Small Town Murder - #324 - Dissecting An Alien Vampire - Framingham, Massachusetts

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

This week, in Framingham, Massachusetts, an upstanding, successful suburban couple appear to have it all. Great jobs, money in the bank, and a beautiful home, in a safe, leafy neighborhood. They appear to be on top of the world, until one night, the combination of burnt baked ziti, and an apparent invasion of body swapping enemy space alien vampires, who need to be thwarted, cause chaos to reign in this otherwise serene home. The murder is unimaginably horrible, giving even the investigators nightmares, for years to come. But will anyone believe the alien vampire stuff, or will this just go down as one of the sickest, most depraved acts in history??Along the way, we find out that Massachusetts is a little bit expensive, that even going to the best schools doesn't mean you're not a violent maniac, and that if you ever see an enemy space alien vampire, don't kill it!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Framingham, Massachusetts, a bloodbath complete with some strange placement of internal organs is a complete surprise to this leafy neighborhood, but why it happened turns out to be much more shocking.

Welcome to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy wissman thank you folks so much for joining us today and another insane edition of small town murder and when i say insane wow buckle up everybody let's just say that right off the top here uh we will get to that very quickly little house cleaning at the top of the show very quickly here uh shut up and give me murder.com head there

right now get your tickets to the virtual live show oh boy october the 27th just like a live show but you're in your living room coming at you looks just like we're in a theater i guess with same stage set up except you know that you just screen and all that but you're in your house that's all there is to it lots of stuff it's fun we're going to do a spooky crazy weird halloween episode and it will be available for seven days after that you can watch it over and over you can watch it later you can do whatever you want with it for seven days so get your tickets to that right now shut up and give me murder.com or moment.co slash small town murder yeah also whatever app you're listening on, give us five stars. It does help out the show.

Drives us up the charts if you want to do that. Patreon this week is cooking. Hell yeah. My goodness. Patreon.com slash crimeinsports is where you get all the good stuff, the bonus episodes, anybody $5 or above, a cup of coffee is what it. We'll get you not only the whole back catalog of bonus episodes to binge, which is like 150 episodes, but in addition to that,

you're also going to get new ones every other week, two new episodes, one crime and sports, one small town murder, and you'll get access to it all this, this week, which you'll get for crime and sports, nothing to do with sports,

but really fun. We're doing the personal ads again, a favorite. It is a favorite and most requested. Everybody wants it back all the time, so we've got to do them every six months. Personal ads, old personal ads from the newspaper. Desperate people in the 80s looking for love in black and white print. So that's fun.

Then for Small Town Murder, another back by popular demand. Small Town Festivals. We're going to talk about some weird county fairs and some weird small town festivals we're going to talk about some weird county fairs and some weird small town festivals and all sorts of weird stuff get all of that patreon.com slash crime and sports and get a shout out at the end of the show of course where jimmy will mispronounce your name guaranteed we guarantee you a name mispronounce only if it's like italian or eastern european he'll really butcher it other than that he's getting good at him though give you credit jimmy you're getting better you

are you are i'm telling you then i gotta encourage you know then um gotta give the disclaimer here this is a comedy show it is we're comedians as crazy as it is nothing is made up for comedic effect the stories are 100 real everything is real uh we don't make fun of we try to go this is the thing we're not into like murder porn so we're i don't want to be like and then he cut her head off and blood squirted it's pretty gross we try to lighten the mood a little bit here obviously around an actual killing you can't do that but all the stuff around it that's crazy that's where the jokes are you got some bumbling police force trying to screw it up for 10 years or some murderer with a crazy excuse let's make fun of him why not we have no other

recourse in this matter we're comedians we're not you know i'm not a homicide detective i can't go slap the cuffs on somebody so there you go we do that but what we do not do is we do not make fun of the victim or the victim's family why james because we're assholes yeah but we're not scumbags that's how that works so if that sounds good to you we're gonna hear a wild episode if you think true crime and comedy should never ever ever never go together i don't know maybe we shouldn't be friends i don't know what to tell you maybe we should we don't know yet but you should listen and check it out yeah no complaining afterwards though i'll tell you that much that said i think it's time jimmy to sit back what do you say yeah clear the lungs

wherever you are and hopefully not too public of a place and shout shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy. Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's do it. All right. We're going all the way this week to Massachusetts. Here we go, Massachusetts. It's Framingham, Massachusetts, which the population is slightly above our normal cutoff.

Sure. above our normal cutoff sure but it's it's it's only because it's like a swelling suburb but it's it's a it's a definite town feel a lot of neighborhoods houses it's a suburb so i mean it's people that live there you know it's a town i mean they call it a town but it's it's you know big enough to be a small city we'll say where the hell is it it's northeastern massachusetts it's about 35 minutes to b. So it's Boston suburbs. People, everybody that works, that lives there works in Boston pretty much. If they have a nice house anyway, they work in Boston. It's wild how, still for the life, look, I've lived in wide open spaces my whole life and

I never realized how goddamn commutable the northeast is. It's because it was all designed when there was things that couldn't get you places fast. And now we can get there so fast. Yeah, that's the thing. It's absolutely true. I mean, you think like, ah, New York City and people work there. Yeah, but people don't all live there. They commute there.

You know what I mean? Or any of these cities. Yeah. There are people in fucking New Hampshire that work in Boston. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Because that's just beyond Framingham. This is in northeastern Massachusetts. It's about an hour 20 to Providence, Rhode Island, if you want to go south.

And about two and a half hours all the way across the state from North Adams, Massachusetts. It's our last episode there. Episode 271, that was. This is in Middlesex County. Yep. Area code 508. The motto here, and you'll understand this if you've ever been in this area, the motto here, you think you're better than me. Yeah.

What do you think you're better than me? Goddamn arrogance. What are you better than me? Irish guys looking for fights. That's all it is. You think you're better than me? Is that why you're looking at me, pal? They're all town mottos.

It's right on the side. You enter, welcome to Framingham. You think you're better than me? You're like, wow. Aggressive. You're not too good for this place. Yeah, wow, that's aggressive here. So it was it's cited on an ancient trail known as the Old Connecticut Path,

which was first settled by Europeans when John Stone settled on the West bank of the Sudbury river in 1647. Jesus fuck. This shit is old school. In 1660, Thomas Danforth, who was an official of the Bay colony,

formerly, uh, formerly of frame Lingham, which is what it used to be called. Uh, he did not want to incorporate the town there but didn't it didn't get incorporated until 1700 when this guy died so he died and they were like okay he's he'll shut up now finally jesus christ it's literally the next time

so they don't know why they dropped the l from it because it was frame lingham and apparently when they incorporated they dropped the L so there you go maybe somebody didn't see it in the in the just between the I like it's just it's cumbersome off the tongue Framelingham Framingham comes up weird to spell plus with our accent

we're gonna just drop the L anyway so why we don't say whole words come on so either way in 1701 they first church was organized they got the first teacher hired in 1706 they built a permanent schoolhouse in 1716 so it happened pretty fast that's that's fast for back then sure enough to hire a teacher took like two years you had to like put it in somebody that some shit. You had to put ads in like newspapers and cities, then wait for replies, which took two weeks, then go over them all, then send a reply back. And then they would have to like plan to travel for an interview, which would take a month.

And then they would go. It takes months to hire somebody like that. Crazy. It takes three steps to turn the lights on. Of course. It's a lot. lights on of course it's a lot so um the they had the denison manufacturing company was founded here in 1844 as a jewelry and watch box manufacturing company the box that all the box they made the jewelry and the ships to put it in so here's there you go all in one it started by aaron lufkin

denison who was the pioneer of the American system of watch manufacturing at the nearby Waltham Watch Company. And his brother, I guess, made the company even bigger once this guy passed it on to him. And in 1990, they merged into Avery Denison. They merged with another company. So the company's still around from 1844. Wow. Yeah pretty wild they have headquarters in pasadena california now though so but they have a corporate office in their life yeah yeah in 1917 the town was the site of and i

didn't look up what this was on purpose because it's just crazy to say and leave it alone the tuberculosis demonstration well i'm scared to death. I don't know what that is. Every tubercular fucking drunken son of a bitch, come outside and start coughing. We're going to have a big old demonstration. No, people are coming from miles around. Come on. That's a very quiet demonstration.

Those are people that can't be yelling. It literally hurts. Thank you, everybody. It's quite the demonstration. Bunch of people coughing blood on shit. That's wonderful. Yeah, just a bunch of people with the white rag over their mouth coughing with the handkerchief like Doc Holliday in Tombstone. Yeah, a bunch of goddamn lungers.

Now, reviews of this town here. There's a bunch of reviews. Let's see here. There's some really fucking funny ones, too. Reviews five've been living in framingham all my life over the years i've seen how much it has changed now that we have a mayor what so they had like this town with 70,000 people or something and no mayor in it so for a lot that's what i mean people screaming their own interests wow that's a crazy council meeting that's wild um uh let's see now that we have a mayor there are many more city

activities well that's good i guess somebody needs to organize something his work many new constructions that i'm excited to see done exclamation point so very nice here's five stars framingham is developing well new construction has given life to the area, although there's still room for improvement. Homelessness and home affordability are problems that continue to worsen. Welcome to America. That's America. Plus, you're in a suburban, you're a half hour from a major metropolitan area like that. You're in a, it's going to be competition for housing.

That's just the way it is. Shit's going to be half done around there. It's tough. Here's three stars. Quote, it's going to be competition for housing. That's just the way it is going to be half done around there. It's tough. Here's three stars. Quote. It's all right. I've lived here my whole life and really have grown to see some interesting things. You've grown to see some interesting things.

Great. Yeah. I love my city, but there's just so much bad stuff going on around here. It's pretty concerning. But I love Framingham regardless. OK. I'm really confused. I I love Framingham regardless. Okay? I'm really confused. I love it with all of its flaws.

That's like there's a person with two distinct personalities and they went back and forth writing lines. Bad stuff. It's pretty concerning. But I love Framingham. Two stars.

Safety in this neighborhood is bad. A few days ago, someone got robbed at Knife Point. Again, welcome to America. Last month, someone broke into my car and stole everything. Wow. All these events have occurred even though there is a police patrol in the area. If you have teenagers and do not want them to get involved in drugs, do not move to this neighborhood. Well, that's, again, America.

Yeah. Particularly that area, heavy with fucking opioids. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely. That's huge. Here is one star. There's a long story behind this one. I'd love to know what it is.

One star, stay away from this Nazi community. Number one,i community so it's like uh yeah like an ss company town i guess i don't know the cops will kick in your doors and kill your dog wow all without having a warrant they just come in that's your open up it's framingham police it's a we're gonna it's a just a standard bust down your door kill your dog all without having a warrant. They just come in. That's your... Open up. It's Framingham Police. It's just a standard bust down your door, kill your dog thing. We do this every once in a while. It's random.

Random kill your dog. Framingham dog murderers, we're here! Let's get my hair. Open it up. What the fuck is that about? So, wow, that person, I mean, there's a long story there. They gave that one sentence or two sentences

and it really could have been longer. I wonder if that person was swatted. You heard about that fucking trend? That is crazy. Yeah, that shit is insane. Anyone who does that deserves to have their fucking balls kicked in. So people in this town, 72,277 people. My God.

Yeah. So that is quite a lot of people. It's up since 2022 it's it's rising here so uh more females and males a few more females than normal actually too than usual i should say uh married populations a little bit higher it's a suburb so you're gonna get a mix of like your townies who grew up there and then people who work in boston and uh you know wanted to move you know had kids and moved out here so you have this interesting mix because it's a lot like that where i live too where it's you get this mix of like people who are from here and then people who are like these fucking people that work in the city and then make the housing go up because

they buy all the fucking houses around here there's a it's those two people that live here you know what i mean so it's the same thing when you're dealing with an East coast suburban area. So, um, yeah, more, more married than normal. Um,

all that kind of shit, less divorced than normal, which is, you know, I guess good. Um, race of this town, 66% white,

5.5% black, 7.7% Asian, uh, 16.3% Hispanic, 7.7% Asian, 16.3% Hispanic, 1.3% other race. Don't know what that is. They're pretty – all the races are on there, so I don't know what race that could be. I'm not sure. Something new. I'm not sure what that means, but we'll find out.

62.4% of the people here are religious. You betcha. And this is Boston, so I mean 50.1% of the people in this town are Catholic. So it is overwhelming because Catholics are, as we know, the Baptists of the North. Of the North, yeah. Absolutely. 1.9% Jewish. Hey! Hey!

Hava, Nagila, Hava, Nagila, Hava, Nagila. I don't know the words. Hey! All right. Not bad here. Politically, last election in this county, Middlesex County, 71.5% Democratic, 26.3% Republican, 2.2% Independent. Unemployment rate's a little bit lower than normal here, and household income a little bit higher.

It's normally mid-50,000s for regular. Here it is $73,182 is the median household income. Thanks so much, Mike. 41% of the people here make over $100,000 a year. 41%. 41%. So it's not, it's,

yeah, people make money here because a lot of them live in Boston and have like a high salary there and then live out here. It's a little bit cheaper. Yeah,

or work in Boston is what I meant. Yeah. So if we've convinced you, damn it, you're ready to commute on into Boston and stop by at Cheers

and have the whole Boston experience. We have for you the Framingham, Massachusetts Real Estate Report. Your average two-bedroom rental here, pricey, $1,970 a month. It's usually about $1,250, so that's a lot. Pricey, $1,970 a month. It's usually about $1,250, so that's a lot. Two-bedroom, one-bath house I found here.

1,356 square feet, so spacious for a two-bedroom. Nice front porch. It's decent, you know, like nice little front yard. Got a bay window and everything in the house. It's a small, it's a nice house, though. Decent house. $399,000 for that. Oh, my God.

That's about as cheap as you're going to get for a freestanding, non-apartment-type house. $399,000 for that. Oh, my God. That's about as cheap as you're going to get for a freestanding non-apartment type house. Here's a four-bedroom, two-bath, 1,739 square feet. Okay. Some room. Yeah, it's renovated inside. All, you know, whatever, flipped and done over and everything. But it still looks like a very non-spectacular blue box from the outside. It just looks like a kind of an average.

No curb appeal. Everything on the inside. Yeah, everything's on the inside. $624,900 for that, though. Yeah, it seems like if you're going to spend that much, you might as well kick it up to the next house here because this seems like a deal for this area five bedroom five bath four four thousand seventy six square feet yeah really nice this is from the listing i'll just read you the first couple sentences of the listing welcome to the secret garden of framingham this beautiful home is what dreams are made of, with a cinematic presence as soon as you drive into the estate on Learned Pond. On Learned Pond?

This is, yeah, they're, wow. It's beautiful, the fucking house is beautiful inside. It's just a gorgeous house. It's like a beautiful old New England house. Lots of wood. Lots of wood. It's just really nice. $1,070,000.

A million bucks. A million bucks for that which is you know three times the size more than twice the size of the other house and way way way way way nicer and uh yeah it's on learned pond for christ's sake things to do in this town here we go um not a lot to do here actually i think they're kind of just like boston. It's right there. Go. You're lazy. You're lazy. Get the fuck out of here. What are you doing? What are you doing?

Fucking Fenway's right there. It's right there. What do you want? Christ almighty. It's David Ortiz Day. Framingham Earth Day Festival is what they have here now at the Earth Day Festival. It's earthy. Here's the agriculture, gardening, and horticulture section of the event here.

Angel hair alpacas will be there. I didn't know that they were different ones. I don't know. I guess you can just look at them. I don't know what you do with them. Do you pet them? Is it made of pasta? Feed them?

It's a heavy Italian presence here. Maybe it's just pasta. you is it made of pasta feed them it's a heavy italian presence here that's maybe it's just pasta made of pasta maybe they just eat pasta that's it they'll we they're the ones you only feed them angel hair pasta that's all they'll eat it's a very special form of alpaca they like cannoli but they prefer the angel hair that's it that's all they'll eat i'm telling you they'll eat it up once in a while. You can get a Napoleon in them, but I'm telling you. It's mainly the angel here. They have black earth compost. I don't know what that is. No clue.

The East Lee Farm Educational Foundation will be there. You can visit the Framingham Seed Library. Oh, look at that seed. Wow. They got a lot of time. That's an oval shaped and that one's round okay like there's fucking what are you gonna look at seeds what is that about houses are a million dollars here uh why do you have so much time to fuck around with seed i don't understand it then here we go they have an all-day show in the park here. It says, bring a lounge chair, a yummy lunch, and hang out with us all day.

I got to bring my own food? Oh, yeah. They're not going to have food for sale there. Well, you can eat an alpaca probably or steal some of its angel hair if you're really that hungry. But other than that, starting out at 11 a.m., which is the slot you want if you're a music act. You want to be on at 11 a.m. That's really the best music comedy best done mid-morning usually compete with football wow uh 11 to 11 30 too there's a short

set for archive her is the name of the band couldn't find much information on this band i don't know what's going on there at 11 30 mayor charlie sissitsky is going to come on the stage for 15 minutes yeah and i don't know he's finally have a mayor let's hear from him i guess what do you got mayor he's going to come on then from 11 45 to 12 30 this one gets a 45 minute set you get to see paul rodriguez oh no no no no no no. Not born in East L.A. Paul Rodriguez. Not that one. Not even his son.

The very amazing skateboarder, Paul. Not even that Paul Rodriguez. You're not getting either of those. You're getting Paul Rodriguez, the musician who it says this is from his site here. Paul Rodriguez has been performing in the Bostonoston metro west area since moving from los angeles in 2002 currently he's performing with his rock band the paul rodriguez band and his jazz his jazz fusion band polarized guru oh it's definitely not that it's not it's not them i saw the guy's picture i worked with paul rod. It ain't Paul Rodriguez. Trust me. It's not him.

I wish it was. I'd go watch that. Me too. I was like, wow, damn, Paul Rodriguez. Shit's falling off for you. And then I'm like, oh, it's not him. I'm just here for the seeds, man. It's fucking seeds.

1230 at the end of his set, Amy Powellka comes on. She is there to talk about the energized framingham program something to do with their power grid or some shit municipality yeah that's what they do they have a band then they have some like civil servant come out and explain like you know how the sewer works yeah how the sewer system works. And 1245 to 130, the Party Band is coming on. Okay. Here we go. The Party Band is an original brass band embodying homegrown, unadulterated, unplugged fun. Oh, boy.

Oh, boy. Their mission is to bring people together, celebrate the gift of being alive, and make the world a better place through the joys of quality live music in a way that is accessible to everyone that is a party yeah well if you're playing brass instruments it's accessible to everyone within a three mile radius because they can fucking hear it it's everywhere uh at 1 30 when that's over with if you could the energy that on the stage is going to be on fire once they they put the flames out, Sean Luz will come on, who is the Framingham Sustainability Coordinator. God damn it. Imagine if that is like a high-energy act and everybody likes the brass band, and that could be fun.

And then this guy comes out. Hello, I'm the Framingham Sustainability Coordinator. That is awful. Yeah, they just crushed it. Jesus Christ. You can call me Flight 93 because because i'm gonna drive this right into the ground it's like like following bernie mack in 1997 like hi oh boy i'm a comedian also i got jokes ready guys i'm actually afraid of you motherfuckers yeah i'm actually i am scared of you motherfuckers 145 to 220 a very odd set time there 145 to 220 the circuit breakers will come on shit yeah we play 40 minutes of

music that's it we play classic rock and the music you love from the 50s to present day how how present day do you think they are do you think it's the 50s through like the 70s and that's present day to them yeah i looked at their picture they're all at least 70 years old every one of these men is at least 70 years old they're not playing yeah this one's here's one from the weekend like that's not happening it's not happening. Have you guys heard this song? It's called Wet Ass Pussy. Yeah. So then 220, Michael Croce comes out, and he is the Keep Framingham Beautiful coordinator. So he's going to come talk. Then they close it all out at 230 with a half-hour set from Jack Brinsneck, who looks like a 16-year- year old child and he's wearing crocs all the time so

that's gonna be a wild scene everybody i recommend it highly kids fucking love those shoes again yeah they have like a it's a new resurgence i think it's basketball players that are doing it i got mad for a second with kids like dressing like that and i'm like jesus everyone's in their fucking pajamas then i remember we had skids. And I'm like, never mind. We came in. They look like fucking pajamas. They were literally pajamas.

Never mind. Carry on. Do whatever you're doing. Keep being comfortable. I get it. That's it. The crime rate in this town, property crime, is low. It's almost half the national average.

Yeah, it's leafy. It's nice. They got money. They can buy their own shit. Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and assault. You think you're better than me. That counts in that, those fights. That's right at average, though.

There's enough angry Irish people in bars to fight each other to keep it at average. It's not stealing anything from you. It's just violence for the sake of violence. It's just, yeah, if you're from the Northeast or if you've spent a lot of time in the Northeast, you know there's just going to be some violence sometimes just for the sake of, what the fuck are you looking at? It's just enough already. And people snap and it's very weird.

I went to a wedding. The best man had a black eye and a swollen face because he got in a road rage fight on the way to the fucking wedding. That's so normal. It's so normal it's not even funny in the northeast especially like in like suburban areas like i don't know what it is fist fight oh god when i was a kid we used to get in fights all the time there's always something it's now i think back on i was like why were we fighting so much because that's just what you did it was weird so that's swollen for the pictures man that's that's hilarious that's just what you did. It was weird. This is swollen for the pictures, man.

That's hilarious. That's a true Northeastern wedding. I love it. I love it here. That's what it is. I love it, man. It's perfect. So let's talk about a murder.

What do you say, Jimmy? Let's talk about a non, just a bar fight. We'll talk about an actual horrible thing that happened here. We've got to go back to 1995 is this okay so we were just talking about the 90s and now here we are dead smack in the middle of the 90s here it comes fucking ace of bass is pumping it's all yeah all that she's wanting is another baby at this point she's seen the sign and she won't turn around. It's all good. The guy from Savage Gardens pretending he's straight. Yeah, yeah.

And I don't think he was famous yet, was he? I think he was then. That was later. That was like 98, 99. Yeah, that was later. 95 is still. He's super pretending now. Poor bastard.

Yeah, really. It's okay, man. We're good. So 1995, we got to talk about an individual here uh his name is richard h and i'm going to say that h i'm going to say it because there's a reason you'll find out later richard h h h h h is his middle initial okay that'll make sense in about 20 minutes um rosenthal is his last name. He is Life Insurance Company in Boston. Wow. He's worked his way up.

He makes a shitload of money. Talk about his educational background and everything like that. He has a bachelor's from the Wharton School of Business at Pennsylvania University, which is the most prestigious business school there is. I've heard of Wharton. Fuck yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, not too bad here. He's heard of Wharton. Fuck yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, not too bad here. He's doing very well for himself.

And obviously, you kind of have to have your shit together a little bit if you're going to go to all these colleges. I couldn't even figure out the application. So, it's a lot. To work at John Hancock and be doing well there, too. That's a big name. That's a big brand. And he's from a very blue-collar family, too.

So, they're very proud of him, obviously. They're blue-collar from a blue-collar section of Fairlawn, New Jersey. So, yeah. Anyway, he got his bachelor's degree in accounting from Wharton University or from Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. That was 1977. He earned a master's degree in actuarial science at Temple University. What the fuck is that? That is extra counting. An actuary is like a super accountant.

Yeah, dealing with big, big numbers. I don't know. I don't know. Bigger or even smaller, maybe. They're getting really into the decimals. I'm not sure what it is. One way or the other. One way or the other, man. They're either really into the decimals. I'm not sure what it is. One way or the other. One way or the other, man. They're either dealing with billions or cents, but they're dealing with something. And that's like a hardcore thing. So it wasn't enough to have the degree from there.

He had to get a master's in actuarial science. That is wild. Temple University, that was in 1979. Um, Temple University, that was in 1979. 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. Wondery Plus. 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. He worked for a major accounting firm for a while, and then he got recruited by John hancock the company uh in 1985 here and now this is the type of guy too when he's at work like he's like you know he's the guy who when the

cleaning person comes in with the vacuum late at night they're like oh sorry didn't mean to disturb you and he's still on his computer in a dark room with like the light on him and shit and they're like you want me to empty your garbage? And he's like, yeah, please. And he's that guy. A fresh cup of coffee at 10 at night. He's that guy. Dark office.

He's there with a glow of the screen on his face. He works like late, late at night. And this allows him to really move up the ladder pretty quickly because he burns the midnight oil, man. He's like a first to get in, last to leave type of guy. I work. I'll rest and I'll enjoy myself when I'm retired. That's what he's trying to do here. So he worked all these late nights. Plus, he was a single guy back then. He's a young guy. He was in his late 20s at the time,

single guy. What else he got to do? Try to do something for yourself. That's good. So he does this. He works up the ranks and up to a senior financial analyst uh there's about two dozen people there that uh have that position in the whole firm he's it's a real uh apparently a very prestigious job for them okay a big deal big big deal yeah uh he was Everybody said he's somewhat of a kind of a loner there. Okay. He's not totally a loner, as we'll talk about, but he's not real jocular. He's not that kind of guy who's like, oh, what are we talking about? We're breaking his balls.

That's not the kind of guy he is. He's not the water cooler guy. No, they said he rarely shows a sense of humor, which, shocking from a guy with a master's in actuarial science that he's not a real he picked the right career you know what i mean that's what he is like it's fine you know fuck if i we didn't have senses of humor maybe we'd have masters in actuarial science i might do well i could have done well who knows maybe but if otherwise it ruins us the sense of humor all we want to do make jokes, and they don't like that at jobs. It's just hard to sit there in a fucking meeting when somebody says something that sounds hysterical,

and we're all just going to move across this? We're going to pretend like that didn't just happen? No. You can't do it. Much like the kid in your class who had to say that thing, we're all those kids. So we can't not say that thing, even though we're all those kids so yeah we can't not say that thing even though we really want to and our livelihood depends on depends on it and we don't want to say it it comes out and that's why that's why we end up here and i hate me too don't worry that's why

we end up on a podcast and we're on stage even worse even more asking for admiration. And please laugh at me on a goddamn stage. So either way, not a lot of sense of humor. I guess he decided to go to law school around 1990. He decides, I'm going to be a lawyer. I'm going to be an attorney. I guess he wants to be an attorney at the firm. Is this enough for him? Yeah.

I guess not. He gets rejected from Suffolk Law School, which, what do they want from the guy? Honestly. What do you want from him? He's got a master's degree in actuarial science. He seems like a smart guy. He sacrificed a sense of humor for this. Yes, I mean, look at him.

He's dull as shit. Seems like right up your alley, guys. No jokes. I mean, nothing. Not even like a dad joke. He's got g gots for us on the joke front can we jesus christ hire the man get him in here so um but i guess he does he that's like a minor setback for him it's kind of the first big first setback he's really had

otherwise he got into all the schools he wanted he got the degrees he wanted but um he goes out with some women has a couple of semi-long-term relationships in the late 80s lives with a woman for a little while but then he meets a woman named laura okay she goes by lj laura jane russell is her name um go everybody calls her lj apparently um she's from illinois from uh highland park illinois suburb of chic. She was raised in El Paso, Texas, though. Oh, okay. She's very Texas, everybody says about her. She moved out to California for a little while

and then ended up in Boston. Now, they get together and everybody says they're very different people. I'm sure. She has a sense of humor and she's kind of more outgoing and she's charming, whereas he is more rigid and just

not real. He's a goddamn super accountant. What do you want from the guy? No offense accountants out there, but you didn't get that job because you're like, I'm hilarious. Accounting. That's not the, you know, I'm a fun. I just want to have fun accounting. That's not the, you know, I'm a fun. I just want to have fun accounting.

That's not this. You have a certain you have to be very steady for people to trust you with their money. I want to I want a dork with no sense of humor with my money. Yeah. Otherwise, you end up with fucking Kevin Bacon. Any money I have is someone was dealing with it and I told them a joke and they laughed hysterically. I'd be like, I'm goodbye. I'm not doing this i i want them to stare at me and go what i was saying about mutual funds was thank you you're the right the right person for me i want them to say i don't

get it yeah i just want to know i wanted to give like a three second pause where they stare through me with their glasses down their nose and they go anyway back to fourth quarter planning and they just ignore it like it never happened disgusted with humor so uh laura though the way she was apparently was very smoothing in social situations so if they're a couple she can kind of take the lead and smooth it out a little bit and kind of ease him into it so he doesn't have to be so on the spot. That's a track, motherfucker. It happens. It happens.

They're about the same height. In heels, she's taller than him. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, she's – but apparently she's very kind of – not meek, but very mild is the way to put it. And with a lot of things, she seems very mild. Everybody said she would dote on him a lot and give him constant attention and all that sort of thing. Very much into him when apparently she worked at Hancock, too. She worked at John Hancock also.

And when they get they'll end up getting married in 1991. John Hancock also and when they get they'll end up getting married in 1991 and I guess she all of like her friends were mad at her because she decided to change her name to Rosenthal she decided to take his name and all of her friends were like we're like 80s career chicks you can't do that like that's goes against what we're doing and she's like well that's what I'm doing so she did that. A former girlfriend of his, the one that was together with him right before he met Laura, said he didn't seem to have a way to express his anger. He didn't talk very much in the first place. He would withdraw.

So that's bottling it up. That's his thing. I guess so. She said, yeah, he never really would blow up. He'd never yell or scream or act angry or he just kind of so she didn't know if he didn't get angry or if he just didn't know how to express it or what but he never he's not a real emotive guy in terms of laughing crying screaming yelling it's a very tumultuous uh thing to to have happen because as a person like if your if your other doesn't get mad that's awesome because then we don't yeah yeah how do we know that that's not like bubbling bob yeah bottled

up inside and it's gonna explode out of you yeah you don't know but that we don't know and some people are just mild and they just take things pretty easy some people are easygoing you know what i mean so they this girlfriend always just said he seemed pretty easygoing basically to me like he was never mean or angry or any of that shit not controlling or yeah it's kind of a you know kind of there just kind of like a wallpaper not real exciting so they get married like we said in 1991 richard and laura uh here so um an employee of richard said that um the one weird thing is laura placed uh an engagement announcement in the newspaper for though as he used to do back then people would do that was a thing in 91 the problem is she put in his middle initial she used the H and he absolutely despises his middle name. You want to piss him off.

Impossible to do in most that you fucking put a middle initial between those Richard and Rosenthal. Oh, God. Apoplectic. Dude can't take it. It's like when wheny called his neighbor Francis. Yeah, you can pinch his wife's ass, fucking open your door into his car. He doesn't give a fuck about any of that shit. You use the H in his name.

My God, fucking fire will rain from the skies. Well, what is it? Don't know what his middle name is. We just know it's H. All I can get is the H because from then on. What if it's just an H? Maybe it's just an H. I'm not sure. Are you curious is it? Don't know what his middle name is. We just know it's H. All I can get is the H because from then on. What if it's just an H? Maybe it's just an H. I'm not sure.

Are you curious about it? I don't know. He wanted a whole name. He's like, I want to be Herbert. Like Ulysses S. Grant. I want to be Harvey. Yeah. Well, I think you got to be famous before they'll give you a middle initial maybe.

At least accomplish something. But yeah, that was a very very weird thing here uh she's a few years younger than him by the way and she's six years younger than him lj here um lj from el paso so um people who knew them said they were kind of surprised that they were they were a couple like people that knew both of them were even together at all yeah they said they people kept using the words ill-suited they seemed ill-suited for each other ouch that's a rich smart people way of saying they don't go together those two are what a weird couple that's a saying a weird fucking couple they are right they seem just ill-suited don't you believe i think he has

ill-suited yes there is ill-suited for each other you believe? I think he is ill-suited. Yes, they're ill-suited for each other. Or you could say opposites attract. You know what I mean? That could go either way because, I mean, opposite people a lot of times seem ill-suited for each other. And it works out just fine. But they said their temperaments and everything. But somehow they were making it work and it seemed to be good. That implies she's too hot for him to me.

That, yeah, there's that and um well she's just real outgoing and he's like the guy in the office that just like does his work and doesn't really talk to anybody and so they're like they're like how do they even start talking is what everybody's saying like how did he talk to her like what the fuck he doesn't seem like he would like approach her so how did that work people can't figure out how they even got together, basically. Yeah, like Brittany Murphy and her husband. Yeah, you're like, how did that happen? What the fuck?

Oh, he had drugs. Okay, now I know how it happened. He knew how to get drugs a lot. Now it makes more sense. Man, I saw that documentary on here. That was some sad shit. That was terrible. Dude, I'm still disturbed.

It's been a couple years since I've seen her. I felt bad for her, man, obviously. Jesus Christ. So either way, these two are married, not Brittany Murphy and her scumbag boyfriend, but these two are married on September 29th, 1991 in a courthouse by a justice of the peace in El Paso, Texas. He went down. Wow.

So he's agreeable to go down to El Paso to get married. You have to be very agreeable to agree to go to El Paso at all. Let me tell you something. To agree to spend a night in El Paso, you've got to be a very agreeable person. I can see why people live there because... Do tell, Jimmy. Hold on. Pray tell.

The nice thing about El Paso is that you can just look south and see that it, look, it could always be worse. That's true. Juarez is a piece of shit. That's a piece of shit. And yeah, that's, but you, if you've come from somewhere else in the, anywhere other place in the United States, you know, with the possible exception of Tampa, you'd go, this place is a fucking disaster. What happened?

I think that people that live in El Paso started there, and then they go, oh, look, we're doing so great. Look over there. Yeah, I guess so. Maybe. I stay here so I can feel better about myself. I'm not sure. I need visual confirmation every day that I'm at least a little bit better than I could be. Than somebody.

Yeah. So this is the first marriage for both people, by the way. Neither of them have been married before. Now, Laura, by the way she career wise socially she's way more outgoing has a lot going on career wise she's not that ambitious she's not as ambitious as he is anyway so she's not playing that corporate game

of trying to she's not staying late and doing all her job she's happy if they want to reward her for what she's doing fine but if not I'm fine they call it a low level staff position of assistant portfolio manager in John Hancock's investment department. She's not even like the lead. That's fantastic.

The least pressure. Yeah. When it's 5 o'clock, she goes home. That's it. You know what I'm saying? She's not like, well, I have this project. She's like, well, I'll be clocking in at 9 tomorrow. Look at the clock.

That's where I'm at on my day. That's it. She also went to college for two years, but I don't think she got a degree ever. But she went to – attended college for like two years. Just doesn't have the same drive, which no one has – very few people have a drive like, I'm going to go to this school and then that school. I should be an actuarial science major with a master's. Oh, maybe I'll go to law school even though life is going well. That's crazy.

Yeah. I've got a paycheck. I don't need to spend school even though life is going well. That's crazy. Yeah. I've got a paycheck. I don't need to spend it. No, this is nuts. So after they're married, they get married, and they rent an apartment in the south end of Boston. They got a nice brownstone apartment, one of those old school brownstones in the south end there. So there's Southies over here now. stones on the south end there so there's there's southeast over here now and um this is right near the the place they work which is at that big giant glass fucking john hancock building so they work

right there they live very close they can walk to work so life's pretty easy um the landlord and at this place said that he liked laura much better Richard. Okay. That's what he said. I like Laura much better. He said, quote, the dynamic between the couple was that he was tense and assertive and aggressive and she was the person who was nice and easier to deal with. In the 80s, that was a lot of relationships. I was going to say that. You just described like Archie Bunker and Edith Bunker.

You described kind of the archetypal sitcom family dynamic is he's, ah, what does this guy want from me? And then she goes, it's okay. You don't listen to him. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's that 70s show for Christ's sake. It's everything. It's that old school kind of dynamic there.

It makes sense too. And especially him. I don't know, with a landlord. Maybe he's weird about money too because he's so, I don't know. You know, you don't necessarily, a lot of people didn't have relationships with their landlord. Maybe he's weird about money, too, because he's so I don't know. You know, you don't necessarily a lot of people didn't have relationships with their landlord. At that point, it's take my check. Get the fuck away from me. I live here. You don't. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. So either way, they lived there for a couple of years. In April of 1993, they moved to this is when they buy a nice house here.

This is in Framingham. it's in the nobscott section of north framingham yeah here near the sudbury line so there you go the line to sudbury now they buy it's a beautiful house 330 000 in 1993 so that's that's a that's a good chunk of change it's a good chunk of change it's a very very nice house a very very nice neighborhood type of neighborhood where right after that you know suburban dinner time quote unquote the streets are just flooded with like baby carriages and people walking around and waving at their one of those neighborhoods like everybody's got a fucking everybody's got a eight month old or so it eight-month-old, it seems like here. And a family dog.

And a dog. Oh, yeah, yeah. Obviously a dog. So, yeah, that's the deal here. So it's a beautiful, leafy neighborhood. Very, like I said, very walkable. The Rosenthal's kind of mostly keep to themselves, everybody says, in the neighborhood. They hadn't really become a part of the fabric of the

community yet but it's hard to do that if you come from somewhere else and you're moving in and like we were saying like framingham also has that thing of like you're from here you're a boston person so it's i could see that kind of being a little difficult and if they work in the city and they work you know decent hours and they come home at 7 30 or something they don't have time to go fucking talk to jack across the street and watch him dick off in his garage for a half hour they're gonna go in and eat their dinner and yeah you know whatever so i see the advantages of being a part of the neighborhood but i also do see the fucking weird part of like i don't want to talk about the shit at the end of the street that it's not on my property i don't fucking care i just don't want to talk yes i just don't want to have like a

pre-installed forced conversation at all times because then you find yourself looking outside before you go out do you not yeah you look outside to make if you don't feel like talking to someone you're like oh fuck he's out there all right i'm gonna wait five minutes jesus christ maybe he'll go inside i don't want to live like that you're peeking out your blinds to someone, you're like, oh, fuck, he's out there. All right, I'm going to wait five minutes. Jesus Christ. Maybe he'll go inside. I don't want to live like that. You're peeking out your blinds to see if you can leave your own home. I can't do that. I will not.

I got a particular neighbor that, look, and I'm as outgoing as it comes. I talk to people. I don't mind it. You talk to one particular one, it's too much. I lived in that apartment complex. We're out in the street talking. There's just some guy. It's like an urban area, just some guy walking by.

And Jimmy's like, hey, what kind of dog is that? Like chasing after him. Like, we're in the middle of a conversation. So you're very outgoing. Yeah. This guy's just too much. Wow, too much for you. Air travel, James. Oh, boy.

Yeah, just because I do it, I don't want to talk about it. He's always telling you about his juicer. Let me tell you about my juicer. No. Got a new one, Jimmy. I do it, I don't want to talk about it. He's always telling you about his juicer. Let me tell you about my juicer. No. Got a new one, Jimmy. I get it. No more. With the juicer.

I'm telling you, man. It's a lot. That's tough. That's tough. I get it. I have avoided that for a reason. My neighbor and I have a perfect relationship. If there's anything wrong or something, he'll come over blah blah that's it there's no real waving or any of that bullshit

if we're within like 30 feet of each other maybe an acknowledgement a head nod or something but otherwise you do also have the added benefit of like your your properties like almost interlock like a ziploc bag you've got a weird way of it like yeah that's true the land division is strange whereas mine's like i've got a fucking road and brick walls we don't gotta talk you don't have to yeah and this guy will make sure that you're yeah you're gonna be in a conversation you've got reasons to talk over there so we're doing gonna do a planting over here is this mine or yours you know i don't give a shit yeah exactly so just do whatever you do and that may that also acquiesces some like you're giving he's giving you know i mean here it's just there there isn't much in my

properties where there's really much leeway of having conversations we've got definitive reasons to not talk it's called 18 inches of cinder block yeah they don't care they'll chew through 18 inches of cinder block to annoy you with a fucking inane conversation that you don't need to have that's the problem that's the annoying part about this can't do it can't fucking do it so they they keep to themselves maybe uh most of the time a neighbor of theirs named pat moody said the rosenthal's once came to a community meeting, but they didn't speak or have anything to discuss. They just kind of sat there, which is normal.

They don't have to say anything. What's going on here? Pat said that she occasionally saw the couple strolling through the neighborhood, basically. She said they seemed like the perfect couple living in the suburbs. Basically, she said they seemed like the perfect couple living in the suburbs. So project that they were putting up, which was like a stadium and a big building. It was a big, giant project in Boston that – and I guess John Hancock was in on the whole thing here. He's running the numbers on the whole jam yeah he's like this is like he's in meetings with like all these top level business executives and all this shit and they put he's the representative

for john hancock he's the guy so they really trust him and by 95 he is the director of acquisitions and disposals i don't know what the fuck that is but buying it and throwing it away buying it or tossing it i don't know that's how dumb i am he's got such a good job i don't even know what it is that's you know someone has a good job when you're like whoa what the fuck is that that sounds important i don't know you work in that big building and do that yeah he figures out whether it's financially viable that's an amazing gig apparently so he earns 96 000 a year in the 90s mind you so again you know that's a lot more now plus bonuses plus he gets a bunch of big bonuses

too so he is killing it he's crushing it money wise really is doing great um i guess he uh you know every day he's doing all these high level tasks with this Megaplex complex. And in 95, he's like really into this. He's working late hours. He's, you know, really throws himself into this project here. At one point, even though he's still the thing is he would be social at work for a little while. He would go to lunch with other people and stuff like that but they said that he uh at one point in 93 ish he stopped having lunch with his co-workers that he worked with and he started having lunch with laura instead because she worked there too yeah which if your wife works somewhere it's kind of hard to tell her you know i can't have lunch with you so

at these guys i don't know you can't sit at our table. Yeah. This sounds very high school. Like, I don't know. I used to sit at our table in the cafeteria, but then he started hooking up with some chick. Now he's over there with her. It's his wife, for Christ's sake. This isn't. Now he's married and doesn't have time for us.

We're at work. This isn't the 10th grade. He's got a wife. He literally was married to this woman. He would work late a lot in 95, but when he wasn't working late once in a while inside the Boston Marriott at Copley place, there was a sports bar in there called champions. And every,

every once in a while he would after work, stop by there for a couple on the way home to unwind. And plus I think he's working like 14 12 14 hour days doing crunching numbers so you'd need something after that you know you have to distract yourself with anything you can't just get in the car and drive 40 minutes after you do that you gotta you gotta lubricate that situation a dry even just a drink just okay ah all right see the world better yeah so he would go there But he doesn't go there and just have fun. He apparently goes around the bar.

You get a beer or two in him. Yeah. He starts going around the bar questioning people on their stance on gun control. That's what he starts doing while he's out at a social occasion at a sports bar. Oh, my God. He'll just go around. What do you think about gun control to a stranger? And they're like, we think you're better than me. And i'm surprised he didn't get his ass kicked like 30 fucking times

by people doing that that is a bananas thing to do it's a weird opener it's a weird opener it's you know maybe if you're talking to someone for like three hours that might come up but how's it going what do you think about gun control huh about? How about it, guy? Second Amendment. Let's talk about it. No. Whoa. Okay. I'm trying to get drunk. That's what he's doing. One of his ex-girlfriends said, quote, he was intense, but he was a very passive man with his feelings. I never saw him violent or that angry.

So even in the bar, he wouldn't get uppity with people. He wouldn't be all up in their faces being like, oh, motherfucker, this is what I think. That never happened. He just wanted to discuss gun control with people. Maybe he's trying to get in touch with his surroundings and just find out what everybody else thinks. I don't know. He's described by his friends also as nerdy but athletic, which is a – Okay. Okay.

Very dedicated to work. But they said he's adventurous when they go on vacation and stuff he's adventurous he's a he can be a fun guy do some hiking but he's either focused on work or not focused on work like there's no you know either that's 100 or okay it's a break i'm taking a break from work and now i can have a little bit of fun but he stays in there um they said uh one of his colleagues said that, quote, the guy is extraordinarily smart. He can always tell you what's what. So, yeah, he is considered like the top of his field, smartest guy around type of deal.

Now, February 1994, February 18th, 94, to be exact, they have a young they have a baby Laura and Richard have a baby a son named Reese the baby is premature by a good amount and there is apparently pretty much as soon as the baby's born there's

fluids begin accumulating around the heart and lungs causing heart failure and within 24 hours Reese died the son died fluids begin accumulating around the heart and lungs causing heart failure. And within 24 hours, uh, Reese died. The son died. So yeah, they lost a one day old baby,

which is difficult, obviously. Yeah. Difficult for people. That's a lot of strain on a relationship sometimes too. Oh, it can be. Oh God,

absolutely. That's tough. Got people handling shit in their own. And that's just people handling things in their own way and not figuring out how to handle it together type of thing, which is fine because everyone handles horrible grief in their own fashion. So it's just a natural progression of things. The loss of a one-day-old, it's really hard to not try to place blame somewhere. Granted, not necessarily on a person, but just somewhere for closure. Oh, you're looking for a reason. Maybe even more than blame but a reason you know like yeah yeah what's the reason

that's crazy yeah yeah that's that's that's crazy so this is hard though and this this type of thing changes people sometimes too it'll kind of change people everybody said that he became extremely depressed over this like he it hit him like a ton of bricks, which is strange, huh? Dead baby would make you sad? Weird. Who would have thought that? And at 30, like you want that child. So it's 40.

Fuck. He was fucking 39. Yeah. And she's 34. They're like, hey. Everything's fine. We should be able to have a child. Right.

We should be able to have a child. Tick tock on the fucking biological clock. And we moved out to the suburbs and we have good jobs. And they're like, this is, you know, that's the next step to do it. Right. And I guess, yeah, he he was very difficult, had a very difficult time with this. They said he became depressed by the loss of the baby, which very normal, like I said. And he became a lot of people said kind of obsessed with the baby's death like it became a big part of his thing like he couldn't get over it had a hard time getting over it there so that's

tough now pretty much very quickly too that was February 94 and by what it, by August or July of 94, she's pregnant again. That's great. So they want to have another baby. They want to get past it. And that would be, I guess, a way to get kind of try to get past it would be, okay, well, focus on. They won't have any time to be depressed over that baby because this one will be screaming. I can imagine, too, being that he's so financially invested or minded things yeah yeah he he had nine months in that fucking child you know what i mean yeah yeah now he's that's crazy

and think about the way he is the kid probably had a trust in a college fund and was enrolled in preschool already he probably had all the things lined up these are very like studious people here this isn't like uh they're not in a trailer like buffalo bills fan sir yeah that's in something for nothing for nothing that's fucking funny they're um well it's better than being a cardinals fan for absolutely absolutely nothing or for that matter a bronco or giant fan so we're not sniping at anybody's teams here trust us trust us this is not a team snipe it's just being a fan of anything for so long to get goddamn nothing out of it no like yeah these two they they probably had the whole room set up oh

god sorry all the blue they had it going yeah these aren't like fucking crib they had a swing james no yeah they're not like in a trailer going hey charlene you pregnant or just you eat a lot of velveta last night because i can't oh shit baby fell out like that's not how these people are at all they're really those babies only survive by the way that baby the one that gives birth in the toilet in the shit bucket yeah not even in the toilet in the fucking. In the shit bucket. Yeah, not even in the toilet. In the fucking Homer bucket on the porch. You're not going to believe it when it just came out. That kid will be the sturdiest fucker ever.

He'll survive 30 years of prison later on when he kills his girlfriend at 21 years old. That's no problem. And this kid had a trust fund already. Yeah, couldn't make it last. So by March of 95 laura is eight months pregnant at this point okay and richard is now he's kind of he's still he never really came back around from being depressed about the baby that died about reese and now he tells a co-worker of his that quote everything's just so difficult and hard now which yeah dog yeah eight months

pregnant is hard and not only that eight months pregnant which can you imagine the tension that they have of a holy shit i hope this baby doesn't die in a day so it would be a lot of stress coming up to this point so they're probably repurposing a bunch of the shit that they already had for this one you know i? It's all brand new stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So apparently he's just – exactly. It's all new now.

So apparently he's having – him and Laura are having some arguments and things like that over it, which is extremely normal if you're in this situation especially. So April of 95, a young girl is born. A baby girl is born named Marla. So little Marla is born and she is perfectly healthy. Everything's fine. Great. Born on time. No problems.

Apparently Reese, it was just premature was the main issue. And yeah, so. 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, 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. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife. Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you the official Jinx podcast. We'll be revisiting all six episodes of part one

and watching along with part two as it airs on Max starting April 21st. Bye-bye. The official Jinx podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. So apparently, Laura returns from maternity leave and then ends up leaving her job to take care of Marla full time. OK. So she returned.

That was another thing they were having. She was having a hard time with they she wanted to go back to work, but she felt bad leaving the kid in daycare. Didn't want to leave the baby in daycare. They didn't need like they didn't need both of them to work but she felt bad leaving the kid in daycare didn't want to leave the baby in daycare they didn't need like they didn't need both of them to work financially so she decided that it's just selfish for me to work i should be taking care of the baby and that was her like mental thing about it which i'm sure every new parent that's the guilt you have of oh where should i be here where should i be you don't know how to do it she probably feels lucky to have this healthy baby you know what i mean what's the best for for her because i mean they they're supposed to have two right now exactly um so they the neighbors said um you know they would see them now rolling

the stroller at night after like i said after dinner he'd be part of the stroller parade there like it's like she's having a baby you know they all out there. Brand new Grand Marshal. Yep. So apparently they – this is when Richard, after the baby's born, people said he started to show stress at the job. His home life would kind of leak into his work. He would be – didn't have the same demeanor. He kind of had a flatter affect, but now he's a little more stressed. Saying a newborn changed his life? That's weird. I was going to say, it seems like he like he's the next words right it seems like he's not sleeping

as much at night that's strange with a newborn in the house who would have thought right weird seem as rested anymore so let me get this straight let me get this straight he was sad when his baby died yeah and now he's tired when this baby is born. Wow. He's really, what is he, an alien, this guy? Jesus Christ. What a strange person. He's got emotions and shit. He's sad when his baby dies, and he's fucking tired when he doesn't sleep. Wow.

Real anomaly, this guy. Yep. One coworker said that Richard would complain, how they put it, quote, more than most fathers about losing sleep because of the baby. Really? Yeah. Now, a lot of this is also because this Megaplex project is going on. Yeah. And he's trying to work long hours and trying to be home with the baby and trying to – he's got a lot going on at the moment stress-wise.

Yeah, it's frustrating. And shit like that. the moment stress wise and shit like that um so uh but they and they said he's been spending all of his time doing the megaplex thing for work and uh all of this type of shit it's a combined convention center domed stadium that they i guess i don't know if it ever happened or not i don't really care doesn't matter in this story but either way in may may and june of 95 when marla was a couple months old here, a month or two old, started to be more tension in the family here between

the two of them. So they're having some tension and apparently it's because he is not paying enough attention to the baby daughter. That's what she's saying. You come home late from work, you're out fucking working all the time and blah blah blah. So anyway, that's the issue.

She's also mad at him because when she was going to go back to work, she was very stressed out about sending the kid to daycare and he didn't fucking care. She said that he didn't console her when she was crying about it. So he was like, yeah, send her to daycare. Great. Who cares? He was just like, I don't care. Decisions like that don't require tears, ma'amam no but i don't want to cry about it i'm just also you yeah from a man's perspective i'm not going daycare well we don't have we don't have hormones flying around like trying to trying to fix themselves after a baby because your your

body inside and your hormones are like take a bowling ball and throw it at the pins perfectly. And when they explode, that's what you just did to everything. So it's your scrambled shit. So it's very difficult. And postpartum women will cry a lot of times about anything. So that'll happen. And rather than as the partner in that situation, you have to go, it's okay. And explain why it's okay.

And let him cry it out. He just went, fuck you crying for and left the room, which is not how you handle that, by the way. I'll cut a check. Don't worry about it. Yeah, don't worry about it, all right? It's okay. So that was a problem. I guess he would control the money here all the time, but she would always have to get money from him.

He kind of controlled all the finances no but also who's going to do the accounting in the house good point you know she should have access to the money don't get me wrong i mean she shouldn't have to like beg for it but i mean he should do the accounting in that one of us has a master's in actuarial science i think i'll balance our checkbook thanks consider this house my megaplex. Shut the fuck up. Yeah, that's one thing. If she had a master's in actuarial science,

I'd be like, bro, hand it over. She's the one to fucking do the work here. So anyway, she'd have to talk to him before he left for work or would call him at work to get approval to spend money. She shouldn't have to get approval to spend money. She could not adjust the thermostat without his knowledge. What the fuck, man?

There are some crazy thermostat weirdos out there. My stepdad, who's a wonderful man, is a thermostat Nazi. I mean, he could be dead asleep if you touch it. What, the fucking air conditioning on wow my god don't turn the air conditioning on till it's 103 outside he told me at one point i was like 103 103 do you think it's a little it's a little much 103 yeah that was his rule though 103 was the cutoff for air conditioning outside yeah i had to be 103 outside to turn the air conditioning on it could be 95 outside 91 inside that's crazy that's what i'm

saying that was that was nice about everything else very crazy about the goddamn uh about the fucking weather is different sir he might be better be better now. He had a good near death there. He might be looser about air conditioning now. I'm not sure. Air conditioning is real conditioning. I don't know what the fuck was. Back in the day, pretty anal, though. He once told me to please gauge my ketchup usage

because I used to. What? Gauge your ketchup usage? I was like 13. I was like, for real? What the hell does that mean? Ketchup's free. I'm washing the plate after you're done eating.

Still a lot of ketchup on it. I'd go to McDonald's and get a bag full of shit for free. Ketchup's free, man. How dare you sell it in a store when it's free? Anyway, yeah. So, Jesus Christ. He would do that with a thermostat okay now during the summer of 95 over the summer after the baby was born and everything tension grew between the couple over the lack of attention to the new daughter by the way this is the first one we've had in a while

there's not like 14 characters and you need a chart to keep track of there's two people very easy to keep track of so um apparently she became uh well apparently he didn't want to spend time with her because he was saying that he was still depressed about reese he still was like he didn't want anything to do with this baby because he was still sad about the last baby which psychologically will happen maybe he's got a fear of getting close to the baby because the last one died, but you've got to get over that. That's your kid. You've got to go to therapy, do your thing, get over it. This one's got no water on the heart.

Pay attention. Go to therapy or get over it or do what you've got to do, but you can't just ignore your kid. That's ridiculous here. You're a live baby. Pay attention to the alive one, please. And very healthy. Like zero chance right now of this thing just leaving us.

Needs your attention. Needs your attention. So apparently at one point she became very upset, and I don't blame Laura for this at all, when he, in July, she wasn't home, so she left the baby with him. I guess it was like a Saturday or something. Wow. She came home and found out that he strapped the baby to the changing table. You know, they have a little belt on a changing table so they don't spur.

And just left her there unattended in the bathroom while she came home. And he's in the kitchen grinding coffee beans she said baby yeah yeah she's in the changing room table there in the bathroom and she went in i strapped her in she's just strapped onto the changing table not even in i fucking view in another floor on another floor. This is crazy. Holy hell. The kid's like three months old. So you can't do that.

No, you put them in that little chair and you carry them with you. You put them on the counter and you grind your fucking beans. That's what you do. You just got to carry them around there. They're like luggage at that age. You put them in the swing and you buckle them into that and you have that in the same room and grind while they're awake or you wait till they're asleep.

Take that shit outside. Yeah. You put them in that little chair you carry around that clicks into the thing. Yeah, one of those deals. So either way, that's what's going on here. Now, in August, early August, he says to her out of nowhere, I want to have another baby. Oh, my. She's like, you don't pay it.

You strapped this one to a changing table i'm not fucking having more kids what are you crazy let's get this one up and going first all right why don't i buy you a sack of flour we'll put a fucking a diaper on it like you did in high school yeah wonder that around first we'll have it like niles and fraser carried around the bag of flour and set it on fire and shit we We'll do that. But apparently she has got some sort of problem. The last pregnancy exacerbated it, an internal problem. And in order for her to carry another pregnancy, she might have to have an invasive and painful surgery.

And they don't know how it'll come out, too, if she'll be able to have kids. But it'll be a big uphill battle. It's a high-risk pregnancy. We can't be doing that. And she's like, we have a baby. Right, right. Like, let's just deal with this baby and not worry about doing any of that shit.

So now in mid-August, Laura brings the baby to lunch with him in the John Hancock cafeteria. Brings the baby in. So all the workers go, oh, can you imagine? Oh, there's the baby. Oh, you're so cute and all that. Apparently, he took the baby to a co-worker against her wishes,

against Laura's wishes, and she became very angry and they got in a huge fight over it. Okay. She was like, who knows? You're not giving it to that bitch. I hate her or whatever it was. Don't give it to him. Yeah. He looks it to that bitch. I hate her or whatever it was.

Don't give it to him. Yeah. He looks like a pedophile. I don't know what it was, but didn't want this coworker to have the baby, and he brought the baby over. So that caused a little bit of a fight. But it wasn't like a yelling and screaming fight. It was just like, why did you do that? And people saw there was a little bit of tension.

They keep it together. Actuarial scientists keep it together. You know what scientists keep it together and their wives, generally that family. So August 28th, 1995. OK, it's a Monday and he's acting weird at work. Richard, he's acting weird. They said there's a long meeting and they said he seemed to be very distracted during this whole meeting and kept ducking in and out of it as well, which is very unlike him. It's very odd. They said he's normally serious, remarkably hardworking.

They all call him intense. They don't know why he would get up and leave and all that kind of shit here. So once work is over, he stops at temple okay the university no jewish temple he stops at temple to pray he is it is his alma mater so it's his alma mater so that makes sense so he went to temple and um apparently um the i guess this was during a part of their service where you would recite a Jewish prayer for the dead if you lost a loved one. It was one of those. So I think he was probably, you know, he might he was still there, still in his own way doing it. So either way.

Now, at this point, he comes home from this. This is what we know. He comes home, okay? We get that much. From temple. He is what we know. He comes home. Okay? We get that much. From Temple. He comes home from Temple. Now, sometime in the next couple hours, we don't know exactly when this occurred, Marla took a nap. Marla's only four months old, so they sleep all the time.

He's only four months old, so they sleep all the time. Marla's taking a nap, and he took a rock, a softball-sized rock, and beat Laura to death with it. Oh, my. Absolutely beat her to death. I mean, destroyed her skull, man. Like, ruptured her eye socket the surrounding bones her face was beyond recognition yeah um they will have to use dental records to identify her that's how bad right with a rock that's how badly he beat her unfortunately that is just the beginning of what happened to her no he then jesus christ almighty buckle up everybody he then takes a knife

and slices open her torso yeah i mean opens her up like a burrito like um he removes her heart and her lungs why okay um and then okay well at some point he he opened her up yeah and then drug her outside into the backyard okay drug her outside into the backyard while she's opened up you can imagine the amount of blood we're talking in this trail i can't that's it's gotta be insane an absolutely fucking incalculable amount of blood we're talking in this trail. I can't. It's got to be insane. An absolutely fucking incalculable amount of blood. Whatever you got in your body, that's in a trail from there to there. He removes her heart and lungs, possibly her liver too, not sure,

and gets like an 18-inch stake in the yard know like a stake you put in your yard to mark something um and just puts the organs on on the stake in the yard on top of it so they're like a like a flag like a little flag yeah yeah just put the organs like stuck them on top of the stake and stuck the stake in the ground and and left her there that's it um yeah uh and then left her there now kills laura we don't know why there's no reason there's no reason um he then grabs marla no throws her in the back seat of the car yeah and drives away okay okay um he's just driving around for a while driving around aimlessly and finally he gets behind a car and their license plate it's not a personalized place it's a state-issued plate yeah the numbers on it are 357-ban 357 ban7-BAN. Yeah.

Oh, no way. Yes. He is livid. He's got, well, I don't know if he's pro or anti-gun control, by the way. I don't know his stance on it, but he's real interested in it. He sees this as they are referencing gun control. So he wants to talk to these people about it. gun control.

So he wants to talk to these people about it. So, he, by the way, before he left, he changed out of his bloody clothes, put them in a bag, threw them in the backseat too. So, in the backseat, he's got his young daughter and a sack of fucking clothes with the baby's mother's blood all over them. That's very nice.

Okay? So he follows this car for like two miles or whatever. I don't know how fucking long for a while he filed. It wasn't like on one street. He followed them with this license plate going, oh, my God. Finally, it's a sign. Right. So the couple, Paul and Lynn Johnson, are their name.

They pull into their driveway and he pulls in right behind him hops out of the car and just starts talking about gun control hey i saw your plate uh blah blah blah and just starts going off about gun control and they're like what the fuck state of mass just gave it to us i don't know anything about it if anybody follows you into your driveway and then pops out talking about guns that's terrifying you know what i mean yes is this who is this fucking psychopath right so they were like hello like hi i'm i'm paul like i don't know what the what's going on then they said they looked in the car and they could see in the car there's a baby in the back seat and they're like what okay he has okay well he seems he's got a baby so that makes them feel a little more safe but they're like what OK, he has. OK, well, he seems he's got a baby. So that makes them feel a little more safe.

But they're like, what are you driving around with your baby, hopping out, talking to strangers about gun control? Because the state of Massachusetts issued them a license plate that makes you that's fucking crazy, bro. Like we're in weird times here. So they they end up they see the baby in the back seat they see he's acting real weird they see this bag in the back seat too that looks suspicious so one of them goes in while the other one's still talking to him and calls the cops and it's like i got this guy here yeah yeah i don't know if it's anything but he's weird. Maybe I just want to take a swing by and just make sure he doesn't murder us in our front lawn. That'd be great.

So the cops pull up and at that point they ask him, hey, where's this baby's mother? That's what they ask him. They don't know. They're just trying to make small talk with him. And they're like, OK, guy with the baby. Where's the kid's mother? Not like, where's this baby's mother? It wasn't like an accusatory question. And he said, well, at home the last time i saw her okay which technically is true it's a

good answer um so yeah he uh he told the police um you know they said well this is all pretty weird tell us what's going on and the sooner you tell us what's going on the sooner we'll let you go on your way you know no big deal but we. But we got a you got a baby. You're pulling up in people's driveways asking weird questions. Yeah. The fucking shit's weird. You know what I mean? You got it.

We need backstory, bro. This is like kind of like that review of their Nazis and will kick in your door and kill your dog. Like I need backstory there. And that's what they need. They're in just as weird of a position. Right. So they said said you know explain yourself and he said quote i'm driving around to cool off uh-oh i had an argument i had

a fight i did a terrible thing i'm having marital problems oh no we just wanted to know where now we got so much paperwork to do then Then he said, I did something terribly wrong. I might need a lawyer. And he said, they go, well, what was the fight about? And he said, I burned the Ziti. What? Apparently, he overcooked a tray of Ziti. He was cooking.

And this isn't you burn my dinner. This is the opposite. He overcooked a tray of Ziti. And she got upset about it who knows how upset if she was just like oh for christ's sake i don't want to eat this shit now you burned it either way his reaction was to beat her unrecognizable with a rock and to take her internal organs out and put them on a steak in the backyard that was his reaction to doesn't take criticism well Well, let's just say I would say, yeah, this ZD is a little crunchy. I'll open you. I'm going to open you up.

Solid appraisal. So they're like, they don't know what's going on. But at that point, they look closer in the car and see the bag of bloody clothes in the back of the car. Yeah. Now they read him as miranda writes because before that he's just some crazy guy gun control i did a terrible thing who knows what he's talking about once you see bloody clothes okay something has been done here a crime has been committed before he talks anymore we need to get miranda on him quick so they mirandize him

and even after he's mirandized he claims now they said, why would you do this? What the fuck are you doing? Why would you why would you kill your wife? And he said that, quote, he believed his wife was an enemy alien vampire. Oh, no. Part of an invasion of enemy alien vampires. Not just an enemy, not just an alien, not just a vampire. Combination.

A fucking vampire from another planet who is also not friendly. That's what that says. Oh, boy. That's a lot. What got you here, sir? And then he said, so based on on that what i did was self-defense oh god i he's a she was an enemy alien vampire what the fuck do you want she was the head of the invasion bro like what am i supposed to just let her go free and then what more of them come

i saved you this is this is complicated so they're like, oh, wow, okay. Yeah, you burned the ziti. And only an enemy alien vampire would get upset about that, really. It's true, yeah. It's not normal behavior. Crispy edge or like the whole thing? Just you fucked it all up or what? You left it in there like an hour too long, dried all the sauce out.

It was just garbage. That crispy edge is legit. Oh, I'll burn the shit out of my ziti as long as you put enough as long as you use enough sauce in there you can cook ziti as long as you want and it's fine because you're just gonna burn that fucking cheese and make it goddamn delicious and then the fucking pot it's gonna be wonderful so either way noodles around the edge i love that crunch that's the shit right there. So this is fucking wild. So yeah, he's got a bloody shirt on top of a cloth gym bag.

He didn't even put it in the gym bag. He put most of it in there, and he's like, oh, this shit, I'll just throw it on top. I'm sure no one will see it. So that's when he said, out of nowhere, he goes, I was in a fight. You weren't in a fight. You were in a murder. So she's a homicidal space vampire alien that's what he claimed so she got mad at him for overcooking the ziti that's when he knew that she

was a homicidal alien vampire and he needed to take care of business yeah so um yeah now on a couple of these articles by the way i a couple – some of the commentators are clearly – were involved in this and know a lot about the case. One of the commentators was the lady of the couple he followed home. Stop it. Yeah, because she said – Paul's wife. Yeah, because it said that they were from Hudson and he goes – she said, actually, we were driving from here, not there. So I was like, wow, they must know what they're talking about.

Here's a commentator. This is the couple's babysitter. So they pulled in. This guy pulled in behind him. The babysitter's in there, like, waiting to go home with her jacket on. Yeah. You know? She said, quote, I was babysitting for the couple he followed home that night.

I witnessed all of his strange behavior. I was babysitting for the couple he followed home that night. I witnessed all of his strange behavior. At one point, he asked if he could have a spoon for his yogurt because he was hungry and didn't get to eat dinner. He brought a yogurt with him. He brought a yogurt with him. So what do I need? Baby, bloody clothes. Okay, I got her heart and lungs.

They're on the steak. Okay, got that. I'm going to grab a Yoplait also on the way out. The ziti's destroyed. She's right. At the end of the day, he didn't even eat the ziti, so she was probably right. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what I'm saying too, you asshole.

The couple was terrified, and we were all very concerned for the baby in the back seat. I was there when the police took him into custody, and when he told them he had done something bad to his wife, and that she would be very mad at him. It was one of the most memorable and frightening nights of my life. He deserves to be in prison for life for what he did. So he asked the couple for the spoon. Yes. Of the conversation of.

No, no, no, no, no. He once the cops got there. All this weird shit's going on. He's like, I have a spoon for my yogurt. They're like, what are you talking about? That's what he wanted so um yes anyway they arrest him they contact framingham police because that's where he lives it's you know his address and his driver's license so framingham police officers are sent over they

have to break into the home it's a beautiful four-bedroom home there um they run around in an upstairs bathroom they find bloody clothing and a butcher's knife a bloody butcher knife that's what he used man a butcher knife that is brutal um then they basically from the book from the butcher knife they follow a thick trail of blood through the house down the stairs through the thing out the back door through the backyard and into the woods they just follow a blood trail that's how thick the blood trail is you can follow it through the grass by the way so they follow that and they find laura there oh a torso opened up yeah stake near her body with their fucking organs sitting on them that's too much um not what they expected to find uh at all um the one guy here the uh first district attorney

said i've never seen anything like this in my entire life and pretty much every investigator that were there said they've never ever ever even thought of a crime scene like that never mind been to one understatement yeah this is a horror movie even in a horror movie you wouldn't think to do that right like that's writing a horror movie you'd be like hmm shit's too much you wouldn't get to that yeah it's a lot audience so hate that yep oh my god um face had been bashed in her her throat was slit with the butcher knife then he cut her from her throat all the way down to her navel and opened her up like that. Oh, like a fucking dice. Like an autopsy.

Yeah. Like an autopsy. And her organs had been placed in an 18-inch stake in a nearby garden. Okay. Like a fucking, like a gnome. Right. Where you would put like a little flag or a gnome or something. He put her organs.

Scared the crows away. That'll do it right there. Two lungs and the heart impaled on it on the end. It's about 30 yards away from her body. Yeah. So that is a fucking lot. They also found a rock the size of a softball covered in blood and, you know, this are of all kinds, which is horrible. They had to list her as a Jane Doe originally until they got proof from the dental records that it was her, even though we knew it was her.

So John Hancock, the company. Well, quote, Rosenthal was placed on indefinite leave yesterday at John Hancock. No shit. you can't even fire a guy for this we'll find out if it's true or not like how good at his job is he where they're like let's give it let's let it play itself out let's give it a minute only he knows how to do this metroplex come on he's like a he's like a criminal athlete where they're just like but he got he's so he's 25 a game, guys. I mean, what the fuck?

He runs Chris Sprouts. I don't know what to tell you, man. No, it's hard to find pass rushers, you know? I don't think the Raiders fired that one. Did they fire him quick, that wide receiver? Which, yes. Was it quick or did they say- No, no, no. It took a while.

It took a while. Wait and see. They're like, well, how dead is that other person really? They could be an alien vampire and come back to life at any moment. So until that, until I'm sure. So yeah, he's on, that's amazing, indefinite leave. Gee, thanks. Might as well have said sabbatical.

He's on sabbatical. He's on a walkabout. He's on a walkabout. He's on a walkabout. So they send him to a mental hospital for evaluation because he's – Yeah, because this is sticky, man. He's saying some weird, weird shit, right? And the cops are like talking to medical professionals like we don't understand this at all. What do we do?

Yeah. professionals like we don't understand this at all what do we do thing yeah jack levin who's a sociology professor at northeastern university said that um he's probably going to plead temporary insanity based on what he's saying here and he also says quote this overkill this attempt to drive a stake through the heart to literally extricate the source of power from another human being that's not normal thinking weird that's that's now as far as understatements go i think that could be a champion of an understatement that's not normal thinking no it's really not um at all this guy wrote a book called overkill by the way um so yeah he meets with an for an hour with a psychologist right away who later said that he seemed logical, direct, and rational.

The doctor said that he exhibited a flat reaction to the slaying and references to his wife. And he described his wife as the unknown victim, which is weird. At one point he asked her, is this a big case? It's going to be, yeah. It's certainly gross. You said you took the organs out of an enemy space alien. People are going to fucking hear about this probably. So if it's not then, it will be in 22 years or so,

or 17 years or so. So the babysitter knows. 27 years or so. A lot of people know about it. Everybody knows. There's a babysitter involved in this. They said that he was, the psychiatrist said he was able to discuss a range of penalties. He indicated an understanding of various court procedures, such as plea bargaining.

He was able to correctly define the role of various court officers and to appreciate the adversarial nature of court hearings. He was able to discuss various defenses, though initially confused between the meaning of a plea and legal strategy. However, he accepted advice from an attorney. And this is while they're looking at him for a couple of days. She concluded that, quote, while appearing generally competent, there were some observations that raised doubt. There are, boy, certain observations, including the fact that there was, quote, no recognition or acknowledgement that his wife was dead or might be dead. She said that was kind of weird. Didn't expect that one. She said that he know he referred to his wife repeatedly as an unidentified or unspecified person.

stressing however that due to the severity of her injuries the body had to be identified through dental records so maybe she thought maybe he was playing off of that she said at one point he began to answer a question even though his attorney advised him not to answer and that in the end that's when he

just said is this going to be a big case because like he's telling me not to answer shit then she asked him what alternatives do you have to pleading not guilty big case because like he's telling me not to answer shit um then she asked him what what alternatives do you have to pleading not guilty what do you think you can do and she said that he replied quote after think this is her quote after thinking for a while he replied self-defense temporary insanity or a quote thyroid storm what what the fuck is a thyroid storm well you've heard of an overactive one this is yeah that's really overactive this is a thyroid tornado holy shit thyroid hail is

coming down hard a thyroid storm you plead guilty or not guilty i plead thyroid storm your honor that's not an option bro sorry thyroid nor'easter have you heard of them it's thyroid el nino it's coming it's goddamn nuts inside here wow um so at this point by the way all the papers everybody is playing this as how could this have happened out of nowhere perfectly fine happy couple just had a new baby everything's perfect idyllic life in the suburbs and no neither of them have ever been arrested there's been no charges of anything what the fuck man that's what everybody's thinking. Then, of course, once they talk to people that they worked with, they find out. Shit's coming out.

Oh, no, no, no. There's a lot more to this fucking story than that. They found out that one of the friends and colleagues, multiple of them, of Laura at the John Hancock company there, said that she sometimes came to work with bruises on her face and um that her husband was quote insanely jealous of other men as well now um they said that he uh company sources said that they thought he had a history of physically abusing his wife who once came to work with a black eye um yeah so there there you go. Another employee said that, and several employees said this, that he, I don't know, understand what this means, that he, quote, talked inappropriately with coworkers

about the details of his wife's two cesarean section deliveries. How far did he go? What inappropriate details could you possibly discuss about that? I suppose, like, graphic description? you go what inappropriate details could you possibly discuss about that i suppose like graphic description like i mean but it's a it's that can be taken as like he's excited because his baby was poor but if it was like a natural birth and he was like man her pussy opened up huge i could have put my whole foot up there man it was fucking crazy man this kid just fell out i was like oh man look at you oh man looks like a fucking blown

out tire like that's not what he said no so maybe he did talk about her vagina one one form or another because maybe he said something like she had a cesarean section so you know everything's good down there now maybe that's a good point yeah still still all tightened up. Didn't even need the daddy stitch. So LJ, as she's called here, Laura, I guess she – they said – another person said she had been less outgoing the last couple years. She cut her hair, dressed more conservatively, and even stopped getting her nails done as regularly as she once did. Which also could be described as it's just gonna say a mom who had a dead baby and then got pregnant and had another baby right as a newborn so yeah you're you don't have time to go get your nails done as much the first four months your

baby's alive so now i'm not discounting that that might be also a depression thing but it's also every fucking new parent out there looks haggard all All of them do. We all look like shit the first year. Yeah. Her hair person and nail person even said that he used to go, too. He'd frequent the salon as well. And his regular appointments trailed off after the baby was born, too. Weird. Super weird.

People have a baby. They don't have time to groom themselves. Strange, right? And a dad, as a dad or a a mom you don't feel necessarily sexy uh no the first year it's not great well it's just it's just fucking triage it's just control of it's like if somebody took had a came in with like a giant bag like a santa claus bag of presents over their shoulder and threw it down and opened it up. But instead of presents, it was baby ducks and they were in your house. And then they said, now pick them all up.

You'd be like, how the fuck? There's one under the couch? Fuck, there's a hundred of these things. It's going to take a year for you to find all these. It's a mess. It's a fucking mess. So then the salon owner, Tina Cristaldi, gets a little overdramatic here. And I love this.

After something happens, then I saw it in him, I swear to God. You never said anything before that, Tina. Shut the fuck up. Shut up, Tina. She says, quote, there was something deep in him. Always this strange look on his face. When she walked in with Richard, she wouldn't carry on a conversation. So deep you didn't call the cops like what are you talking yeah it was just I saw it though I said he's gonna kill her you know I shouldn't say that but that's that's fucking

funny um also a former landlord said that uh during her first year of marriage that she changed a little bit he said quote she was less willing to speak and just didn't look as well like she had adopted his more reserved style okay well people look like their dogs sometimes too but again that could also be like i don't like you getting fancied up for other guys and shit like that that could be a form of of controlling abuse we don't know um either way but her his ex-girlfriend said that he wasn't jealous at all she said she said quote he wasn't jealous at all but i don't think i don't think we were that enmeshed like they weren't married and had a baby so who the fuck knows maybe she wasn't as hot as this one was and he

didn't think that there would be two men that would want to fuck her who knows yeah who the fuck knows either way but they they ended up um their relationship butted right up against laura's and that's how their relationship ended as he just kind of started seeing laura god their relationship kind of ended um a close friend of richard's named joanne briner she said that she saw lj with a black eye and a bruised cheek in the summer of 1990 at john hancock where they all worked that's before they were even married um she said she questioned Richard about the injuries and he told Laura or he told her that uh LJ was hurt when she quote walked into a door yep the old one which is maybe the worst black eye domestic abuse excuse of all time it's like it's if you say that to me i'm gonna go oh so you beat the

shit out of your wife yeah that's a joke like if there was a on family guy if a woman had a black guy they go what happened i walked into a door and that would be that while the guy stands behind her like beating a fucking pipe against his hand that would be the joke like obviously you didn't because holy shit yeah look at that psycho so So this woman, though, she said she couldn't accept that answer. She wasn't taking it. She said, quote, I called Rich again and I asked him what really happened to Laura Jane. He said they had an argument and he may have pushed her and she may have fallen down. I'm not sure.

I don't remember. Not sure. I remember a lot of crying. I just remember that, yeah, I'm an asshole. So two other Hancock employees, Alma Haddad and William T. Weimer, said that once during 1993, Laura Jane came to work with a bruised face, but that she did not tell them what happened. They said those are the only times they ever saw her with any bruises or like those three times that we've described it. So another neighbor said that she thought Richard was strangely quiet. I love it. After the fact, people are me.

He had this look on his face. He was a little too quiet. Like, fuck. It was uneasy about the whole thing. Yep. The neighbor said, quote, to tell you the truth, I thought there was something a bit odd about him. And I'm not just saying that now. Okay.

Great. Yeah. Oh, my. I'm not just saying that now okay great yeah oh my god i'm not just saying that now oh you're saying it when then when are you saying this i think you're saying it right now if i'm not mistaken i'm pretty sure you didn't say anything before anything happened no that's the truth um so either way they uh now he's he's in jail now, obviously, because they get to keep him for a little observation and they place him in a jail. He's in a holding cell. And there's an 18 year old kid, by the way. This is another commenter. He said, quote, once in a holding cell with him. I guess he was in one. And as they took him away, I j joked about his appearance i was an 18 year old kid i said what the fuck was a guy like him doing there and most of the guys in the cell knew the story blew my mind this is by the way we've had a small town murder first today we've never ever ever ever had any of our murderers go to temple to say a jewish prayer for the dead and then fucking eviscerate their wife we've never had that happen before ever that's a first crime and sports first everybody that is crazy not a lot

of small town jewish murderers that's why it doesn't happen that often it's a very that's a very small sliver also very rare they take a man who is suspected of murdering his family in a vicious way and slam him in a cell with a child with an 18 year old yeah who wasn't a murderer probably because he said it blew his mind he's like jesus you took your wife apart they put you in here with me i had weed in my pocket this is nuts holy fuck so i was accused of crimes that mark walberg committed do you know that i didn't even do anything why are you bringing me into this i didn't do nothing hey what's going on why are you saying that i didn't do nothing really seriously hey oh what's happening why are you talking about me huh what's going on i think you're better than me on think you're better than me think you're better than me

oh god so while in jail yeah he wrote an eight page letter to his college roommate richard did what yeah it was it was december 21. I think he was feeling like holidays. He wanted to be close. So he's like, I haven't talked to my college. He's 41 years old at the time. I haven't talked to my college roommate in years. I bet he'll be curious as to what I'm up to. Check in on his Hanukkah.

Dear long lost friend, does your wife still have her heart and lungs in her body? Mine doesn't. How do you start that conversation? May your family be have her heart and lungs in her body mine doesn't how do you start that conversation may your may your family be blessed with hearts and lungs yeah oh my god um in the letter he said that his wife was enraged the night that she died he said quote i had a very bad feeling about her since the previous evening that she had changed and that she was planning on killing me. Okay. So this is, he's got his whole explanation and he writes it out in eight pages and gives

it to his college roommate rather than his attorney or somebody else like that. I guess he wants to, I don't know if he's trying to reach out to a person to feel like he's normal or I don't know what the fuck the psychological bullshit that's going on in there, but that's what he says. He also called it his manifesto, which is never good. That's bad. It's not a good label for anything. If you bring up space aliens and manifestos in the same week, you're going in a room.

I'm sorry. For a long time. Yep. He also said in the letter that all of this might have stemmed from his deep state of anguish over the death of his son as well which he still can't get over so is he responsible for this criminally how do we think here how crazy is he fucking yes yes thank you um now fuck thyroid storm but it's a thyroid storm. And I killed an alien vampire. Duh.

Jesus Christ. It's like people don't even fucking get it. It's kicked off by some Italian cuisine. But look, man, everything else is just blame. You did this. Yeah. She's mad at me because I overcooked the ziti so I cut her heart out. Isn't really a good excuse.

That's not a good defense. No, it's really bad here. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions,

and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Now, because he has none of the...

The problem is, because he had none of the traditional small-town murder hallmarks of a domestic murder like this, like, you know, he was seen dragging her by her hair from the trailer across the front lawn, beating her with his other hand

while screaming, I'll kill this bitch, like five times in the month leading up to it, which is normally what we get here. This is different here. There's no domestic violence arrest. There's no restraining orders. There's no stalking. There's never been a call to the police.

There's never been the neighbors calling, saying there's fighting in the house. None of that shit. So the director of the Family what is this the family violence research program at the university of rhode island he said quote you're looking at one of those rare psychotic breaks he said he said which is good for his attorney it makes it much more likely there'll be an insanity defense so he's like that's what he says. Now, apparently they said spouse. They're explaining here. This is the dean of the Northeastern University's College of Criminal Justice.

This guy says that spousal killings rarely result in huge overkill like this. Usually it's kill, kill, kill. They're dead. And then go from there. It's not usually like a, you know, I'm going to take this person apart. This is like a weird staging,

like a serial killer would do. You know what I mean? This is fucking crazy. So to put on a stake and shit, it's, it's nuts. Yeah. So they're saying this is not normal at all here.

Um, he says that kind of activity is much more common in a disorganized killer. Someone who's confused, not someone who is vice president at John Hancock, which is very true. The director of a program on violence at Northeastern University here, another guy. Oh, this is the Jack Levin guy again, the overkill guy. He said the whole symbolism of impaling the heart is one of power. The heart is very significant. The idea always was that you could doom Dracula by driving a stake through his heart.

Or in his case, an evil alien vampire. Same thing apparently here. Now, he didn't undergo a competency examination, but he did speak with numerous psychiatrists and psychologists here. But he did speak with numerous psychiatrists and psychologists here. They reports from there from these professionals basically ran the gamut from complete mental lucidity with some dysfunctional behavior to holy shit. This guy is fucking bonkers. Like what? It's too much. It runs the whole way there.

It's too much. It runs the whole way there. One doctor said he spoke in goal-oriented sentences and showed no evidence of major psychological symptomology. Other doctors, though, noted increasingly suicidal and bizarre oppositional and threatening behavior as he's been there. So while awaiting trial, he's again committed to the mental institution while he's in jail here at Bridgewater. And the doctor evaluates him. And she said that this doctor said she considered his responses well measured and succinct and devoid of spontaneity and elaboration, but also found that Rosenthal was suspicious about the identity of his parents and other family members. So he was he totally got the court proceeding. No, I'm saying it i plead we go to court then we do i totally get it blah

blah blah blah blah sorry is your family gonna be in court oh they're not real they're fucking aliens those people aren't real that's what he would say totally lucid about all i get to his family he's like they're not my real family no those people are fucking they're from another planet they've taken they're obviously pod people they've taken my family hostage probably taken them to whatever galaxy that's from and now they're trying to trick me i get what's going on here so um anyway what's for lunch like can i get a yo plate or some ziti holy shit yeah i hope i hope someone sane took that poor baby so um either way um that's pretty interesting here. They also sought a medical opinion about his medical status to explore the possibility of an insanity defense, obviously.

So holy shit. Now, the state assigns a doctor to talk to him, and his lawyer instructs him not to speak with the state doctor for purposes of evaluation okay said we're not we don't know what we're doing yet so either way there's a hearing and in the hearing he refuses to enter a plea i'm not what he won't enter a plea he keeps saying but i want to talk about something else the plea's fine but i got something else to talk about i got something else to talk about. I got something else to talk about. I have a statement I need to make. What is it?

He keeps doing that. He just keeps saying it's about, quote, something else, which is like, for this guy, that could be anything. Holy shit. I'd be like, well, I got to hear this. I'd cross my arms. I'd be like, let's go, brother. Hands under the chin. Hmm.

Tell me. What do you got for me, pal? Yeah. Hands under the chin. Hmm. Tell me. What do you got for me, pal? Yeah.

So either way, while this is going on, while they're waiting for him, they talk to other they talk to a psychiatrist who says that that he answers many questions with a refusal to answer or comment. But he doesn't seem suicidal or homicidal now. But he could not promise to tell if he would be suicidal or if he would be homicidal again. So I have no fucking idea about this guy is what they said. Another doctor said that it was not clear to him that that Richard had a mental illness, but there was certainly a strong possibility of it. Therefore, further inpatient evaluation was warranted. So holy shit. Now now this is while they're this is while they're letting him plea okay now this is the exchange that took place the defense counsel says he's standing mute he's not saying anything the clerk of the court says the defendant standing

mute the court will enter a plea of not guilty to this indictment. Be seated, Mr. Rosenthal. He says, excuse me, Mrs. Richard. I have a statement to make if the court will allow it. The defense counsel now says, I've advised him not to, but he wants to say something. I would like this not to be heard, but he would love it. He's going to say it. I can't fucking help it. So the judge said, or I'm sorry, the state says, the prosecutor, your honor, I think he should be inquired as to guilty or not guilty and no more. In other words, don't let him make statements.

He's supposed to say one or two words. The clerk of the court says, fine. Would you ask the defendant how he pleads? The prosecutor said, no, your honor. That's what the court has already done. I would suggest no further statement be appropriate. It's like we can just enter the not guilty and fucking move on. The clerk says, thank you.

Fine. Be seated, Mr. Rosenthal. Then says, Mr. Rosenthal, you're under, this is the clerk, mind you, you're represented by counsel and under the advice of counsel, he does not wish you to speak. So I do not want to hear from you at this time. What you say, what you say of this indictment, sir, are you guilty or not guilty? He says, Richard says, quote, I understand. Number one, do you?

Do you really, Rich? I understand. But at the same time, I would prefer to make a statement not on this case, but on something else. All right, bro. The clerk says not right now. You'll have a time to give a statement in due course. But he ignored that and starts yelling and screaming about. He'd like to make a statement to everyone.

This isn't just to the courtroom or the families. This is to the world, mind you. I would like to apologize for bringing on the current airstrikes in Bosnia. I'm sorry. He did it? And then he sat down. That's what he needed to address the whole time, that he is – apparently he brought on the airstrikes in Bosnia that were happening at that time. And he wants to apologize to the court for it.

He's very sorry. Did the court accept? They said, that's fine, sir. Yeah, you're forgiven. Like, what the fuck? The space aliens, if you kill one, then they drop bombs and bombs. I don't know what happened there, but he's very upset about it. And he wants to let everyone know how sorry he is for bringing that on.

So I'd like to also apologize for the Crusades and fucking Hitler. Like, what are you talking about? So in the defense now, wow, Jesus Christ. During the course of some evaluations, they're talking about all this type of shit. And, you know, fuck. The next time after the Bosnia incident, he meets with the psychiatrist. He says, quote, However, the next time I met with Mr. Rosenthal, after hearing of his lawyer's concerns, he appeared the same as he had previously. He was able to answer questions and interact with me in an appropriate fashion. So I never performed the

formal competency evaluation. I did not specifically ask him about his understanding of the trial charges against him or the function of various roles of courtroom participants in that his mental functions at the time seemed to be grossly intact. The judge then noted his delusional and erratic behavior increased after he filed a notice that he would assert a defensive lack of criminal responsibility. They're saying he's gotten crazier since he said he was insane. Did you notice that? That's what they said, basically. He's gotten up Bosnia. Yeah, he's bringing shit up like that. So he actually formally files a notice that he's going to assert a lack of criminal responsibility as his defense.

defense. And the state then puts a motion in to say that he has to submit to an examination by no more than two qualified psychiatrists. And they order the issue. They issue the order. And at that point, the reports of his delusional thinking and odd behaviors increase. Even they said that one doctor said, and this is April of 96. After examining him, this doctor noted an increased withdrawal and isolation, weight loss and bizarre behaviors. She also expressed a concern over his suicidalness and reported by because that's been reported by the security staff that he keeps threatening to kill himself. His parents, Rosenthal's parents, told the staff that Rosenthal was denying that they were his parents, which would be odd. Again, he's still on that one. It's been going on for months that those aren't really his family. This is a ploy now, right? I guess. I mean, it's got to be. So this doctor, Dr. DiCataldo, said, quote, Rosenthal reports having doubts about the identity of his parents and possible other family members.

He reports that he began to believe this approximately six months ago. A definitive diagnosis is not possible at this time as he refuses to allow for a more thorough assessment of this possible symptom complex. He will openly admit to any and all who have asked him about his questioning of his parents' identity, but steadfastly refuses to answer any probing questions about this belief and will not allow questions about the existence of other possible delusions. He'll say, those aren't my parents. They say, what are you talking about? And he goes, never mind. Let's move along. Okay.

Well, what about when you said that you caused airstrikes in Bosnia? Don't want to talk about it. OK, what we got to do here. You're in a rubber room. This is when we talk about your crazy stuff. This isn't just we're not chit chatting right now. We're not talking about if the Patriots are going to be good this year. We're trying to figure out what we're going to do with you for the rest of your life because you're clearly too much for society.

No shit. They said the reasons about other areas is unclear at this time. The ambiguous nature of his self-reported symptom and his overall approach to this area raises the specter of deliberate malingering. Right. That's the thing. Now during his, they they've, you know, examined him all the time. They said he demonstrated already

an operational understanding of the warnings and everything. He was vigilant about answering any question he thought might bear on his legal case. At one point here, Rosenthal told the doctor that, quote, after this was all over, he would enjoy having

an unencumbered discussion of some of the points they discussed, but that was not currently possible. Well, this is all done. Let's sit down and have a chit-chat about my mental acuity. But not now. of the points they discussed but that was not currently possible well this is all done let's sit down and have a chit chat about my mental acuity but not now do that oh boy can't wait um so they said there's no suggestion of a formal disorder of thought uh other than him expressing doubts about his family but unable to give details he also describes hearing voices and sounds as well. So,

um, yeah, that's not good. Um, then they finally, he finally would say, why the fuck do you not think your parents aren't your parents? At one point in jail to a doctor,

he says over the past six months, they have acted strangely over various instances and have made me doubt their identity. They're terrified of you. They thought you were a nice you they thought you were a nice they thought you were a nice jewish boy who got a job as an actuary and instead you're a fucking you dissected your wife they're terrified of you you've done a bad thing they're horrified that you fucking brought shame upon their family yeah holy shit so he then described noises that weren't actually present that he hears sounds

of mopping of the floors, sounds of playing cards, but he wouldn't give any details about that at all. Um, then at one point he tells the doctor quote, I know they're my parents, but I've had my doubts. Okay,

there you go. So the trial comes around now. Oh my, this, as you can imagine, it's going to be a circus. How do you not? Oh, boy.

And he's wild, too, during this trial here. So two doctors testify that he suffered from a delusional disorder in that he believed a non-human alien was impersonating his wife and intended to kill him. Therefore, he acted in self-defense. They said with that thinking, obviously, he's not criminally responsible. They argued that the death of Reese a year earlier triggered his mental breakdown and that the mutilation of the body was evidence that he was psychotic. So the prosecutor said the killing was a culmination of years of domestic abuse. Their explanation is much simpler.

He beat up his wife a lot and he fucking killed her this time. Finally, yeah. We see this all the time. Alien vampires or not, we see this shit all the time. So they said that Rosenthal had refused to take psychotropic medication or undergo counseling and specialists said he had no treatable mental illness. or undergo counseling, and specialists said he had no treatable mental illness. The Commonwealth's expert, Dr. Fife, Dr. Barney Fife, said that he had narcissistic personality traits and did not have a delusional disorder. This doctor also commented that he met three or four of the diagnostic criteria for malingering,

which, by the way, I just got this giant medical book on malingering. by the way i just got this giant like medical book on malingering it's like it's so thick it's awesome i can't wait it's like a thousand pages about fucking malingering have done it or yeah and the different cases it's a cases and and it's like the the breakdown of malingering psychologically it's so interesting i can't wait to read it so either way here we go um they are the case proceeds here while the trial's going on the trial goes on for weeks by the way which is crazy as it progresses he starts making weird noises during i'm talking starts growling oh boy starts doing like sigourney weaver and ghostbusters she's like you know she's doing shit like that like he's just like he's growling he starts making other weird fucking

strange noises in court to the point where the judge has to stop the proceedings and go fuck is your problem basically um wow so octth, 96, his experts had testified. His counsel asked for a best, a bench conference. And this is what happened here. This is the quotes here. The defense counsel says to the judge, quote, the defendant has been acting a little bizarre lately, lately, say for a while now, since the start of this. Yeah.

He's talking about testifying now. And I want some time to talk with him he's growling he's making funny noises beside me that's not going to be good on the witness stand basically this started yesterday when his sister started to testify and before i can rest i did not put a plan to put him on the stand your honor so i need to take some time to make it very clear if i can and to also say to myself whether he's competent. I mean, he was certainly competent in my mind to stand trial up till now. But, you know, it would be against my advice if he took the stand.

So I've got to talk with this man. And the court officer also admitted that that Richard or that that he was laughing out loud inappropriately yesterday when he was walking up the stairs. They were walking with him. He just started going, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, out of nowhere. Not even in court, just by himself with the guards. They're like, you don't have to do that for us, bro. We're not the judge. We're not the jury. A little bit weird.

He said, I just need some time to talk with him. Then he talked with him. They went outside into a separate room, talked with him. And then he comes back in and defense counsel said, we feel satisfied. He's competent to stand trial. I can't tell you anything more than that. Sure. There's always some doubts when a man is as sick as he is, and he's a very sick man. That's true. And there are a lot of pressures that brings out that brings out that you don't have in more regular. Wow. He got off on one there. That you don't have in more regular. But I wouldn't have gone forward trying this case unless I felt he was competent.

Am I 100% sure? No, I'm not 100% sure. Do I think he should be evaluated for competency? No, I think it's in his best interest. And the judge says, all right, that covers that in my opinion. Lawyer says he's sane, he's sane, basically. That's that. We're doing it.

So at that point, like I said, he kept informing everybody that he wanted to testify. He wanted to testify. And they're like, bro, that's not going to be. Don't do it. You can't fucking do that. So he said, no, we feel satisfied. He's going to be good. Court does not conduct an evaluation.

Now, in his closing, the Jesus Christ, the fucking prosecutor, the defense attorney emphasized Rosenthal's delusional understanding of reality. OK, listen, you know, I said he's's crazy but like you don't fucking get it like for real like he is it's fucking he's out there he said quote ladies and gentlemen again and again afterwards when rosenthal sees his brother and sees his family he's delusional he doesn't think i'm me he he asked dr whaley for his license id he doesn't think his parents are his parents he's fucking batshit he's crazy he's sane one minute crazy the next i don't fucking know help me imagine being the defense attorney look please outside of laura i've had it the worst of everyone i've had to deal with this guy try to to get him together in court, tell him not to growl.

You know, it's like when you have to tell a grown man, please don't growl during a public proceeding. That's not normal. Past a four-year-old shouldn't have to say that. A lot of people's lives. Mine might be like third on the list. Fuck, he's driving me crazy. So the jury, they have a lot to think about here. Is he fucking crazy?

Is he second-degree murder? Did he snap? Is this like the atrociousness of it? Does that make it first-degree? They have a lot of options. And they choose to find him. What do you think, Jimmy? Guilty as fuck, James.

Guilty of first-degree murder. Yes. Yeah, they're like, fuck that. You're smart enough to know shit he's faking it yeah oh absolutely i think so too he killed his wife i think he i think he snapped i think he fucking killed her and then he went oh shit what do i do now and then he concocted this whole thing i have to make it look like i went crazy otherwise this isn't going to a crazy an actual crazy person who believes that his wife

is a vampire from another fucking dimension is not going to allow the child to live that came out of that body and he that's it he had zero zero anger towards the child her spawn her fucking offspring no no the alien has taken over her lately oh this happened after she was born yeah so she's possessed by yeah they've replaced her with it's a pod system jimmy don't you know anything they come down they put you in a pod they replace you with a look-alike duh yeah so obviously come on so the baby has nothing to do with this the baby's completely innocent no baby has no shit to do with this thing in his mind so he's that's the only truthful thing that he's said so far he's fucking nuts yeah i mean he is nuts but he's also responsible for this you know what i'm saying there you can

be both so uh the sentencing comes around from for guilty of first degree murder and they say you sir may fuck off life in prison uh-huh done so there you. Life. I don't think so. He's done. So no parole. The reaction from the family here, her mother, Laura's mother, LJ's mother, Vanita Shah, she said she was satisfied with the outcome of the trial.

Good. Me too. That's good. Yeah. She said so many beautiful plans were lost and lives changed forever because of one man's rage.

She said she was, I guess, taking care of her granddaughter, Marla Kate. She said she, quote, will only be able to know her mother in the memories and hearts of others. Don't say hearts. Just leave hearts out of it. I feel terrible for you, but just leave. Why would you why would you use that word at all? Yeah, you can't use it ever at that point. Her sister, Sherry, said that even worse than the killing was knowing that Marla Kate will never know the one person who loved her more than anything in the world. Yeah, I would say.

Now, his father, Rosenthal's father, Irving Rosenthal, said said we are all sorry for laura jane she was our daughter-in-law too we will all miss her because it's not like they were like you know we want our fucking son to kill us they're horrified about this too he said quote my son is mentally ill mentally ill and i think the jury missed the boat on this we're very heartbroken um yeah so that's what his dad said he's mentally ill i think your boy made a mistake and didn't know how to deal with it yep i think he fucked up i think things i think here's what i think too i think the pressure first of all the kid died and that will fuck you up and i think the pressure the pressure of having a new baby is enormous it's fucking

enormous oh my god it's so incredible especially if you're an anal retentive planner like this guy and like i feel like it's very much enormous then at the same time you got him dealing with the biggest thing he's ever dealt with at work with this project and all this stress and i think this motherfucker doesn't didn't have it together enough to deal with all that i think he snapped and then he said oh shit i better make up a pretty big lie over this shit that's what happened in my opinion i better do something that they they would they would never understand this so i gotta make something that they'll really never understand yeah and also i'm you know a successful guy they might just go oh he's crazy come over here big guy and you know he doesn't think of himself as in the criminal justice system so i think that's what it is here now he appeals this obviously um a couple things first of all

ineffective assistance of counsel he says now i'm sorry but that guy fucking did his best you can't control he worked as hard as you can ask him to work dude how do you control a client who talks about bosnian airstrikes that he caused and fucking growls in court while his sisters testify? And how the fuck do you keep that together? And I'm sorry, man. As good a job as you can. Yeah. He showed up every day.

That's more than you got out of me. I'm like, I'm taking Friday off, motherfucker. You have drove me crazy. So, yeah, ineffective assistance of counsel, he says. He says that there's two theories of how he unconstitutionally denied him his right to testify. Two. Okay, two. First, he argues that his lawyer coerced him into waiving his right to testify in an affidavit he presented to the motion judge.

Rosenthal claims that during the recess the i'm growling so my lawyer needs to talk to me recess his lawyer threatened to keep him in a holding cell unless he agreed not to testify the motion judge did not accept this account said you're you're lying that's probably full of shit your lawyer would be disbarred if he said i'm going to keep you in a fucking holding cell rather than give you your constitutional right to fucking speak your mind. But he also probably told him, if you talk, they get to ask you questions too. That's not going to be good for you because you haven't been able to explain this away yet. But he didn't say, I'll put you in a holding cell.

That's probably the lie part. He said, my God, for the love of fuck fuck if anything you've ever listened to on this planet listen to me when i tell you do not go up there and testify about space aliens and you don't know your parents are please god growling at the jurors we can't have it so um they said absent other evidence corroborating this account the judge reasonably discredited his account and uh there you go he doesn't allege by way, Rosenthal does not allege that his lawyer failed to inform him of his right to testify. He says that he contends that his waiver of the right was involuntary because he was prevented from testifying by his lawyer. And he was incompetent to stand trial in the first place, which his lawyer said he was competent.

So there you go. first place, which his lawyer said he was competent. So there you go. He said that he does say, though, later on that Rosenthal at one point says his defense counsel failed to inform him of his right to testify. In his next motion, he adds that into there, which is a whole other issue. He says that the only facts that support this contention are those related to Rosenthal's alleged lack of competence. In fact, Rosenthal's allegation that he was not properly informed of his right to testify is exclusively dependent on his claim that he was incompetent to stand trial.

The judge said, quote, the materials submitted by the defendant do not raise a substantial question of possible incompetency, i.e. a substantial question whether the defendant had sufficient ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding. In other words, you had a conversation with your lawyer, you guys came to a fucking decision, you know enough to fucking do that, and you can't complain about it afterwards. No whining, no crying in baseball, back to your holding cell, shithead.

You played the game, you lost. Yep, that's it. You got tackled and bound. Fourth down, motherfucker. Let You lost. Yeah, that's it. You got tackled in bounds. Fourth down, motherfucker. Let's go. So they said the record is devoid of any other evidence demonstrating that Rosenthal was not informed of his right to testify. And to the contrary, he was he continuously expressed that he wanted to tell his side of the story to the trier of the fact. So he constantly kept asserting that he knew he could testify. So he knew about it.

They said that the trial judge at one point had a recess to speak with Rosenthal. That's not normal. Yeah, when the judge wants to have a word with you in private, that's bad. Me and you, chit-chat, other room. At that time, the defense attorney stated that he wanted time to make clear to Rosenthal that it would be against his advice as a counsel for him to testify. After the recess, he told the judge he wouldn't be testifying. And then the judge talked to him and he said, no, no. That's the type of time when he will talk to him.

Like, are you not testifying because you don't want to testify? Are you not testifying because your lawyer told you you can't? Because that's one of those issues on appeal. Judges hate when their shit gets overturned. Yeah, because all this work for nothing. Well, it's especially because most of the time it gets overturned on something they did. So it's basically you fuck this up. So now it's overturned.

So they hate that. Do it all over again. So they try to cover their bases and shit like this. They'll bring them in. So now they can say, he told me he didn't want to testify. Period. It's not that. It's not a he said, she said.

It's fucking me. So he said he was coerced, though, into agreeing with the decision. They said that his self-serving affidavit was not credible. They said it's inconceivable that such a threat would be effective because he could have stood up in court and said, I want to testify he's lying. There you go. Well, then it's the judge would have said, is that true? Yes, it is. Well, then you got to let him testify and he would have testified. So he could have done that. The judge, though, says it this way. The defendant, an intelligent and educated person, was well aware, I would say, Christ.

Very well. Yeah. Very well, and he's probably seen a couple episodes of Law and Order on top of it, so he knows what he's doing here. Was well aware that he was in custody of court officers, that the court and the jury were waiting, and that the defense counsel could not prolong the recess indefinitely. He does not explain why,

when he was released from the holding cell and returned to the courtroom, he did not tell the judge about the counsel's threat. That would have been something to say. He threatened to put me in a cell. I mean, you know. The defendant's self-serving affidavit, written almost 10 years after the alleged coercion took place and supported by no other evidence, is insufficient to raise a substantial issue. His other argument is, quote, his other argument is no more than a second attempt to litigate his competency claim. Rosenthal contends

that the substantial doubts regarding his competency made it impossible for him to waive his right to testify knowingly and that his lawyer should have recognized this problem. Our prior analysis of his competency claims shuts the door on this line of reasoning. We do not see how the lawyer deprived Rosenthal of his right to testify if anything by bringing the matter to the attention of the court the lawyer decreased the likelihood of involuntary waiver shut the fuck up and get back in there yeah now he also wants to say he wants his pre-miranda statements thrown out which are i did something terrible i she burned the zd and all that shit or i burned the zd and all that shit so he he said he's um he that's probably shouldn't that

shouldn't be allowed in he just talked to him that was driveway chit chat you never said anything in a driveway somewhere that you wasn't true i mean you talk you know how guys are in the driveway you just you you talk shit sometimes. You go back and forth, you bullshit. I want to know how burned this ziti was is what I really want to know too. I need to know. How burned was this ziti? Not enough sauce is what I got to get to.

It has to be dry. It dries right out. A lot of times if you don't add enough sauce anyway, it'll dry out even if you don't overcook it. You have to have a lot of sauce in there mixed with the ragat. Get it fucking together with the ziti. And then you can't overcook the ziti before you put it in there. Otherwise, it'll keep cooking. And then it'll be soggy.

You got to undercook it a little bit. You cook it about, I say, 60% is where I go on the cooking of the ziti. Eight minutes, yeah. Yeah. So this is what the judge says about that. Given the consent of the statements and the defendant's demeanor at the time the statements were made, the decision not to challenge the pre Miranda statements was clearly a tactical decision consistent with the defense lack of criminal responsibility. Moreover, the defendant has not shown that he was prejudiced by defense counsel's failure to raise the issue of the voluntariness of pre Miranda statements to the trial. of pre-Miranda statements to the trial. Quote, an officer may suggest broadly that it would be, quote, better for a suspect to tell the truth, may indicate the person's cooperation would be brought to the attention

of public officials or others involved, or may state in general terms that cooperation has been considered favorably by the court in the past. So they can go, hey, it'll look good for you if you tell the truth. They say that shit all the time. You know, hey, you tell the truth. Maybe we can work with you. Maybe we can talk to the past. So they can go, hey, it'll look good for you if you tell the truth. They say that shit all the time. Hey, you tell the truth, maybe we can work with you. Maybe we can talk to the prosecutor. Very common. When that happens, the answer

to that is, well, make a deal with my lawyer then. That's the answer to that. I don't make deals. That's not a deal you're making. And I know you're not authorized to do that. Fuck out of here, Monty Hall. Yeah, fuck you. But either way, that's allowed by the law and you have to be smarter than that so the type of statement that is prohibited is quote an assurance express or implied that the defendant

statement will lead the defense or result in a lesser sentence so basically it will aid the defense or result in a lesser sentence so you can't it will aid the defense or result in a lesser sentence. So you can't say, hey, if you fucking tell me this, you won't get life in prison. We'll get, you know, you'll get a lesser sentence or whatever.

You can't promise any real things that you're not allowed to promise. Therefore, it says, oh, I'm sorry, the blah, blah,

blah. The police officer's statement to the defendant in this case were within and were arguably more innocuous than this realm of acceptable statements. Yeah, they just said, hey, you tell us what's going on and we'll get you out of here.

Yeah. That's why is that thing bloody? Those are really easy questions. Therefore, the defendant's pre Miranda statements were properly admitted at trial and the defendant did not receive an effective assistance of counsel because his choice not to raise the issue prior um to that was a reasonable tactical judgment and the statements albeit implicitly deemed available and defense counsel properly requested an instruction regarding the voluntariness

blah blah blah blah blah get fucked keep going and getting fucked in a fucking massachusetts state prison so So enjoy this. There was even a thing for a while where it was there was a possible federal jurisdiction was going to come over certain things that came in. They were possibly going to kick it over to the feds because they thought they'd have a better chance with a federal with a federal jury than a than a state jury. But they ended up keeping it in Massachusetts. And that's what ended up happening. So, yeah, he's in prison still,

I believe. I hope so. Yeah. I don't know how you let this guy out. He's okay. If you're a drooling, crazy madman, like some of these people we have are just like,

they might as well be werewolves. Like those people, you know, okay, keep that person in prison. And then maybe if they were in prison over the course of 30 years, they stopped being a drooling psychopath. You might go, oh, they reformed.

You know what I mean? Yeah. This guy is like totally normal, totally mild. And he's like, yeah, so I was hanging out. Yeah, that's a good restaurant down there. We go down to the Cape once in a while. It's delicious. I'll tell you what.

Thing that bothers me there, though, space aliens. Got to worry about that, especially when they're vampires okay that's a tough one how the fuck do you figure out if he's sane or not when he's lucid one minute the next minute he's growling at you and killing his wife and cutting her fucking organs out there's no way to deal with that this is what i assume every person that wants to talk politics with me is really like they are that's what it is yeah that's the all of them picture all of them anybody up to you, stranger wanting to talk politics, just picture in their backseat is a bag full of bloody clothes. I guarantee it. That's what it should be from now on.

No more of this shit. Stop it. No more. Stop. God, somebody pulled into my driveway to talk to me about politics. I would fucking lose my shit. Oh, forget it. I would lose my mind.

Literally, I would end up going to jail as I kicked at the person. Fucking shut up. politics i would fucking lose my shit oh forget it i would lose my mind like literally i would be end up going to jail as i like kicked at the person you fucking shut up get away from me you asshole we're on my property what do you care castle doctrine jesus christ just my fists so yeah he's still in there and he fucking should be in there honestly this is one if he had a hit he had no history of mental illness he had no anything like that and if he was having crazy fucking bonkers thoughts over the last year since his son died he should have sought help certainly yeah he should have sought help for it i mean that's your responsibility is to try to seek help and if you don't and you're not like delusionally

crazy you're a criminal if you kill people that's how it works and also somebody comes to work and their face is bruised and blood uh and and and their their significant other tells you they may have gotten in a fight let's report those god damn it i realized it was yeah it was 93 that's why it's too far and 93 that was visible bruises on their face fuck no one's gonna in 93 that's considered none of your business is what that is that's how it was back then our business by showing up with that shit yeah nowadays it wouldn't be like that nowadays i would think at least somebody would at least go to management and be like what's up here i mean i don't you know to look at something right but no back then it was just like you know that lady she went to him he said yeah we might have

gotten a fight i might have pushed her and caused it. And then that lady, I guess, just was like, well, well, well, what do I do? I can't do anything. I'm not married to her, you know. And if she's denying that it happened and he's denying that it's happened, what am I going to call the police and say two weeks ago she had a bruise and but she said she fell down? They'd be like, why don't you mind your business, lady? That's what they tell her. So it's difficult, you know.

Yeah. Either way, though, that is Framingham, Massachusetts. What a place. don't you mind your business lady that's what they tell her so it's difficult you know yeah um either way though that is framingham massachusetts what a place and one of the craziest fucking stories one of the craziest people um i'm happy that it was very focused this week and you didn't need a flow chart to keep up with the people in it no not like a family of hillbillies or anything so the characters fairly easy fairly Fairly easy to handle here. Not too bad. So thank you for checking that out.

I do want to say, I'll announce it on this show too, in case you don't hear it on the other show. Crime and Sports, our other podcast that we've, we did this, we started Crime and Sports a year before Small Town Murder. And we only got to do Small Town Murder because Crime and Sports was reasonably successful enough to where we said, hey, let's try another one. You know what I mean? And we only got to do Small Town Murder because Crime and Sports was reasonably successful enough to where we said, hey, let's try another one. You know what I mean? And we did this.

And Crime and Sports, that podcast, not this one because people will hear it wrong if you're not paying attention. Small Town Murder for the foreseeable future. We'll be doing this for at least another 10 years, I bet. So there you go. That's fine. Small town murder. Crime and sports is going to be coming to an end here in the next. It'll be like the end of the day after Christmas or the day after New Year.

One of those will be the last episode of that. Very foreseeable future. Very foreseeable future. As a matter of fact, we know exactly how long it'll be. And there you go. That's coming to an end. And we want to thank all of you that have listened to crime and sports as well um that was our baby and we really really love it but we're running out of athletes is the main thing here that's a that's honestly

what it is we thought we would get three years out of it yeah yeah and we got you know almost seven so that's quite a bit that's pretty good i think we we never thought we'd get this far with it at all we really didn't we never thought we'd get this far with it at all. We really didn't. We never thought it would last that long. We thought we would run out of athletes before that. And then people kept sending us some. You guys helped keep it alive.

And, you know, we'd find more and more. But we're running out of we're running out of stories that are like full length episode stories. Good stories. Yeah. Good stories. And also, to be quite honest, once you run out of famous people that's not like small town murder gets the same amount of listens for every episode they might they tick up as our listenership ticks up but it's not like one episode gets 30 more than another episode

people just listen to the episodes small town murder will be like we do chris benoit or i'm sorry crime and sports we do chris benoit we get twice the listens we get normal like you can't live like that in a podcast so if it's someone they've never heard of they're like i don't know who that guy is well i don't know what to tell you so that's difficult and sports fans can be fickle with that sort of thing if they don't want to hear a story they don't know about people want to hear stories they already heard and sometimes that they like and sports that they like and that's totally understandable it's not their fault totally get, you know, it's just it's run its course. We've ran out of athletes.

And now we will be starting something else to replace it. There will be another show coming. It'll start the week after Crime and Sports End. So it'll be we will flow right into it. No worries about that. And it's going to be something funny. I guarantee you that shit. So we're excited.

We're starting a new show completely new show um in three months so we're jacked about that we hope you're as excited about it as we are we cannot fucking wait to uh to get into something new also and then keep this small town murder train rolling along with this and express we'll be doing them both and uh guys our baby we love it so now we're having a new one that's what it is yeah little reese little reese we're gonna retire and then we have that's that's terrible we shouldn't say that but yeah our other baby's dying and we're gonna we're gonna put all of our energy into this other child that we have called small town murder which we already put tons of

energy into but now with small crime and sports takes more time to put together than small town murder it takes so long to do so with that off the plate this will be better yeah this will be way better for us and we're gonna put out another goddamn funny show yeah fucking promise you that we're not gonna give you garbage obviously i'm not gonna put out some bullshit or now we're gonna do no you know what it is the new show is jimmy and i reading each other poetry that's what it is? The new show is Jimmy and I reading each other poetry. That's what it is. Not poetry from books either. Poetry us ourselves have composed. That'll be just maybe about an hour and a half every week, maybe twice a week. A couple of songs from each of us.

We bust into our poetry notebooks, and we really just think about it, and we discuss the work. Maybe there'll be some laughing, but there's also going to be some tears. You know what I mean? It's not going to be that much fun. No, we're not doing that. It'll be something funny. We're going to do a podcast cooking show where we cook over the audio cook. A podcast coloring book and tell you what we're doing.

Picture this color. Podcast cooking show would be the easiest thing in the world because no matter what you made, you could go're doing picture this color podcast cooking show would be the easiest thing in the world because no matter what you made you could go it's perfect delicious just make sizzling noises in the background medium rare would you look at that every time perfect fucking oh the sear on this thing is lovely my god you should see the consistency of this sauce it's it's i wish you could see it. I really do. So boil it until it's just like this. Oh, yeah, like about now.

Take it off, yeah, right about now when it gets to this color. So, yeah, that's what we're going to do. No, we're going to do a funny show. We're going to do a comedy show. But I do want to thank everybody from Small Town Murder audience here who's also listened to Crime and Sports because I know a lot of the Crime and sports listeners to listen to this as well and if you've given it a shot and hated it thanks for trying it you know what i mean if you've given it a shot and liked

it and just kind of put it on the back burner fucking listen to it now because it's almost over so check it out it's a lot of people are like i like it but it's like i'll i gotta catch up on small town murder and i gotta do this and that so either way give it a shot check it out and check out our new show we will over the net course of the next probably month or so we're gonna we'll let you know what it's gonna be and uh we'll pump it up man we'll get it ready and hopefully you can help us uh get it out there everybody so that'll be a lot of fun thank you for that uh if you like this show right here small town murder get on whatever app you're listening on apple podcast whatever the hell you're listening

on give us a review it does help the show it does i don't know why but it drives you up the chart so help us out there really that's um just say something doesn't matter it's not for our ego no it's for business over here it's's for the children, everybody. It's for the children. It's for the kids. It's for you. So do that. Follow us on social media as well. We're at MurderSmall on Twitter, at SmallTownPod on Facebook, at SmallTownMurder on Instagram.

Head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. My God. Not only do we have merchandise there, so much merchandise, all sorts of shit. People always put up stuff. I wish they had this shirt. And I'm like, we do. Here we go. Oh, shit. There's a lot of stuff there. I didn't realize it. It's just understandable. So

get your merch there. Also, get your tickets to the virtual live show. It is October 27th. Just like a live show, except rather than you being in a theater you are going to be in your living room or wherever you want to be and we will be we have a setup that's just like our theater setup with a big screen and a table tv yeah we're going to hang with you you can watch us on tv anywhere in the world too we have people from

all over the world that are like oh come to australia well come to this and you can see us otherwise because australia is really far we'd love to be there but it's far so check that out it's a way quicker flight it's going to be halloween themed spooky murder and it's going to be available for seven days after that so you can watch it you can get it on the 27th you can watch it a hundred times you can get it on the 27th. You can watch it 100 times. You can get it on the sixth day and watch it. You can get it, save it for Halloween night, watch it then. Do whatever you want with it for the seven days that you have it. Hang out with us and do that. And also, we will be announcing our new tour very soon.

The tickets will probably go on sale right before Thanksgiving time. So new tour coming up. Find out what cities we're going to be in. Ooh, baby, there's a couple of ones we haven't been there in a few years. There's a couple of new ones on there that I don't think we've been to before. This is going to be so much fun.

We can't wait. And a lot of people have been asking us to come places. We're trying to come to all those places. We're very excited. Look out for that tour coming up there. That is going to be the 2023 tour. Right. Wow, that's a long time.

Weird. So there you go. Get your tickets to that when it's available at shutupandgivememurder.com today. Get your virtual live. Also, you can get the virtual live tickets at moment.co slash smalltownmurder. Okay. That said, Patreon. My God. Yes.

Patreon.com slash crimeandsports is where you get all of the bonus stuff. Yeah. And we will keep Crime and Sports Alive on Patreon as far as we're going to do just like we do now. Weird episodes. An athlete who did some crazy shit but not enough for two and a half hours of crazy shit an hour's worth of crazy shit but it will still be just as wild on patreon there we're going to keep that going so this here patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get all the bonus stuff for small town murder and crime and sports and anybody five dollars or above

a month and that's a cup of coffee, man. It is. Cup of coffee. Come on. Get in there. For a cup of coffee or more every month, you can get bonus episodes. Not only do you get the whole back catalog, which you can – very bingeable stuff right there. It's like 150 episodes. It's a lot. It'll take you a while. Yeah.

You all caught up? Well, get in there. You got more. So there's that. Not only that, every other week you're going to get two new episodes, one crime and sports, one small town murder this week, which you are going to get fun stuff. Two of our recurring ones that people love for small or for crime and sports. You're going to get personal ads. Yes.

These are fucking hilarious. These are we take old newspaper personal ads. What you would do on you like your dating app profile except imagine publishing that in the paper and hoping someone reads it and then writes to your your like weird little P.O. box thing that you'd have to do

these are crazy and they're hilarious and we do them every six months or so and they're the funniest things in the world person looking for love in all the wrong places like the newspaper you got that then for small town murder we are going to do another one that we do every once in a while and it is so much fun and back by popular demand small town festivals where we're going to talk about you know weird testicle festivals and goddamn who knows county fair shit weird bands strange food pig and and Ford competitions like we did.

We get to get into all that shit and it's so much fun. You get that and everything else. Patreon.com slash crime and sports. And not only do you get all that stuff, you also get a shout out which comes right now to the most wonderful people

in the world. Jimmy, as a matter of fact, hit me with the list of the most wonderful people in the world jimmy as a matter of fact hit me with the list of the most wonderful people in the world who would never ever ever dissect me because they thought i was an alien space vampire please hit me with them now this week's executive producers are jb and yeti shetty maryland brandfast is your brand new 71 year old grandmother james you better get in touch with her very soon call her she's to call her on Sundays. Get all the rest of her grandma-hood left. Oh, shit. That sounded weird.

She makes sauce? I imagine she does. Scott Gaiman, Hope Sherry, The Last Valkyrie. Valkyrie? What's a Valkyrie? That's a fucking soldier, isn't it? I don't know. I don't know what that is.

But the last one likes us. Lindsay Plemons or Plemons? Quinn Ailes? Gavin Herr? Gaza's driver who hated Ricky? Who's that, James? I don't know who that is. What was that?

Gaza's driver who hated Ricky. I don't know who that is. Gaza's? Oh, that's a sports Gaza. We haven't done the episode yet. Is it that or is it? Beats me. Or is it?

The Gaza Strip? Maybe so. Do they have a driver? I don't know the fashion plate of wrestling and corporal carl kirschner uh it's for classy freddie blast i forget what carl wrote to me and i fuck god damn sorry carl he's a terrific man he is uh he is i don't know he is wonderful all right uh povolis bassevious is really into Jessica Angela Cole. Povilis or Povilis? Basavius, you've got to get an easier name, my friend. That one's all fucked out.

Liz Vasquez. Michelle at Centeno Kennels in Ontario, Canada. Mark E. Shaw. That's Bigfoot, it is. That's the guy from the Howard Stern Show. I know who that is. Peyton Meadows, Happy Hour in Orleans, Vermont. Alyssa and Sean in Wisco.

I think that's Wisconsin. Janice Hill, Jessica Chastang, Tyler Jacot, Jaco Hunter with no last name, Teresa Strangini, Kate Wilson, Megan Foley,

Dylan Vinson, Mackenzie Lem, Allison Louise Harrington, Diana Phillips, Joanna Troisi, I think, Troisi, Troisi, it's italian i don't know troisi uh patrick douglas kelly robert gambled rebecca davidson mandy tp or tap tp to pay

ann alderman cameron owens jenny with no last name emma collins josh grover heather rush anthony anthony anthony shulman i don't know uh anthony sheffelman, Kai, Alta Hope, Jackson Finn, Kristen Weir, Kim Miller, Aidan Gahan, Lorraine Louise, Lauren Cook, Erica Chera, Ashley Lomploff, Flicka the Horse, Jess Joyce, Joyce Woods, Kathleen Ashley Lomploff, Flicka DeHorse, Jess Joyce, Joyce Woods, Kathleen with no last name, Alicia Flint, David Arundondo, Jess Shannon, Emily Whittington, Dale Roberts, Daniel Lopez, Christina Mwison, Ricardo with no last name, Bailey Huff, Natalie Connelly, No last name. Bailey Huff.

Natalie Connelly. Corin Kruger. Jesse Floyd. Melissa McDevitt. Kathy Schwar. Julie Stern. Stem. Oh, is that Stern?

I think it's Stem. Stem to Stern, baby. That's what it is. Cole Stewart. Harvey Phillip. Two Walter. Wellman Williams. I don't know what that means.

Nolan with no last name. Alexa Fagan. Tina Hensley. Sarah Morgan. Rich Lucas. Valkyrie. Another Valkyrie? Another one. There's two of them, so you're not the last. They're everywhere. Melon Cone, Valkyrie. Another Valkyrie? Another one.

There's two of them, so you're not the last. Melon Cone, I think. B.B. Gunn. Elizabeth Digirolamo. That's a fucking... D.Girolamo. Forget it. Brittany Almazon. Good God.

Tara Seek. Cyborg Sarah. Nakul, with no last name. Thomas Lawson, Caroline Wu-Kohatsu, Mandy Hughes, Tanja Tanya, Tanya Henkel, Sean Gilbert, Savvy Lambro, Amy Cooper, Sheridan Hollow, Brendan Wyant, Natalie Love, Rachel Anderson, Zane Ellis, Antoinette Jackson, Melissa Knoff, Lulu Edmondson, Katie Morrison, Bonnie Shea, Yvonne Liu, Christina Barone, Oates Brownpaw, Claudia Watson, Laura Smith, Sue Haynes, McKinley, Heath, Jamie Williams, Jen with no last name, Daniel Reynolds, Gia with no last name, Gary Smith, Andrew Robertson, Joy Macharski, Jesse Thompson, Jason Michalchinek, oh, Jesus, Michalchinek, Allie Hunter, Kathy Morris, Stacy Pitti, Mark Madison, Andrea Kendrick, Justine Kennedy, Julian Logan, Courtney Smith, Joel Micah Harris, Joel John, Paul Comas, Michelle Ballhorn, Bobby Helton, Carly Hudson, Karen with no last name, Emily Voss, Zach Vandermalley, Tracy Forziotti, Lauren Fisher, Bailey Baker, J.W. Ashman, Bree with no last name, Rob Pierce, Richard Reyes, Gregory, Shannon Trott, Aaron F. Sassy Pants, Paul Hoke, Morgan with no last name, Will Van Atta,

Pants, Paul Hoke, Morgan with no last name, Will Van Atta, Kevin Kuhlman, Josh, nope, that's Scott Huff, Justin Lehman, Lindeman, Lindy, Lindy, Justin Lindy, Chance Frenette, Trevor with no last name, Jonah Heider, Cassie Mewborn, is that Mewborn? That's Mewborn. Shelby Mertens, Gary Bacon, what? That's great. Kentrell Brinkley, Lori Howell, Caitlin Easton, Eastland, Michelle Kendrick, Sonnet Ireland, Matt Turley, Teresa Weichman, Samantha Shaw, Alec Haik, Frost, Randy Heinrich, Sonora Berman, Aaron Tucker, Mr. Lanzes, Zach Grooms.

I hope not. Everett Ogden, Kara Neiman, Naimi, Naimi, Katrina, Katrina Corkin. Oh, that's Katrina. I think we know. Angela Cotton, Lynn Moynihan, Jared Bramlett, Elia, Charna, Ethan Cooper, Everett Chase, Case, Carly Manning, Sarah Miller, Ethan Marest, Shauna, Shaw, Thor with no last name, David Mitrofenenat, Tanya Steele, Amy Smut, Nora Christensen, Jason Trottier, Julie Geiger, Ashley Lacey, Kelly McKenna, Jeremy Rubin, Michael Bartley, Blake Starker, Richard Brian Cavell Jr., Isaiah Smith, Ralph Moll, Mike Killen, Justin Harrington, Greg Gailey, Brian Greeley, Christopher Lespren, Ethan Henning, Justin Agnew, Connor Curry, Dina Strong, Colleen Schickel, Katrina Lane, Mike, nope, that's Kyle March, Rebecca Tipton, Stephanie Garvin, Katrina Cherie, Heather Carty, Christopher Keim, Jacqueline with no last name, Heather Rossi, Don Savage, Gina M., Cameron Jacobson, Jesse McWilliams, Mary Ailes, Michelle with no last name, Jenny Outlaw, Megan Moore, Will Barnes, Dan Lee, Lauren Vasquez, Kaylee Strand, Carrick with no last name,

Kane Stokes, Jeffrey Moulton, Mike Cutie, Teresa Garcia, Jeff Smotzer, Karen Reagan, Luke Cuffe, Brian Jones, Matthew Lewis, Thomas Wolpert, Melody McDonald, Deidre Barnes, Corey Shepard, Tristan Santer, Cameron with no last name, Teresa Mongold, John Buckley, Alyssa with no last name, Luke McGowan, Don Buchanan, Alan Mon zach potts nicole smith dustin with no last name chris johansson mandy mirakami thomas torres kyler lundberg lindsey laramore together together megan amburn kate katie s uh garrett with no last name jillian george georges george uh joshua joshua hughes uh jay hula elizabethard, probably a Commodense daughter, Lacey with no last name, Jack Jenkins, Ben Reiser, Elizabeth Plocher, Amanda Inskeep-Shelton, Kat with no last name, Jennifer Binkley, Danny Lariatta, Laurie Dodson-Parsons, Courtney with no last name, Sean Ryder, Alicia Gakin, Jessica Newman, Tracy Brands, Teresa Adams, Owen Den, Priya Fall, Kyle Vickers. Hey, Kyle! Lynn Unique, Kathy Ryan, Abby Finney, Sally Johnson, Amy Kessler, Shane Barnett, and all of our patrons. You guys are amazing. Thank you, everybody, so much for your your support for everything you do for us for

fucking hanging out with us and for being here with us and everything like that and uh really hope you're liking the show because we we have definitely like we put everything we can into the show we love it we love it so much and we hope you love it too because uh we're having a good time here so keep hanging with us keep coming back if you want to follow us on social media personally you can do it very very easily just head over to shut up and give me murder.com all the answers are found at shut up and give me murder.com even you want to look up like what's this lump in my leg shut up and give me murder.com i'm sure it's on there somewhere if not buy tickets to the virtual live show then go to webmd one or the other but but get on there.

There's links to our social media and or you can just look up Small Town Perter Small Town Perter Small Town Murder podcast hosts and we'll pop up in our social medias on that. Super easy to find us and hang out with us.

Keep coming back every week. Don't forget to listen to Express on Friday. Also, let's send Crime and Sports off correctly. Listen to Crime and Sports every Tuesday. Look out for the new show. Patreon next week. Thank you so much, everybody. It's been so much fun.

And until next week, 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.