishment must fit the crime yeah she couldn't fucking defend herself nine months pregnant lady in bed he didn't't give any sympathy, compassion or mercy to his wife. He's not deserving of your sympathy, compassion or mercy. So, yeah, they said, yeah, that's that's that. They also point out the defense says that Norman Daniels has killed his wife. This is the final plea for to save him.

Mr. Garten points out to you the following. He says, Mr. Daniels has killed his wife. This is the final plea for to save him. Mr. Garten points out to you the following. He says, Mr. Daniels has killed his wife, Carol Garten, Norman Daniels killed his son, Jesse James Garten, Norman Daniels took his family from him.

The police took his freedom. This verdict has taken his honor. The only thing Todd Garten has left is his life. His life is nothing without his family, freedom, and honor. You might as well kill him. That was it. Done. Walking away.

Drop the fucking mic. Yeah. They also point out that a prison cell is no larger than his own bathroom. And they show a slideshow of flowers and sunsets and beaches and mountains and even uh uh all this shit and they say that these are all things he's never going to see again uh including this fucking area of ireland that he visited and all this type of shit and blah blah blah blah blah and so the jury takes 70 minutes to deliberate this and they come back and, sir, may fuck off death penalty for you, asshole. Yeah, you're getting that you fucking lying asshole twat.

So they said he stood motionless and stood for straight ahead. It was seven men and five women doing that one. And the verdict, they said the verdict was one that Todd welcomed. His attorney told jurors that, as we know. The juror afterwards, one of the jurors, a 19-year-old from Bella Vista, said, quote, it was black and white. A thousand other jurors in there would have come to the same conclusion. It was tough, though, to say it. Yeah.

Tough to say, kill this guy. But, yeah. Let's see here. um uh let's see here also the father her father carol's father said quote when we came down here for the funeral todd told us don't pay attention to these police they're just a bunch of hicks and then he said for a bunch of hicks they did pretty good not bad not bad yeah everybody busted pretty fucking quick here there was a book about this but we didn't use the book here at all really um it was called robert scott robert Really. Um, it was called Robert Scott, Robert Scott wrote it. It was called killer be killed. And it was about this whole thing. Um,

at the time, I don't know where the hell this book is. Uh, anyway, he said, it's got a small following. It's kind of creepy. That's what he said. The book's kind of creepy and it's gained a small following now on the appeal here. Um, he appeals on a bunch of dumb shit. He's a moron. One of the things he appeals on that's the only one I'm really going to talk about for a second is that he appeals on the fact that he didn't wear his wedding ring in court. They wouldn't let him wear his wedding ring in court. And that there's a whole thing about how in society the wedding ring signifies your commitment to this relationship. And him not wearing the wedding ring means that he was not committed to carol and the jury if he had a wedding ring on

they would have at least they would have maybe they would have found him guilty but they would have at least not put him to death if he had a wedding ring on who puts a man with a ring on to death it's never happened before right so i would that would make me more angry if i was on the jury if i was on the jury and i was angry at a guy for all this shit and then he was still sitting there with his fucking wedding ring on i'd be like hang him by his wedding ring yeah put somehow get his head inside that right wedding ring because fuck this guy so anyway uh appeals went that went all the way to the state supreme court denied uh still death penalty was going all the way to the supreme court i think they didn't they refused to hear it or told him to fuck off also yeah and he's in jail they're all in jail

except for uh gordon who he's waiting yeah he's awaiting death um who knows if he ever gets it but i mean it's been 20 fucking five years at this point since the murder so wow man either way but then uh we're daniels and uh daniels and lynn it's been 25 years yeah oh they're up for parole they're done yeah they're up for parole and uh i mean lynn might be out by now we don't know so i couldn't find her but uh either way they're out there that everyone is cottonwood california i don't know man that waskers. That's the craziest story I've ever heard. It's insane. Insanely twisted.

We've done this for six years. That's the craziest story I've ever heard. It reminds me of Hammond, Indiana with that guy. It's similar, but this is even crazier. Kudos to Allison for finding the story, by the way. Very good job there, Allison, on finding the story. This was a fucking crazy story. Wow.

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That's perfect. Remember those candies bonkers in the 80s? What was your favorite flavor? That's the one you go. That's perfect. Remember those candies, Bonkers, in the 80s? What was your favorite flavor? That's the one. Yes. That's good. Chocolate was amazing.

Chocolate was good. I just saw, Sarah and I watch old commercials sometimes because they're funny at night when I put them on stone. And there was an old Bonkers commercial on for chocolate ones. Yeah. It was fucking crazy. It's a great commercial. It's like, oh, these, yeah, these are nuts commercials.

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That's a show with some tickets left. Let's sweat it together. Let's do it. Also, Milwaukee. Come. Bring the heat, Milwaukee. That is in September. It's a huge, giant theater.

If you guys sell this out, this will be the biggest show we've ever done. So whenever anyone asks, what's the biggest show you ever did? We'll always be saying, we fucking love Milwaukee. So come Milwaukee. Beat out Chicago. Go ahead. And by the way, if you saw the Chicago show and you're within driving distance to Milwaukee because they're close, we're doing a completely different show in Milwaukee than we did in Chicago. So come on out and see it again.

We promise you will not be disappointed. Do that. Patreon.com slash crime and sports. My goodness, do we have a lot of good stuff there and uh it's not going to stop this week and by the way anybody five dollars or above you're going to get access to everything that we put out bonus wise crime and sports bonus small town murder bonus all the bonus and uh this week you are going to get first of all for crime and sports you're going to get uh we're going to talk about each of our top five sports movie lists of all time.

And not only that, there'll be a couple honorable mentions because there'll be a couple that are really hard to leave off. But we're going to exclude a couple that we know will be in both of our top three. So we're not repeating ourselves, basically. We'll exclude those like Major League, The Sandlot, shit like that. Exclude those like Major League, you know, the Sandlot, shit like that. Now, if you want, if you want to put that on the list, because that was going to be my number one or two was Bad News Bears. Yeah, because it's one of the best sports shows ever. Major League, Bad News Bears.

Yeah, you almost have to take those out and put them aside. So we'll figure out a formula, but it'll be fun there. Check that out. But then for Small Town Murders, we are going to do, very requested to go back and do some more old timey murders where we go through old newspaper articles and it's anything from the last who knows since there's been newspapers that we've printed and we go through and we find really weird murders and very strange

things and then I'm also going to include some weird articles that I've seen while perusing other murders things like alien shit clowns being murdered in Madison Square Garden all sorts of weird shit we'll talk about all that patreon.com slash crime and sports and you're gonna get a shout out at the end of the show where jimmy will mispronounce your name think i'm bullshitting you well guess what i'm gonna prove it right now hit me with that list jimmy this week's executive producers are leona messing rob, Robin Heyer, Isaac Moya in New Mexico. I hope you love it there.

Oh, yes. He wanted me to tell him that it was okay. That was a few weeks ago. It's not okay. He knows it's not okay. It's not okay. No. Certainly not.

Janae Wood-Mathis. She came to our show in, where were we just at? I don't remember. It was good to see you, Janae. Thank you for coming. Good hangout. Fran Hitzke in Australia, Jordan Bennett, Sandra Wilkie, Britton Edwards, and Colton Cox. Thank you guys for everything, truly.

Thank you. You're fantastic individuals. Other producers this week are Justine McNeil, and also the master of karate and friendship for everyone, James. Good, good. The day man is here. Excellent. The Day Man is here. Excellent.

Liz Vasquez, Joey Pepperoni Nips, Ruben Barbasol, Ken Rodriguez, Peyton Meadows, Natalie Young, happy hour checking in in Ontario, California, Chloe Rush, Georgiana Porter, Barry McCockiner. You happy now? You proud of yourself? Lori Knack, Tony Pepperoni Nips, impasta, evidently. Janice Hill, Jason Barnes, Jude Kendall, Megan Deliberate. Megan Deliberate? She wrote a book. It's called No Place for Lizard on Kickstarter, James.

Don't ask Jimmy to pronounce Italian last names. That's the name of the book. How could you do that, Megan? Doug Jones, Kayla Jones, Jason Gillis, Shelley Roberts, Jamel Thomas. Happy birthday. names that's the name of the book how could you do that megan doug jones kayla jones jason gillis shelly roberts jamelle thomas happy birthday martha taljard or taljard taljard i don't know uh she she wanted me to try to pronounce some some latin shit that says shut up and give me murder but there's no way i can do that tase it uh me homicidium is Is that close? No. Brendan Abel. Steve Schnell. Kirby Cherry.

Michael Davis. Gina Engel. Madison with no last name. Alicia with no last name. Ann Jones. Sammy Salami Nips. Levi Wiley. Excellent.

Melly Clark. The Real Colby Cheese Murderer. The real one, James. Caitlin Ann. Matt Clark. Coming out of the dark. Mike Miller. Jose Avila. Patrick Britt Matt Clark. Coming out of the dark. Mike Miller. Jose Avea.

Patrick Britton. Katrina Livensparger. Courtney Horst. Ann Skeba. Andrew Edgington. Jason Owls. Alice Owls, I think. I got a hardic.

Are you proud of yourself, you son of a bitch? Grace Anderson. Ryan Benner. Ryan Horan. Arista Garten. Laura Taylor. Yvette Anselmo, Courtney Bolton, Tiffany Kirchenberger, Raka Gunmegas, Linda Jackson, Jacob Cunningham, Bell Hooper, Dave Pearson, Jody Matthews, Malin, Malin, Stephanie, no, Steffi, Kim Windham, Angela Doherty, Alex Stace, Jay Hawker, Grayson with no last name, Nicole with no last name, Danisha Mays, Sherry Kappas, Brayden Tang, I think, Colin Monette, Samantha Flowers. It's delicious stuff. Nipsey 3. I don't think anyone's ever had that.

Oh, really? I think I had it when I was like three one time or something. I've had it. Yeah. Fuck yeah, it still exists. I haven't had it in years, but I know it still exists. Nipsey 3. Jen DeBoer.

Courtney with no last name. No thanks to you. I'm not the one supporting it. Samantha Flowers, I said that. Courtney with no last name. Lila Cummings. Christy McNamara. Kelly with no last name. Michael Dowd.

Chloe Brasher, Marzipan S, that sounds like a drug, Una Newman, Jen Cry, Shelby with no last name, Andrea Tedesco, Daniel, Danielle, Kelly, Sybil, Sybil, Sybil, Sierra, Kelly McCabe, I know it, Ty Johnson, Joel W, Sybil. Listen, it's spelled C-Y-B-e-l-e that's sible it's sible bell maybe bell yeah it's probably sible uh jay chopious chap chapius chip use chip woos uh joel w i think i said that daniel jackson pat with no last name brian bachner lisa with no last name rachel van gordon dana cr last name. Rachel Van Gordon. Dana Crum. Toya Ward.

Chris Drain. What? Ben Klain. Kyle Howell. Hattie Sprugans. Caleb with no last name. Amy Colby. Robert Glenn. Lisa Green. Loretta Leak. Oh, boy. Deshane. Deshanea. Bass.

Bass. Madison Wood. Paula Thompson. Don't hurt people and take their stuff, evidently. Crystal Log. Bass. Madison Wood. Paula Thompson. Don't hurt people and take their stuff. Evidently. Crystal Log. Long. Not Log. The Creepy Lady Next Door.

Babruski. Cole Mann. Joe Muscle Man. Omar Goos Man. Kelly from the Netherlands. I'm a man. Hey. Netherlands. Thank you.

Christina Farrington. Jenna Lowe. Danielle Mitchell. Tricia McCarthy, Carl Martin, Jennifer McC... Oh, man. Kulich, Casey Harrell, Alejandro Baling, Kate Peterson, Jonathan Eric Federsen, Adam Taylor, Chris Roddick, Gracie Bellender, Kyle Banks, blanks, Dana White's penis, Wendy Chappelle, Pickle Pie.

Good to hear from him. Blanks. Dana White's penis. Wendy Chappelle. Pickle Pie. Berlin's whimsy. Rob Seguin. Jennifer McKay. Funmi Lorindi. I don't know. Chantelle Marie. Max Burns. Jason Pickett. Gage Wagner. Fred Goins. Jake Stover. Garrett Fairchild. Lauren Ann Jacob with no last name. Sarah Fields Boyd. Jennifer Little. Matt with no last name sarah fields boy jennifer little matt with no last name theresa bowie no michelle cost gray crenshaw jamie soledad uh dan delia delia armstrong miss leany and all of our patrons you guys are amazing thank you everybody so much from the bottom of our hearts we do appreciate you and everything that you do for us. Hope you enjoy all the bonus content and everything we're putting out. If you want to find us on social media, Jimmy and I, you know, individually, you can find us very easy. Go to

shutupandgivememurder.com. There's links to all of it. Or just Google Small Town Murder Podcast Hosts. I guarantee you we'll pop up. Our social media will be there and we'll be happy to hear from you. So that said, I hope everybody has a wonderful week because we're going to keep coming back and we'll be happy to hear from you so that said yeah i hope everybody has a wonderful week because we're going to keep coming back and we'll see you on friday for express and until next week everybody it's been our pleasure Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

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