Small Town Murder - #305 - STM Express - The Swanson Motel Murders - Dickinson, North Dakota

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

This week, in Dickinson, North Dakota, a grisly, and horrifying scene is found in a small town motel, populated by transient oil workers, and drifters, of all types. The problem is that no one in this tiny police department had ever dealt with a double homicide, and it shows. The case goes cold, after years pass, but eventually FBI agent John Douglas puts a profile together, that matches one of the original suspects, perfectly. When they track this man down, they find out he's definitely murdered another woman, and is wanted for being a suspect in many more, across multiple states. It looks like the beginning of uncovering the depths of a serial killer... until it all stops cold. A crazy story, with a wild ending!!Along the way, we find out that you shouldn't ever be outside, past 5pm in North Dakota, that you should never trust anyone who has ever worked at a carnival, and that sometimes, FBI profiles can be incredibly accurate!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you so much for joining us all aboard the murder train, everyone. We are pulling away from the station quickly here this week. We have a crazy story. we're going to a state we haven't been to in forever it's been it's been about four and a half years since we've been to this state so it's crazy yes making a return to the northern kind of barren country up there to

the tundra of north dakota we'll do that very quickly though before we get started first of all shut up and give me murder.com is where you get all your merchandise and especially your tickets to live shows get those august 12th we are in san francisco at cob uh cobs comedy club two shows that night they're different shows two different stories so feel free to come to both we look forward to seeing you the next night in sacramento still a few tickets for crime and sports left small town murder sold out but keep checking back you never know some tickets may open up people are allowed to return them and of course september 10th milwaukee oh baby at the paps we are excited for that one because this will be our biggest show ever and uh the tickets are

selling we're getting close and we're pushing for the sellout on this. And so we can tell everyone, what's your biggest show ever? Milwaukee, baby. Damn right. That's right. Not New York. Not LA. Not Seattle. Milwaukee.

That's right. So we're very, very excited. Thank you for doing that. And everybody, if you saw the Chicago show, feel free to come up. It's a different story. Please do. Get your asses up there and let's do this. And Patreon this week. Patreon.com slash crime and sports yeah all your bonus stuff here we put out

tons of bonus episodes you're gonna get four of them a month at least it's every other week you get two episodes anybody five dollars or above you get access to all of it small town murder crime and sports everything this week for crime sports, we're going to talk about Michael Jordan's scandals. The most bulletproof media figure in the history of sports and entertainment is Michael Jordan. He's the only person ever that could wear a Hitler mustache on television trying to sell underwear. And we all go, that's okay, that's fine, it's Michael Jordan. Get away with anything. Tell me about the tagless shirts, Mike.

Gambling, conspiracy theories on his dad's death, and affairs, paternity suits, a giant divorce. It's a lot of fun. And then Small Town Murder, we're going to do our favorite thing. Small Town Murder, or not murder, Small Town Reviews. Hell yeah. Oh my goodness, those are so fun. It's been over a year.

So we're very excited to dip back into that. We'll talk about a couple of small businesses even that were terrible, some terrible local businesses and things like that. We'll get into everything. That is patreon.com slash crimeandsports, and you'll also get a shout-out at the end of the show. That said, let's do it, Jimmy. It's murder time. All right. Sit back. Let's clear the

lungs, everybody, wherever you are. Hopefully not in anywhere too public of a place. And shout shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy. We were so close. I know. It's good. It's not bad.

Like we said, we like it. It's jazz. We're doing our own thing on the Shut Up and Give Me Murder. You're playing a tuba and it's good, and it's not bad. Like we said, we like it's jazz. We're doing our own thing on the Shut Up and Give Me Murder. I'm playing drums, and you're playing a tuba, and it's just a different song. Sometimes it just comes together, though. So we're going to North Dakota this week. My God, it's been so long. Episode 48, I think it was, we were in Cooperstown, North Dakota. Yeah, we're post-300 now, so it's been a while.

This is Dickinson, North Dakota here. Population 23,527. So it's not too small of a place, actually. Oklahoma, North Dakota is so vast. It's weird because there's not a ton of these small kind of out in the middle of nowhere towns because there's nothing around them to support them so you can't really you don't have like resources out there you know where do you get electricity other than generators and like it's it's so it's huge and it's just the giant metropolises like minot that's what i mean that's what they have these these quote population centers where you have like you know bismarck and you have minot and places like that fargo and that's it those are the places and then dickinson 23 000 so quickly we'll do some reviews here uh reviews five stars okay this is they love it here dickinson is a wonderful place to live, work, and raise a family. All of those.

Exclamation point. Great school system with outstanding teachers. People are hardworking, competent, and responsible. Wow, really? Everybody's perfect, huh? This is a wild town. Most everyone is friendly and willing to meet new people. They put everyone, and then they're

like hold on a second that one time dave was he's not real so yeah if you go down you go down to the donut shop early in the morning he's not he's sitting there you wave to him he'll nod to you but he doesn't really acknowledge your presence so fuck dave most everyone is friendly the weather can be unpredictable but that's what gives north dakota its quote get her done not it not yet or it's it's g-e-t-t-e-r too they even fuck that up so it's get her done attitude and that's in quotes by the way just to make it more annoying and i guess they're trying to uh grammatically say it right because getter is a thing, but you don't understand what the South is. We love that Southern work ethic pride part, but really we want them to speak it right.

But we told you the school system was outstanding here and they taught us how to spell. Holy shit. Next line. No place for slackers here exclamation point um i'm not sure and jesus i'm not sure what people always think they need to do for entertainment but when it's cold and dark by 5 p.m you should be home anyway what the fuck is that this person said listen there's nothing to do here but that's fine because you shouldn't be outside after dark anyway get inside what the fuck i want to meet grandma

i want to meet this old lady and find out what kind of candy is at the bottom of her purse because this is ridiculous this is a this is a woman with like old mints at the bottom of her purse that she tries to give to her grandchildren and they don't want them this is bad these say these say ronald smokehouse on them i don't want that yeah i don't want that that place closed down place closed down when i was four what the hell's going on grandma jesus christ how long have these been in your they're all broken and shit in the back you can just feel around in the plastic broken stuff that is the funniest thing i've ever heard i'm not sure what people always think they need to do for entertainment like what's wrong with sitting in your house all the time non-stop i don't know why anybody wants to leave this is dumb you should be home anyway then it gets better

you should be home anyway dot dot dot unless you're working this person really wants you to enjoy your life listen no slacking you work 16 hours a day you come home you eat like a foggy meal while you're real tired then you fall asleep cold five hours god damn it wake up get to work turn the tv on before the first commercial breaks over you're out cold that's a day damn it now that's living what the fuck is happening that's living all right oh man summer is a great time to get outside and enjoy the weather here or in general or what everywhere i guess i guess everywhere north dakota life isn't for, but if you value a quality family, good friends, and work life, this may be the place for you. And never want to do anything.

He forgot to add that. I don't know what people think they need to do for entertainment all the time. Think they need. Think they need to do. Wow, Grandma. I know better. Woof. Four stars.

Easy to find work. We have oil. That's it. That's the end of the review. That's it. Three stars, the grocery stores are okay. They do not keep their shelves well stocked, but they said shelf, apostrophe S, well stocked. Not shelves, shelves well stocked.

That's it. It's the whole town. The grocery stores is lacking. Sparsely stocked grocery stores and nothing to do. Nothing to do. Two stars. Not only are option extremely limited, that's what it says, as far as what people can do in their free time, but the few options suck. Well, Sonny Boy, I refer you back to, I don't know what you think you need to do for entertainment all the time, but after 5, you should be home anyway.

5? Not even like, you know, past midnight. I don't know what these people want to do. 5? 5? 5 p.m. 5 p.m. You should be home anyway, unless you're working. Get home. What is happening? Jimmy Buffett would hate it here. Oh, my God. Yeah, very much so. Five o'clock is party time, lady.

When do you drink here? I don't understand it. I guess I got to drink at noon. Things to do. We're not going to talk about the whole thing just because it's really pretty boring. But there's a Dickinson Ukrainian Festival, which that's where you'd expect the Ukrainian Festival to take place in the middle of rural North Dakota. It's just a funny thing that that's there. That said, let us talk about a murder, shall we?

Let's do it. Actually, at least three and possibly many more. What? Because this is a case where the well is deep, my friend. What are you drinking over there? I took a sip. I thought I got that real silent. He's got a plastic straw and a lid.

What are you, nine? We're doing a show right now. I tried to swallow and it tried to come back. I saw you when you walked in today. What has he got in his hand there? My Pepsi tried to answer you. It's just me. I'm just fucking around anyway.

It's a sugary cola. I need my cola. I just heard the plastic and I snapped my neck to look over at you and look over past the monitor. I tried so hard. That was awesome. So anyway, November 1981 is when this starts out. This is a case that's like a well that is like it's a deep, deep well, and it's so dark. You stick like a big, long rod in.

You're trying to see how deep it is, and you never hit bottom, and you're like, it's dark. We don't know where the bottom is. It keeps taking the rod. Because it gets real murky, and let's get into this here. We'll talk about some people. it gets real murky and let's let's get into this here we'll talk about some people uh in november of 1981 let's talk about priscilla dinkle d-i-n-k-e-l okay priscilla dinkle yeah that i think that's the the lady who sells antiques and funny farm isn't that mrs dinkle's antique i think you're right it sounds that's where i immediately pictured the squirrel and her

and her saying that rocking chair hasn't been sat in since my husband died in it 30 years ago or whatever. I also am hearkening back to Lieutenant Dangle. I've got that. There you go. Dangle and Dangle are way too close. Jim Dangle and the lady who sells antiques. Mash them together now. Priscilla Dangle's 52 years old in 1981 she's born in 1928 she's uh from

minnesota originally and she has been married to frank dinkle frank dinkle that's a it's a very very rock hard man right you got you gotta love a man to to be yeah to to marry a dinkle i'm gonna be mrs Frank Dinkle in 1949. You must love him a lot. But Frank's a good guy from what I understand here. And they get married in 1949. Wow. So as of 81, they're still married.

Been married for 20-something years. Damn near 3,000 years. Yeah, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, whatever it is. Whatever it is. That's a long fucking time kids coming out the ass oh that's the wrong place two sons well that's the problem with kids so you never know where they're gonna come out sometimes they're unpredictable jimmy that's the issue how many they got she's got two sons and seven daughters my god frank leave her alone frank and priscilla nine kids over a 32 year span here

so love each other they're it's a they have a very good family frank works um when they move to the north dakota area because they live in crystal north dakota for a long time frank works the oil fields oil rig guy that's where the jobs are plentiful and they're decent hard work but decent paying jobs. Yeah, you can make some good money. We've talked about that before. And when we talked about Montana, I believe we're discussing that. So they lived most of the time in Crystal for months, for years and years and years, pretty much their whole marriage.

And then in the summer of 81, they moved to Dickinson, North Dakota, here where he could still work. And she is going to manage a motel. Okay. There's a motel that has like, it's a very small town. And this is like on the main drag, it's this motel. And it's kind of like some of the workers stay there that are only in town for a couple weeks to do a job like the temp workers. And it's kind of like people from the town like eat dinner there

and like she'll she'll cook like how many people it's not like a restaurant it's like a restaurant but she'll be like how many people we got and then she'll just whip up something for 15 people if they're there or something like that and you know people come and get coffee there in the morning and check in hey how you doing there priscilla and they talked for a while at the motel there's not a lot in town like we said home by five anyway get in your hotel room by five what are we doing here that lady curfew around oh man that's why we love reviews we really do that's i'm telling that's why we're doing the patreon that's hilarious and it's on this show it's about murder so we couldn't talk we could have talked about that for 15 minutes, and it would have been hilarious.

The bummer is that apart from you and now me and all these people, 12 people have read that person's words, and everybody needs to know that she said that. Yes, everyone needs to know it. I wish you had to put your name and vital stats. Not your address. I don't want people to stalk you. But just like, this is my name, first name, I'm this age, this is what I do for a living. Just so you can hash this person out.

So she's got a bunch of grandkids and everything else, Priscilla and Frank. And their one daughter, Melody, they seem pretty close to. She's the one who moved to Dickinson a few years ago. And that's what drew them here is Melody. Melody's got a seven year old daughter named Danielle that that that she Priscilla watches all the time. And, you know, the granddad around the motel. Yeah, they watch her all the time, whether at the house or the motel or whatever. But she sleeps at the motel that she's got her like a like the manager's quarters there

yeah it's like a you know an apartment basically so um yeah frank's working on oil rigs they moved here from crystal the crystal is 365 miles away so they've been jesus you know good distance that's north dakota that's north dakota is like texas it's just this huge vast swath of land swath of land here she drove in the her osmobile cutlass and tore ass on up there hell yeah and uh so there we go and uh this has been like there's been a big oil boom in north dakota it's for a long time still happening um but i found through these articles here in 1973, apparently this was the midst of a big oil boom then. And the governor at the time said that, yeah, the oil boom, it's almost over. And, you know, we should be done with the oil here in a couple of years pretty soon.

Any minute. That's been 50 years. And I'm just saying at the time, that's what they thought. And he said, when we are through with that and the landscape is quiet again, let those who will follow and repopulate the land be able to say our grandparents did their job well. The land is as good and in some cases better than before. So he's saying we're going to leave the land better than before when we're done with this oil extraction. The land's good. It's empty. But it's good. It's empty.

I mean, it's a blank canvas, really. That's the thing. It hasn't been fucked out yet. That's what he's saying. He's like, it's not even going to be fucked out. It's going to be like a clean white sheet. That's all it is. Exactly.

Not much you can do with it. You could use a blanket and a pillow pillow but it's nice to look at yeah by far so but it was still going on by from this 80s you know in the 80s here and uh you know this the people are coming into town all the time and this town has swelled in population a little bit because of that so priscilla is running the swanson motel okay that's the name of it now it's an old kind of an old rundown one-story place one of those where you you know flats yeah you pull up yeah you pull up in front of your room and uh they're all kind of attached and like your headlights illuminate your whole room that's it in a v formation yeah if you're

there for a while you're like oh bob's home Bob's home. Next door. Yeah, he's home. Jesus Christ. Turn your high beams off, Bob. I'm awake, Fred. Put the fucking lights off before you turn into your space. It's one of those places. Just kind of older and a little run down, but clean. You know, that sort of deal.

The rooms are normally rented on a weekly or monthly basis here. Okay. I soon understood. Rather than night. Because nobody's coming here for a night to like hang out and party so this is like i'm in town for two weeks we know that's you're in by five where i'm in town for two weeks i'll get this room and i'll be here for two weeks that sort of deal so uh she's the manager priscilla they say it caters mainly to transient workers yeah there

you go which sounds shitty but a lot of those guys make a fuckload of money yeah they go from place to place where they're needed in jobs so it's not like we don't mean transient like carny work that's a transient worker like oh i'll be in the i'll be in front of the coals in that strip mall uh on this weekend then i'm gonna be outside des moines in front of the dick sporting goods out theres out there. So, you know, I'll get around. I can't wait to get over to Minnesota where there's a loading dock at a Target nice and warm. Oh, man, it's outside of it. Rumor has it you can feel the heat coming out of the Target when they open up them bay doors to get a shipment in.

So I'm looking forward to that. I'm going to sleep on the loading dock while we live there that's gonna be good jesus christ that is the carny life so recently though with everybody coming into town the town has kind of there's a few more unsavory characters in the town than there ever was before in 1981 because of just people coming in and out even if they're people with high-paying jobs or whatever you're still going to get some weirdos if they're stopping through yeah so it is kind of a weird guy that likes to live that lifestyle it's yeah it's not that it's not your average guy and well you get people with opportunity because they come in and out too those are people that kill people a lot of times.

Right. They don't like to be watched because they got shit they're doing. Serial killers' jobs lend themselves to movement a lot of times. That's how they do their deal. So, anyway, the chief of police, even around 1980, had made a warning to the locals that they need to start locking their doors which is no one had ever locked their doors here ever and he said oh we should all start locking our doors now there's been a little bit of crime and yeah you know weirdos coming through and i don't want to find anybody you know murdered in their homes with their whole family so maybe lock your doors so the people were like wow it's getting

geez yeah he's that concerned man so um So anyway, she, like I said, Priscilla watches her granddaughter quite often, seven-year-old Danielle and Melody's daughter. And on November 16th, 1981, she's babysitting Danielle and she's staying at the motel with her that night. So on the 16th, Priscilla makes dinner for about 12 people. This, we're talking some motel people and just some locals, too. So it was kind of whoever was around, she would make dinner. And at the time, there was two vacancies at the hotel that night. There was two open rooms. Two rooms, yeah.

Yeah, so it wasn't that you know full capacity wasn't really like overrun with people at that moment so um the early morning of november the 17th a worker who was staying there for a week or week and a half an oil guy he stopped by he would come by every morning before he would leave he'd get up in his own motel room and get ready. He'd stop by the office and get a cup of coffee and then head out to work, like I think a lot of the people did because they had free coffee there. So this guy stops in for a cup of coffee, and he's pouring his coffee there in the lobby. It's just like people do in the morning.

I mean, long day at the wells in front of you. It's November in North north dakota oh boy you got some layers on flannel is a part of your insulated flannel is a part of your life at this moment a large heavy coat with a wide fucking collar on oh yeah you're checking making sure you got your gloves the shit fucking things that cover your ears you got it all going on here that collar comes up to cover the neck oh man all of it yeah where's where's my scarf damn it your boots and everything get that hot coffee in him and as he looks over he sees he sees priscilla and normally he'd say hi priscilla but today not so much uh not looking too sociable i would say No, she is looking in bad shape. She's lying face down on the floor, first of all, which is a bad sign for anybody.

She's also bound and gagged, which is not normal for her. And with an electrical cord tied around her wrists and neck. Oh, my. And she's wearing a nightgown and a housecoat, and they'd been pulled down, partially exposing her back. So that's what he sees, and this guy, holy shit, obviously freaks out, grabs the phone. That's a horrible thing to see. Yeah, that's not what you want to see before your day in the oil field. You just want a cup of coffee.

Before 7 a.m.? Before 7 a.m., yeah. It's not like he doesn't even know this lady. He's met her three times like oh jesus christ so this is a bad thing to find and obviously a terrible thing for priscilla fuck him this poor woman jesus christ she really looks like she's been through it i mean uh the police arrive they notice that she has splinters of wood in her hair in her hair splinters of wood and they find that her skull is crushed as well. Oh, God. She's been strangled with a cord, beaten about the head.

It's really bad. Splinters, that's processed wood. That's like a two-by-four. Yeah, something like that, or whatever somebody found close by, probably. And between that and the bound gagged tied with the electrical cord. This is a very, very specific thing that this person has done. Yeah. I mean, eating. Yeah. Yeah. It's very specific. So according to this is the lead investigator.

He said that, quote, we get this call and ditch and dispatch says we just received a call that a gentleman was at the Swanson Motel and there was a lady tied up on the floor and he thought she was dead. Oh, wow. And he said, of course, we go racing over there. And I didn't go in. I was on the outside because I was the rookie. So I stayed out and protected the crime scene from the outside. Yeah. Nobody wants to walk into that.

They this is an understatement here of the year they describe when they walked into the scene they described it as eerie i would i would say eerie yeah saying one body is enough to be that's pretty that's pretty eerie i think right i don't know i i think anywhere with a dead body would be eerie you wouldn't go i don't know it had a pretty good vibe in there you know i mean investigators calling that shit eerie means it was fucked up it was creepy yeah also i don't think they see a lot of murder in this town that's the other thing they had at this point they had zero unsolved homicides in their entire county ever like they didn't have any cold cases on the books it was just you know

if they happened it was oh man you know bob killed his wife yeah and that was it you know they just that was the end of it so uh anyway she's face down like we said in the office of the lobby of the motel hands bound with electrical cord suffered a blow to the head by a blunt object and had been choked as well with the electrical cord so the the the rookie investigator here he said we hadn't experienced especially the the police department a homicide before so i was just saying to myself i'm so thankful i'm not in investigations never experienced it nobody in the police department at that time had ever had ever dealt with a homicide before holy shit that is terrifying the last time we investigated

one of these none of us was born none of us was there was an old guy shit does he still live around here nah man he retired to south carolina shit god damn it we could call him and ask him what to do they don't know what to do they don't know how to there's a lot of practice that goes into homicide investigation like yeah in a major city they have you know they'll have like their best detectives or they'd be like robbery or whatever their investigative detectives are they'll move them into homicide and they're like under someone's wing for a while where they have to follow them around and kind of learn the deal learn how to write the reports. Everything has to be perfectly done. I mean, you're gathering trace evidence and shit like that.

These guys, they probably had the mayor trampling around like that one story we had. They didn't know what the fuck to do. Obviously, I don't investigate these things, but I would want to inflate a bubble around this shit and ask the one person that found them their exact story how how you found would you touch and then we'll go through once we all get some bubble wrap that's exactly it yeah you go in this shit everybody get their gloves on you start taking fingerprints problem is it's a public place is the issue too they know it there was at least 12 people in there yesterday so i mean we could start with those people. So many fingerprints.

Start with those people and question them. A lot of it is questioning people. If people go, holy shit, really? Oh, that's terrible, Priscilla. I don't know. Oh, my God. No, I was over here. And they have an alibi.

And then somebody else goes, huh? She's what? She's. Yeah. No, I was. I was. I was somewhere else. Like, that's the guy you want to talk to.

Yeah. If you run into that cat. Otherwise, you've got, as long as they didn't have any fireworks mishaps, 120 different fingerprints all the way through this shit. Everywhere. All exactly, as long as one of them is not you. So he said, we hadn't experienced this at all. And he said, a little bit later, as the investigation progressed, experience this at all and he said a little bit later as the investigation progressed about a half hour later a car screams up to the motel just in time for school to start so i guess right around

the time school opens like i said it's the center of town so i guess everything's probably pretty close out this woman comes racing out of the car and i'm trying to hold her back and i remember that she was screaming my baby my baby no one could figure out what the heck she was talking about. I already know. At that time, one of the investigators went into the back bedroom and lifted the covers off the bed and found the seven-year-old girl as well. They were there for a half hour. They didn't even know she was back there, Jimmy. She's alive?

No. Oh, no. They had no idea know she was back there jimmy she's alive no oh no they had no idea she was even back there they didn't think hey let's look through the rest of the fucking apartment yeah let's they literally were like i'll just stand next to this body this is where i found it like yeah get the fucker look around what if the guy was hiding under the covers you wouldn't have seen that either murderer could have been under there what the fuck is wrong with these people i don't know but as a crime investigator, there's never investigated a crime. I've got one crime.

Now I've just doubled the amount of murders I have to investigate. Yeah. And this is much worse. This is a child. This is above and beyond. I mean, adults can have beef with each other. You never know. Priscilla's a nice lady, but you don't know if somebody has like maybe they have a huge gambling debt.

I don't fucking know. Maybe they're who the hell. Maybe they sold someone some lady, but you don't know if somebody has like maybe they have a huge gambling debt. I don't fucking know. Maybe they're who the hell. Maybe they sold someone some bunk coke. We don't know. A seven year old did nothing to nobody. We know that for a fact. So it's it's fucking terrible. Yeah, she was not bound.

But the evidence said that she had been tied up at some point and pummeled pummeled with a blunt object as well. Fuck, man. Later on, they'll realize that both of these, both Danielle and Priscilla have both been sexually assaulted multiple times as well. Both of them. So some,

someone took their time here. They had people tied up untied someone was real comfortable in this you know doing this and in this environment so it's fucking horrible man so the police officer here said quote the murderer felt so guilty about it that he covered her up with the blankets and that's the psychology behind it they feel i don of its guilt or shame or whatever it is. But at some point, you even if you're a psychopath, you know, huh, that's that's awful so um yeah they had uh the the little girl had a fractured skull and the grandmother had like a bruised skull with you know but a lot of brain trauma so fucking horrible man so obviously this is for a team that's never investigated shit this is not the first one you want to have right here

this is a lot and we're talking physical evidence is crucial here in all of this as well because there's sexual aspects of it so there's a lot of physical evidence you could collect and everything problem is you need to know how to collect that shit and do it properly and do it these people don't seem to know their ass from a fucking hole in the ground is the problem. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again. Leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a

podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched.

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

Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They create a list of suspects, but ultimately they don't have a lot of information like i said the the crucial first 24 hours was spent with their thumbs up their asses the first half hour they didn't even look around the whole fucking apartment so it's not going well um at the time they said quote we're just chasing ghosts nothing just nothing is panning out we're just chasing down a person that was seen walking down Highway 22. Nobody knew him, and it was the middle of the night, and we were chasing that lead down before we finally could possibly catch up to him in South Dakota. So they caught up to the guy. Somebody was seen walking down the street in the middle of the night.

Okay, so that night. So they do all the – Like a drifter or something. Yeah, like Rutger howard's walking through town here so they uh they track this dude down in south dakota and they think that must be the guy there's not a lot of people don't go out past five here that must be the guy uh but the cop says quote he didn't turn out so where do you go from there that wasn't the guy so they're like now what the fuck do you do now?

They have that was the one lead. A guy was seen walking down the street in the middle of the night. That was they put all of their eggs in that basket and it didn't pan out. So now what the fuck do we do now? This is absolutely horrible. The police chief said, I don't think we've ever had a dual murder situation like this here in Dickinson. This is this was just something that happens that you read about in the papers you know in other places like he yeah this is somewhere you read in san francisco they're

gonna carve each other up after having a gay orgy or something i don't know what the hell they're doing out there but you know i'm saying they all do acid and jump out windows while they're trying to poke each other in the buttholes. You know how it goes. It's like some Swanson Motel kind of stuff. No, Swanson Motel is a different deal. It's a different place. Oh, man. So he said that they were investigating the possibility of robbery being the motive because the cash box was short by about $100.

But they said there were still some small bills and change and shit left in there. So it wasn't robbed clean so that's odd maybe maybe she clears the cash main cash out at the end of the night and hides it somewhere we don't know she took a hundred bucks for petty cash to pay for the meal that she just cooked who knows yeah that's the other thing we don't know so i guess they said that the room had not been ransacked either it wasn't they quote, there weren't things busted up or anything like that. There's no sign of a struggle as well, which is very strange. And it also tells you what happened in the in the crime, because it shows that he probably must have incapacitated her with the blow to the head first to get it.

It would seem to get to the granddaughter because you're going to get her out of the way she's the physical threat and then you have a child which is not a physical threat to you so you can kind of do that that's why there's no sign of a struggle if he just went and attacked a child i assume the grandmother would probably jump on his back and start beating him with a fucking table leg and then it would be signs of a struggle after that you know what i mean so they said by three days from then, they had no suspects identified yet. They said there's a lot of people to check out. The detectives haven't pinned this down to one person at this time.

In other words, we ain't got shit is what it is. Nothing but a dead grandma and a grandchild. That's it. This is like space balls. Yeah. What about you combing the desert? We ain't found shit. So they said the leads led them as far away as Texas and New Mexico.

This is time is going by. They're hearing all sorts of shit. They're waiting to receive fingerprint analysis from the FBI because they don't have the facilities to properly do these fingerprint analysis from the FBI. And because they've said they don't have the facilities to properly do these fingerprint analysis. And they said they have a fingerprint that is like, you know, they're promising. This is there's one fingerprint that's not accounted for. And so we got that are in there and they're like, this could be the one shit to Quantico.

That's it, man. They also have turned to hypnosis as well, trying to hypnotize people for what they've seen. They've also brought psychics in to possibly they have nothing you gotta throw some shit at the wall jay well yeah once the cops call because psychics usually call the cops to say i'll help you if the cops are like if anybody out there you know has visions or anything like that we love it if you get a hold of us that means they have uh tarot cards whatever we don't give a shit anything you want to do we don't care if you just get a tingly feeling sometimes at the end of a football game that a guy's gonna miss a field goal come on down well

i might have coffee and talk with us we need a chat that means you have ugats nothing nothing and the one of the police officers said it's one of those cases with very little physical evidence. And they said they do have some suspects, but not any evidence, obviously. They said that one detective recently said she just got another letter from the FBI and they're checking out a lead in Montana at that point, they said for them. So it comes back the next month. The fingerprints have been studied here. They're sent off. And this was a big deal.

I mean, they had our golden fingerprint and they sent it off to the FBI, to Quantico and everything like that. They have no leads and they have fingers crossed. Who does this fingerprint belong to? It all comes up. It's one of the investigators who wasn't wearing a fucking glove when he went in there because he was just like what's that oh damn and grabbed the fucking thing that's all it was somebody not just didn't put gloves on and uh just an investigator

they waited all this time two months fbi dollars all this shit one guy's like oh shit yeah i forgot to put my gloves on for about 15 minutes that'll explain that shit to identify johnson you son of a bitch believable they're like johnson did you do this are you a pervert so years go by jimmy nothing because there's no evidence and once that that fingerprint comes back with nothing, they have a couple suspects, but nothing they can tie anything to. No physical evidence. Nobody's talking. Cold case.

Years go by. Years. 1988 or so, they tear the Swanson Motel to the ground. So now there's any evidence that was possibly left is all going to be gone there, too. Torn to the ground. It's now, from what I can see, I could be wrong, but from what I see, it's a vacant lot now with a Kawasaki dealership across the street that sells four-wheelers and shit. It's not bad. Not bad.

Pick you up a ninja. They sell ninjas, yeah. Pick you up an 800cc and rip right through them woods. That'd be fun. So 1991 comes around, 91, and the police commissioner starts asking the new police chief if they wouldn't mind taking a look at that one case since it's, you know, the only murder that's ever happened here and they still didn't figure it out. We look like dicks about it.

It's pretty embarrassing, we're just going to say. But they're still asking. Our ass has been out for 10 years. I mean, Jesus. Did you hear about the fingerprint? Yeah, it was embarrassing. So they said, please do that. So they call up the FBI in 1991,

and the FBI works up a profile here here and this whole thing and then they're going to compare the profile to the list of suspects that they've compiled in 1981 and compare them and see what's up and who ends up as a part of this but john douglas who we've talked about many times he wrote the book mind hunter that the series mind hunter is based on and that the character of holden is based on and all that um this particular stuff we're going to talk about right now is from john douglas's book uh journey into darkness uh written by john douglas and mark oshaker so he talks about how it's a good book by the way it's interesting a lot of interesting shit in terms of different kind of below the radar, under the radar crimes like this one.

You know what I mean? That you don't hear a lot about. So they said that they at the end, the physical evidence, they weren't positive that Priscilla was sexually assaulted in the end. They thought she was. But then they were like, maybe she wasn't. It might have might have just been that might have been the the goal here for this person. So they said she definitely was rendered unconscious through blunt force trauma. Also, whoever did this cut off her bra and underwear.

Weird. Yeah. So according to John Douglas, the FBI profile, this is fulfilling some of his need, some of his need to display hatred and aggression and dominance and control. This was probably done while she was conscious. Yeah. Yeah, and conscious. He struck her in the head at some point, struck Danielle in the head at some point, fracturing her skull. And he also notes that he took some money from the hotel's cash box.

And he also notes that he took some money from the hotel's cash box. So they said, John Douglas says that clearly he spent a lot of time at the scene, which is exactly what I was saying. He's been there. He got comfortable, man. He sure did. He stretched out. And appeared to be comfortable there. They said, leading me to profile an offender who knew his victims and the area.

So this isn't a guy who just, not a drifter who blew through town that day. This is somebody who is generally comfortable, which makes sense there. It is. So it did not appear that he went there that night specifically to kill them, though. That wasn't it. More likely, the homicides occurred spontaneously. The crime scene reflected elements

of both disorganization and inventiveness. And he says the offender was adaptable using electrical cords from lamps and a vacuum cleaner to tie up his victims. So he didn't bring ligatures with him, nothing to tie, didn't bring weapons with him. Everything that was used was stuff that he found there that seems opportunistic.

There's nobody here. It's all quiet. Everyone's in. It it's past five i can do whatever i want so he wasn't hunting but when he saw his prey he was like oh shit i gotta improvise yeah he's he's out there he's always these serial killers and by the way this guy we're pretty sure is a serial killer they just have a net out their boat is always going they have a net out all the time and if something happens to fall on that net great they'll pull it up on the fucking boat and stick it with a goddamn giant harpoon and take it home and eat it that's what they are so he goes on to say a mixed scene of this nature led me to believe that alcohol was a factor that night and that the unsub which

is the unknown subject if you don't know probably had a history of night and that the unsub, which is the unknown subject, if you don't know, probably had a history of alcoholism with the level of aggression demonstrated against the older victim. I figured he was one of those Jekyll and Hyde drinkers, normally a loner, not at all. A ladies man, a louder, more aggressive side of his personality would come out after a few drinks.

Although he'd only be able to express this to people he felt he could dominate. He would have difficulties in any relationships with women okay so this is starting to you're starting to get more of a picture of who this guy is shocking they can get that much information out of this it's so so amazing it's it's shocking how stunningly accurate it is sometimes yeah just a few weeks ago we had one with a profile where it was like a fucking picture of the guy they drew. Basically, it was incredible. So he then says Douglas goes on to say, since people don't just jump into Dumble homicide, which we say all the time when we see these have done time for crimes like assault, robbery or burglary. Offenders like this kind like this kind of crime scene are typically out of average intelligence. But this guy probably had not finished high school when he had a job.

It would probably involve physical rather than intellectual work, such as a laborer, mechanic or truck driver. He would not keep himself neat. He'd appear in need of a bath, a shave, and a haircut. Holy shit. Of all, you're seeing this guy now, right? Everybody's seeing him? It's amazing that he can know that. You can picture this man.

It's crazy, you know? Raped and murdered grandma and her grandpa? I'll bet he's filthy. I bet he's filthy. I mean, everything about him it's a physical labor of all the behavioral clues left at the apartment the most significant came from the crime scene in the bedroom with the young girl when he attacked danielle her grandmother was out of the picture and he could act out his fantasies easily dominating and controlling her

in his assault he was consuming her reinforcing his power over the situation this is uh yeah some we've heard a lot with serial killers and shit and this is all exactly this it's very sick yeah the fact that he covered her up with the bedclothes however said a lot about his feelings after the fact he was trying to eliminate the assault feeling disgust and distaste over his actions with this apparent change of heart he felt some some remorse over her death, in contrast to the apparent justification he felt for his actions against her grandmother. She was getting in my goddamn way, being a pain in my ass, so she deserved it. But the girl, I shouldn't have done that.

So whenever you have any signs of remorse like that at the scene, there's going to be a spillover into the unsubs post-defense behavior. This is interesting, too. You can now see what people that you were talking to, what do they do right after the crime? He would be compelled to talk to someone to find out what the police were doing regarding the investigation. He'd increase his alcohol consumption after his alter his physical appearance in some way. Maybe give the girl's grave visit maybe visit the girl's grave the only area of the unsubs life that i had trouble

with was his age as i've mentioned this aspect is often problematic we talk about this all the time because sometimes when people have been in prison or stuff like that their age if they've been in prison for 10 years they can come out and do shit And people think you're 25 and you're actually 35 because you've been stunted and whatever. So he said, I've seen subjects like this range in age from the late teens to early fifties. So I advise police to focus on the post-defense behavior and the other elements of the profile instead of looking for an offender of a particular age. I also warned that after the publicity died down, the subject had probably skipped town.

As I always do, I told the investigators to give me a call if they wanted to discuss anything, blah, blah, blah. Later, when DNA testing was available, police went to reexamine the evidence and found it had been destroyed when a freezer in the lab malfunctioned. No witnesses were... They fucking.

Unbelievable. This police, the one fingerprint belonged to the investigator, and the only thing they did half right, save the fucking DNA, it got destroyed in the freezer, and they just didn't talk about it or notice it for 10 years. The freezer was unplugged. Whoops. Wow. That's wild, man. I guess, you know, he says, though, that the police kept up at it and they kept trying, I guess, after 91. And they they would send they had a psychic and they would send personal effects of the victims and photos and go any of this stuff makes sense to you um yeah there was suspicions about a guy from the i guess from missoula montana they contacted the police in missoula contacted

them uh there was a guy exposing himself to neighborhood kids there and uh he told his he told i guess his friends had told the sheriff that he'd been talking about the murders in dickinson but it was a different guy the police interviewed him extensively and um they said that he they ended up uh he wouldn't take a polygraph but they got him to do a dental comparison with bite marks that were on danielle's cheek okay and uh the results ended up being it probably wasn't him. Inconclusive, but leaning toward not him. So another guy here, Jerry Theismann, Joe's brother, I guess, from the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation. He also went to the FBI National Academy as well. He contacted the FBI in 85 for an evaluation of a man as a viable suspect.

for an evaluation of a man as a viable suspect. And they explained that basically it would be unlikely for someone to de-escalate because it was a viable suspect for some other crime. And they said, no, it's not good enough for this guy. This guy is going to do – it's going to be a lot more. He's going to escalate, not de-escalate. So they just basically took that right off the table. Plus the guy had a good job and they were like, he wouldn't have taken $100. That would have been beneath him this particular guy so um anyway

they were looking all around they couldn't find anybody they had one guy who ate dinner there that the night that she made dinner the 12th yeah at the time he was a local taxi driver at the time of the murder he was a taxi driver in dickinson yeah which makes sense because a lot of transients would have to go from the field to the motel and shit like that and the guy's name is william reger which a taxi driver named reger makes me think of the show taxi because judd hirsch's name is alex reger on that is it really hilarious absolutely so yeah amazing immediately i'm like named riga riga i just picture danny devito screaming at him riga so they said that's one guy that we really haven't ruled

out and you know we'd like to talk to him he problem is he left dickinson like a year after the murder yeah we don't know where the fuck he went we have no goddamn idea so they said let's look for him so they end up finding him state troopers in arkansas stop him and run his information through the database and find out he's being looked for it's in batesville arkansas his name's william thomas reger and he'd lived in the motel around that time of the double homicide and he knew all the victims not only only did he know them, but he had a real big crush on Melody, Priscilla's daughter, and he used to babysit Danielle from time to time.

That's pretty close. You just leave the baby with the local taxi driver. Jesus. Yeah, he has been a laborer, truck driver, dishwasher, taxi driver, and of course a carny as well. Is that right? Over the years. Yeah, a lot of transient jobs and physical labor is what he's doing.

Yep, he's been employed all over the place, everywhere. He's lived in Arkansas and several other places in the United States over the last. He's moved around all over the place in 10 years. Looking him up, I found in 1964 he was fined $25 and a 15 day jail sentence after a charge of failing to dim his headlights. Oh, you can get that. Wow. That is harsh for that. 1964, I found he received a fine of $25 and a five day suspended sentence for failure to have a motor vehicle under control.

Okay. 1965, he pleads guilty to a no account charge he fucking wrote a check for five dollars at the sweet shop so wrote a bad check yeah didn't have five dollars i guess here um they fined him fifty dollars and gave him a 30-day suspended sentence for that 1967 pleads guilty to issuing a check with non-sufficient funds as well. And he's sentenced to serve five days in jail and play a $10 fine. Then 1970, he's in jail, this guy. So this is what I mean, petty shit building up. He's in jail for bad checks.

And he and a couple other prisoners escape from the work farm they're on. It's bad checks, dude. You're almost out anyway. That's what I mean. And then in 1980, in Dickinson, he was arrested again for bad checks. So he has had some problems. Since the murders, he was married in 1989 to a woman. By the way, one of the things, the thing they held him for in Arkansas when they pulled him over, he had a weapon, I guess.

But on top of that, he was married to two different women. So they held him on bigamy charges. As a matter of fact. Yeah. The one woman he married in 1989, she was 16 years younger than him. She said, quote, he was more of a gentleman than any man I ever knew. Oh, boy. What do you think her life was like?

He's a rapist carny at the way you think at this point, possibly. So a taxi driving carny rapist. And she said they're few and far between. She said he never acted like he wanted anything in return. They, I guess, but he has another wife and four children in north dakota as well this guy and she didn't know about that i guess until all this happened four kids too yeah she said it was easier for him to lie than tell the truth he kept lying to me about everything and he told me he could never go back to north dakota he refused to say why he was so adamant

about not returning to North Dakota. But she said she said, quote, the only reason you can't go back is if you're running from the law. It does not take a genius to figure that out. He's a gentleman. He's a gentleman, especially if he's a scumbag like that. So they look into him further and they find out he had a real heavy interest in Melody at the time, the daughter, so much so he would go to priscilla and say hey you know i really want to take your daughter out and priscilla had told him you know not going to happen basically stay away from her you creep leave her alone and um yeah and melody said quote to me he was just a very spooky he was a very spooky strange person it was the way he looked at me

yeah that is not bloodlust how you want the girl you're you're spooky strange you got a crush on a girl that's the worst thing you want her to think he's kind of spooky strange it's just the way he looks at me jesus all right never mind i don't like it when he looks in my direction well yeah that's you probably don't like that man i don't think it's he looks in my direction. Well, yeah, you probably don't like that, man. I don't think it's going to work out, Billy. Yeah, but she said that after the fact because she let this man babysit her child at certain points. She said that the family noticed that when William Rieger visited, he would invite Danielle to sit on his lap, always putting his hand somewhere on her leg, which made Melody uncomfortable. always putting his hand somewhere on her leg, which made Melody uncomfortable.

And I guess a few nights before the murder, Danielle had asked her mother not to let Rieger babysit her again. And the night after the murder, by the way, Rieger was arrested for drunk driving and interviewed by the police. Shitface, the night after the murder, got arrested for that. And that was that so they said that uh um i guess the friday night before the two days before the killings melody said that she got a call that danielle was crying uncontrollably at the hotel so she said william rieger gave her a ride back to the motel where her kid and you know where where Danielle and her girlfriend's two kids were. Melody, or Priscilla was watching all of them. She said, Danny said something about Bill is trying to play with them.

I asked her what she meant and where she tried to mess with them. Yeah. And she showed her all over. And Melody said, well, I just freaked. I screamed at him to leave and I stayed at home for the rest of the night and I didn't know what to do. Stab him in the throat. I know what to do.

Call anybody. Holy Jesus. Cops, if they won't do anything, holler at a friend. Phone a friend. And then that night, the night of the murders, he was in the party that Priscilla was cooking dinner for, and they all ate dinner together. I don't know, not Melody, but she was allowed to be around him the granddaughter hotel that night yeah but she didn't have to be i'd be like hey listen my granddaughter said you tried to molest her get the fuck out of this goddamn i'll poison your food you don't want me cooking for you i will poison you straight up

you're a carny trucker you're right your health is terrible probably if you died everyone go oh hypertension high blood pressure this chili dog is for you this one's yeah don't eat this one no for him it's for bill so they said he was a suspect from the start but you know they never had any evidence and then he just took off so they forgot about him basically um they also found out in batesville that uh something very similar happened they in june of 1988 they found the body of a 77 year old woman named della t harding she was thrown off a fucking bridge into a dry riverbed 50 feet wow she'd been bound, beaten, strangled, and raped in a home break-in. He took her from, he lived about a mile from her, Rieger. He took her, kidnapped her from her house, did all this shit to her in her house, took her out, drove her to a dry creek bed, and threw her the fuck off a bridge. Wow.

Bound up and everything? Bound up and everything. She died as a result of strangulation, even though she was also received a blow to the head and was tied up with electrical cords so it's exactly the same thing basically so they were like huh that seems seems promising here um yeah so they want to bring him back to north dakota to talk about that so they do and um he yeah they get to interview him there and they said quote the second day we were in arkansas they picked him up and brought him to the sheriff's office and told him he was under arrest for an unrelated crime having two wives and here we are in this little dinky sheriff's

office in this little town and that's where we interviewed him as opposed to a metropolis like dickinson prior to interviewing him i reached out to the the FBI and asked them how I could get him to confess. Well, we could come do it, probably. You, I don't know if you can do it. We're probably incapable. We'll see, though. But he said, and they said to take my time. It could take up to four days for someone with his profile to confess.

They wanted me to work the angle of the little girl because they said he felt guilty at that. So yeah, you're going to push on that. So he said during the interview, he said that while he's interviewing him, many, he noticed many of the traits that the FBI profile were glaringly obvious in regal was his in rigor was his quote. He said, I walk in and sit directly in front of him. The BCI agent sits off to the side. I start in. I said, do you remember me? And he said, yeah, I don't remember your name, but I know you're from Dickinson and you're a cop. I then said, you know what we're here for? And he said, no. And I said, we're here to finally take care of the business when it comes to the Swanson Motel. So they said that they, you know, quote quote armed with our prediction that he would feel remorseful about

the rape murder of danielle and with the results from the original polygraph which indicated that he might be lying they said that they kept him and just kept questioning him yeah and they'd come do it the next day they just slept in a motel and just hacked at him every day so eventually he just says yep i did it and starts providing details that only he would know things that were unreleased to the public such as the biting on the cheek and stuff like that those were details they kept from the public at first and that he knew about and uh what he used to bash her on the head with and shit like that so yeah and he uh he took more he also took other things too that they didn't say.

They said it wasn't ransacked, but there were certain things missing, and they didn't say they were missing in case for this purpose. And he knew what they were. Yep, took about $100, and I took this, this, and this. And they went, yep, that's our guy. So he said he'd gone there to talk to her about Melody, and he wanted to get to know Melody better. And Priscilla said no. So instead of being encouraged, instead of just leaving, he said that he grew enraged and, quote, went berserk and hit her with a piece of wood from the table. He said that Danielle came in the room while he was tying her up, tying the grandmother

up. And he said, as I visualized it, this is the cop, as I visualized it, he had to maintain his control of the situation and he died with the, and he did this with his attack on the girl. He admitted that in addition to the money, he took a picture of Danielle and Melody and a decorative platter from the crime scene. Items.

And a serving tray. And a serving tray. He goes, I want these and this is pretty nice, actually. I'm going to give this as a wedding present. My sister's getting married. It was his memento here uh so they said he was a white male 39 years of age at the time which fit into the profile history of larceny passing bad checks burglary petty larceny average intelligence worked as a laborer truck driver carny dishwasher

photo shows he always looks sloppy changed his appearance after the murder, stopped dyeing his hair and let it go completely gray, had a history of drinking and a drunk driving arrest right afterwards, which was what John Douglas said he'd start drinking a lot more. Difficulties with women include separation from his second wife, to whom he was still fucking married to his first wife when he married. All sorts of shit. He's reportedly getting ready to marry first wife when he married. Right. All sorts of shit. He's reportedly getting ready to marry a third when he got arrested.

Jesus Christ, man. He was stacking them. His second wife said that he had a non-feeling personality and they'd have marital difficulties and that he drank constantly. So finally, though, his version of what he said, he said it was anger and hostility toward the grandmother. And then he just took an opportunity to attack a child sexually because he's a fucking monster. So he gives all these details.

And the cop who's interviewing him, this Rommel guy, he says, this man remembers every detail, things no one else would have known. And this is 10 years later. When it came to the part of the sexual assault on the little girl he would just say i did things i wish i had never done to her and the bci agent would step in and say i need to hear exactly what you did and he finally came out and said quote i raped a little girl so jesus christ please nobody isolate that. He is not good. So he is his. Yeah. His wife said that this is he never would have thought she never would have thought that he was capable of something like this. So in addition to this, he's got the the admits to the murder of the older woman, Della Harding in Arkansas.

Now they start looking into all sorts of other cases that are all over the place. Dallas, Texas, women missing around that area, women missing in other states. Everywhere he's been, basically, there's a trail of missing, of not missing, but dead women sometimes missing. Like he realized, oh, you got to take them out of where they are because people will find them quicker if you leave them where they are. So that's he progressed. So now they're finding them in dry riverbeds and in the woods and in fields and shit like that. So it's it's pretty bad. So anyway, the family, Frank Dinkle, is thrilled when they finally solved this.

Obviously, it's his wife and granddaughter. He said, I wish I could be put in the same prison as Rieger. Oh, Frank, go get he. I bet he fucking does, man. He would love to, I'm sure, rip his goddamn throat out with his bare hands. He said, I was hoping it would be solved before I died. Jesus. Melody is also, wow.

Yeah. Yeah. She said, fucking all of the above. She wants him to go to Arkansas to get the death penalty down there. This is going to be tried in both places she says I want to see Bill Rieger die for what he did to Danny and my mom he took what was most precious to me my baby and my mom I want him to lose what's most precious to him his life so um yeah so she also said but first I want him to come back to Dickinson to be tried

after that I hope he gets the death penalty in arkansas oh yeah yep she said also i told them it was bill reager but nobody would listen i'm still bitter about the whole thing jesus i don't fucking blame you you have wow this poor fucking woman she said sometimes i look at 17 year old girls and i think that could have been danny now she was such a mature young lady she didn't even get a chance to grow up poor fucking woman the trial is set for the first trial in dickinson because that's the first murder set for june 16th 1992 the trial so he's going to stand trial there get life without and then go to arkansas and get the death penalty so june 10th 1992 so six days before the trial, he's getting all prepared. He knows it's a death penalty case. He drops dead of a heart attack.

It's a lot of pressure, James. Drops dead. Found at 5.39 a.m. lying on his side in a cell. Must have been dead for a little more than two hours. He had hypertension and high blood pressure. And, yep, they said they don't think he stockpiled medications or committed suicide. The jailer said that he often used the outdoor recreation and exercise equipment. He was trying to lose weight, not commit suicide.

So, yeah, he was just in shit shape and he dropped dead just from karma, from being a terrible human being. Running around the country eating shit food after shit meal after shit food after shit meal if only it's not easy if only a cellmate would have raped him to death that's the only thing that would have made it better right like a giant man was like i just raped him till he died i don't know man just until it until i couldn't take it anymore and i broke him down and and half of them's over there and the other half's over there like i that would have been the only thing better because this fucking guy i want to i want to go like kick his fucking tombstone over that's how bad i hate this man i don't like the guy that does it to really enjoy it though i want it to be like the guy from seven with the sword dick

i want that yeah yeah right i want it told me to fuck him so i fucked him no they i want to replace marcellus wallace and give him to zed he can be the new gimp from pulp fiction i feel like that's what i want for him for his life because for years that way it can linger for years and years so anyway they didn't get the satisfaction of watching him die but they also didn't have to go through trials and hear horrible details and see crime scene photos of their daughters and mother and all that and then appeals after appeal after appeal in arkansas i'm trying not to die in the end that was it it's over at that point they know who did it it's done it's over with it's to me if it was me it would be that's best possible scenario if i'm

the family i've been the you know a family member of murder victim that's you want it to be over with and that's what it's over with another silver lining is that he didn't get to have a heart attack free he had to have that heart attack on a cold uh yeah prison floor which is pretty fucking rad eat dicks sir so there you go william reager he's a piece of shit we feel terrible obviously for priscilla dinkle and little danielle it's obviously awful and uh terrible story but pretty fucked up anyway an interesting fbi profile anyway if you like that story you sick bastards um i don't know no it's a crazy story honestly but if you like that please tell the world give us a review five stars helps a lot also our website shut up and give me murder dot com is where you get everything merchandise tickets to live shows, August 12th, two shows in San Francisco at Cobb's Comedy Theater.

Different shows. Get your tickets to both Crime and Sports and Small Town Murder in Sacramento the next night. Then September 10th at the Pabst in Milwaukee. Biggest show ever. Let's sell that bad boy out. Get in there. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. You get all your bonus material

this week crime and sports michael jordan scandals gambling affairs paternity suits giant divorce settlements and then for small town murder small town reviews which we love so much can't wait a whole it's gonna be a good time everything like that follow us on social media at murder small on twitter at small town pod on facebook at Small Town Pod on Facebook, at Small Town Murder on Instagram. Thank you so much for joining us, everybody. It's been our pleasure. Pull it on into the station. Thank you so much. Bye. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

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