Small Town Murder - #345 - Age Is Just A Number - Chester, South Carolina

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

This week, in Chester, South Carolina, a lost young boy is found, in the woods, armed with a powerful rifle, and in need of help. He tells police of a terrifying ordeal that includes being kidnapped, after a man killed his grandparents, and burned their house down. After questioning, everyone feels awful for the boy, but they still need to get the details, and he's less than forthcoming. The story that ends up coming out is the most shocking thing anyone has heard of, in decades. Will Zoloft be the culprit, or the person who did the actual killing?Along the way, we find out that the south loves a pageant, that people don't usually kidnap people & their dogs, and that some words have very shifting definitions!!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 Chester, South Carolina, when a 12-year-old boy says he's escaped a kidnapper, a giant manhunt takes place, which ends up revealing something stranger than anyone could have imagined.

Welcome to Small Town Murder. Yay! 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 on another insane edition of Small Town Murder. They're always crazy. This week is no exception.

We're going to South Carolina, which we've had a history of crazy down there. And it's just as wild. It's always a really weird one down there. It's always some kind of strange, off-the-beaten-path type of case. And that's what we have this week. Insane stuff. We will get to that very quickly. Before we do, shutupandgivememurder.com

is where to go for your tickets to the live shows for 2023. It looks like up through May is for sale right now. The rest will go on sale in the beginning of January. Again, that is not our doing. That is just how it goes. So the first two shows up February 10th in Cleveland, February 11th in St. Louis. Get your tickets right now.

They're selling really fast. St. Louis is almost, like, very, very close to sold out. It's unbelievable. Cleveland's pushing it too, so don't try to get those at the last minute there. Get your tickets to those immediately. Definitely. Shutupandgivememurder.com Patreon.com slash crimeandsports is where you're going to get all the bonus stuff.

Anybody $5 or above, you're going to get access to everything. Whole back catalog, like 150 episodes to binge on of bonus stuff. And then every other week, you're going to get two new episodes with the exception of Christmas, which is this week. This week, you're going to get one new episode. We did last year on Christmas, my grandmother died, so we took that off. This year, yeah, we're going to do one because my son's coming. We're going to try to actually be humans and enjoy some time with our family. They come out on Christmas Eve, but we will give you one,

and it's going to be one we've been saving for you here. We're going to talk about the worst comedy gigs we've ever been a part of, and it's going to be, we're going to talk about the worst comedy gigs we've ever been a part of, and it's going to be fun. And as a special bonus to the bonus, we're also going to talk about our favorite and least favorite Christmas songs. We're going to do that also. So we're going to do all that.

It's on Christmas Eve. Join us for that. Patreon.com slash crime and sports. And, um, you'll also get a shout out, of course, at the end of the show where Jimmy will mispronounce your name while he tries desperately to get it correct desperately um and also that

said you definitely want to know about crime and sports we're going to keep around in a in a smaller in a in a shaved down manner so check out she lives more crime and sports coming to you very weird stuff there that said disclaimer this is a comedy show. This is a comedy show. Now, the story, you might go, oh, a comedy show. Then this isn't a real story. No, the story's real. That's the crazy part about it.

Everything we say is real. The research is definitely real. And we'll give you just as much as 2020 or Dateline or any of that stuff would back in the day. But we're funny. So it makes it even better. It makes it a little bit more fun. We never make anything up, and we especially, we go out of our way not to make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Why, James?

Because we're assholes. What? But we're not scumbags. There you go. So there will be jokes, but come on. It's like an old Playboy. It's tasteful. You know what I'm saying? From like the 70s. go so there will be jokes but come on it's like it's like an old playboy it's tasteful you know

what i'm saying from like the 70s we shoot it lester holt wishes he could say we shoot it real tastefully you know what i mean that's it's worth let's picture us like that yeah no don't picture us like that never mind camera around our profile of the bush that's all swarthy beard with too much neck hair going hey you know come on on. Hey, come over here. It's real tasteful. Like, so that said, I think it's time to sit back, everybody. Clear the old lungs and let's shout. Shut up.

Give me murder. That's right. I hope you scared the shit out of your pets or wherever you are in the grocery store like we said that's always fun that said let's go on a trip jimmy oh let's do this we are going oh baby we're going down to south carolina let's do it uh to chester south carolina plural or singular just chester one chester ain't no more than one all you need is one chester in our town that's all I'm saying. Chester, which immediately makes you think of molester, which is a bad.

That's why it's always going to be a bad name for anything. Chester. Not good. This is in like north central South Carolina. Two hours and 45 minutes to Charleston, about an hour to Columbia, and three hours away from Conway, South Carolina, which was our last episode, which was called A Dumb Ted Bundy, which was a very apt description of that idea.

It's been a little while, huh? It's been a while since we've been to South Carolina. We had to head on down there. This is Chester County. Okay. So it's all Chester. It's Chester, Chester. The motto here, quote, at the center of it all.

Uh-oh. The center of the Chester. The Chester, the motto here, quote, at the center of it all. Center of the Chester. Must I? The Chester of the universe. Do I even have to ask what? Center of what? What's it all? This county?

Northern South Carolina? What are we talking about? There's not a lot of all. So much Chester, you'll puke. It's too much Chester. It's a choke. We'll choke you with Chester. Choke down the Chester is you'll puke. It's too much Chester. So it's a choke. And it's a choke. You will choke you with Chester. Choke down the Chester is their other motto.

Choke it down. History here. Original inhabitants here are the Cherokee Indian tribes were here. The Cherokee Indian nations and other people. Traders came in the early 1700s. And the first kind of quote settlers, you could say, came in the early 1700s and the first kind of quote settlers you could say came in the 1750s and in the Rocky Creek and Fishing Creek areas, which sounds like there's fish there. So that's positive. Early settlers were like Scotch Irish immigration from South Pennsylvania.

Oh, boy. So, yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of names that relate to that in the state for there. Settlers went to South Carolina on the Great Wagon Road. Oh, yeah. They had, I guess, that headed south or north or wherever. So the western section of the county was settled by immigrants for the most part. And then a lot of the early settlers settled down near the Catawba River. And it was an agricultural community for a long, long time.

Okay. Growing shit. And then developed into manufacturing in the 1800s because the textile industry boomed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can put more factories on one farm than you could a shitload of cotton. So that's how that goes. And that actually brought a lot of the chester manufacturing company opened in 1888 oh what did they make brought a lot of jobs there textiles it's all textile shit textile mills

yep uh the mills later on became uh part of springs industries which was one of the world's largest textile companies so there you go people from here a pair of sisters are from here uh debbie allen who was in fame and all that shit. And she's like a dancer and actress and all that. And Felicia Rashad, who's her sister. No shit. Absolutely. Who is married to Ahmad Rashad and apparently is blind and a little slow on the uptake, we used to call it, I would say, back in the day.

More famously known as a Bill Cosby defender. There you go. That's what I'm getting at. More famously known as going, I don't care if 75 women did come forward. I don't care if 150 women come. How many? That many? How many fucking women?

Jesus Christ, this is crazy. She's got to be a mental patient, right? I have no idea right i have no idea i have no clue maybe that's why ahmad rashad i maybe that's why we don't see him on television as much as we used to remember the 90s he was everywhere he's busy like keeping her at bay just calming her down he was on what nbc all the time all the time the nba he didn't he wasn't even a basketball player he played for the v Vikings. He was on Inside the NBA. He's so beloved that he was a football player and they were like, hey, you can talk about

basketball too. Look at him. He's handsome. He's handsome. He did sign a 10-day contract and play with somebody once in the NBA. Yeah. It was just kind of a publicity thing. To get out of the house probably.

Probably. He's like, listen, Felicia's tripping, okay? I don't know what's going on. Bill Cosby brought like six girls over. They left all groggy. Give me a week and a half out of the house. Come on. It'll all blow over.

It'll help. Reviews of this town. Holy balls are these interesting. Here's five stars. Wow, hold on. I have to count. Oh, eight. Okay.

Five stars here. Quote, my father stays in Chester. I love the area and want to move there. They have stores just like the city. Oh. Is that what he said? They got from fucking period to period, man. Whole sentence.

They have stores just like the city. You know his eyebrows were all up when he said, they got stores just like the city. What kind of stores? Just a store. It's a building with a door. You walk in, there's things you can buy. It's wild, man. Flash and neon light says open.

I heard about things like that. Usually I just trade with a man in a tent on the side of the road. I trade like a pelt for something, you know what I mean? But like this is you walk in, you can only use money, which is weird. in a tent on the side of the road i trade like a pelt for something you know what i mean but like this is you want to walk in they you can only use money which is weird it's strange um here's this is amazing too the last sentence here different water company and lights sometimes be with rent i mean it's awesome eight exclamation points so sometimes power and water are included in your rent and they have stores just like the city that that warrants eight exclamation points

and five stars so 13 total positive things lights and water be with rent be with rent i mean it's awesome what else could you want stores just like the city and power and lights included in your rent you got a threesome bill right there you got the water and the lights being with the rent being with the rent i mean we call that a threesome bill i mean it's awesome eight exclamation points one check three bills hat trick hat trick of bills right there you got it so that's a whole review five stars i want to meet that person they're so easily pleased yeah you could do anything like i'd love to do a comedy show for that person any Any amount of anything. They'd be clapping, fucking howling, falling over in their chairs. You're like, this is great.

You're amazing. He's telling jokes just like the city. Just like on the TV. On the YouTube. He doesn't know about YouTube. No, he doesn't know about the YouTube. I hear there's an internet, but I ain't found it yet. Well, he put this reveal on it somehow.

I looked under my house. It ain't there. I don't know where it is. Maybe the possums done took it. The internet and the mail bees together. Bees together. Next one, five stars as well. Most of the population has lived in Chester all their lives, and elderly people who retire comes to Chester to finish their lives.

To finish their lives. That's depressing. Comes to Chester to finish. That sounds like they march them up there, like the Trail of Tears. Come on, old people, move it. Let's go, Grandma. You're going to finish your life up there. Move your ass.

Go. Keep up with Grandpa. Let's move your fucking ass, pal. When your town is a hospice, that's not a positive review. But they got stores just like the city. Here's four stars. I love how Chester is a small country setting. Country capitalized, by the way, for some reason.

If you love anything about nature, then Chester is the place for you. The people are always friendly and everybody knows everybody chester is your family away from home oh that sounds like an ad for it um the next two are very simple three stars we do not have many attractions okay but you got a guy there that's fascinating. He's like, wow, look at that. They got electricity over here and everything. It's included in the rent? No, you don't.

No, no, no. We're together. When he first heard it, he probably just said, no, no, like a hundred times till somebody finally, and he's like, oh my God, Jesus, that broke my brain. Jesus Christ. Lights and water. Y'all hear this? Here's two stars. This is the weirdest review I've ever That broke my brain. Jesus Christ. Lights and water. Y'all hear this? Uh-huh. Here's two stars.

This is the weirdest review I've ever read in my life. It is five words long. It's the weirdest review I've ever heard in my life. No capital letters, no punctuation. Quote, you see people dying every day. Yeah, generally. That's dark, man. Generally, yeah.

I mean, but like in your house, that'd be weird. But in general, you see it. They're on the street collapsing. Like when you see trees leaning over on another tree, except they're just on the sidewalk. Same thing. So people in this town, I'm sorry, 5,363. It is 54.9% female, which is way out of whack of the average. I don't understand why that is.

55, 45. I don't get it at all. Median age, 37.5, which it's really weird, though. The ages are mostly 25 to 34 and 0 to 9. So that is people and their kids. And also they have twice as many 85 and over as normal. So it's just babies and old people. Babies and old people going to finish up their lives.

Finish up their lives. Well, they don't say retire. That's what I'm going to say. If I ever retire somewhere, I'm going to go finish up my life over here now. Now the wife and I are going to finish up our lives up in uh new hampshire i think maybe up by the canadian border i'm gonna be a maple harvester and uh that's what we're gonna do so uh 31.7 percent married it's usually 50 50 39 percent have are single with children here. Is that right? So partay time.

Hell, yes. We got some people with loose morals and fucking no attachments. I like it. I like it a lot. We put out and we get down. That's right. Race here, different from a lot of our towns, 28% white, 69.2% black, 0.6 percent Asian and 1.2 percent Hispanic. So like a lot of southern towns, black and white and nobody else.

Kind of. That's what it is. Religion here. Fifty two point eight percent of the people are religious and without any shock or surprise, 24 percent of the people here are Baptist. That is the most one. Baptists are, as we know, the Catholics of the South. There we are. Last election in this in Chester County, 44.1 percent of the people

voted Democratic, 55 percent Republican, 1 percent Independent. Median household income here, Jimmy, hold on to your hat because you're going to have to sell it to donate to these people because you're going to feel bad. Go ahead and guess. Is it $22,000? Are you kidding me? $22,639 a year. How the fuck did you know that?

I didn't. You said low, so I just guessed my birthday. There you go. $22,000. That's the one. You got it. That is amazing. I guessed like a dum- the one. You got it. That is amazing.

I guessed like a dum-dum and I nailed it. That's some savant shit you got going on there, Jimmy. Luck is a talent. I literally did. Luck is a talent sometimes. Embrace it. You know? That's incredible.

Holy shit. 22.6. 22.619. Not a lot of money here. That is so... Oh my God. Normally about 55. 22.6. 22.619. Not a lot of money here. Oh, my God. Normally about 55. That's frightening. That's very low.

Overall cost of living here, 100 is average. Here it's 77, so it's not even that low. Housing is low, though. Median home cost $81,700. Still too much. Still too much. And from what it sounds like, I don't want to live here if it's free. But I don't want to be here.

So if you do, though, if we've convinced you, you want to go drive by where Felicia Rashad grew up, we have for you the Chester, South Carolina, real estate report. okay average two-bedroom rental here 617 dollars about half the national average so james lights and water and it's included that's what i'm saying for 617 dollars power that they bees included so what more do you want it Be with it. Be with it. Now, here's one. Two bedroom, one bath, 887 square foot. It doesn't look like much of a house. It looks like where you dare someone to spend a night. Oh.

You know what I mean? Like, I'll give you $100 if you stay there until sun up. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's one of those very murdery. The kids definitely don't stop here on Halloween. They pick their pace up as they walk past it on Halloween. $45,000 for that.

Jesus. I guess fix it up. I don't know. Here's a three-bedroom, two-bath, 2,334-square-foot house. It's very cool, actually. Yeah. It's like a small Victorian. That's not a tiny house, but a Victorian house is usually bigger. It's like

a miniaturized version of that. It's old-fashioned, but cool. Old-fashioned, like done on purpose old-fashioned. The cool banister for the stairs and shit like that. It's a cool little house. It's really nice. $389,900 for that though. You're gonna pay.

2,000 square feet. You got room. You got room. But if the average house, I feel like there's a few nice houses, and then your average house is a dump. That's what it sounds like this town is like. Here's a four-bedroom, three-bath, 3,800-square-foot house. It's nice. 2.38 acres.

Yes. It's very cool. The yard is cool, too. It looks really nice. Nice walkway up to the door. It's nice. 2.38 acres. Yes. It's very cool. The yard is cool, too. It looks really nice. Nice walkway up to the door. It's cool. Could use... It's got a lot of wallpaper.

We'll put it that way. So that's going to be a problem. You're going to be steaming some shit off. You're going to be steaming and painting, but otherwise, it's really nice. It's actually a really cool old house that you could turn into something awesome. But it's going to cost you $468,000 for that, though. Oh so oh boy a little on the pricey side uh things to do oh geez here we go south carolina strawberry festival yeah i love strawberries i'm in yeah um except when you hear how weird it is uh there is the little miss strawberry pageant nope i don't like that at all i i'd really like to know how far we are away from

those all going away in the south 6 000 years i mean what the fuck you know and people down there no they know exactly what they're either pro pageant and they're like hell yeah we ain't ever getting rid of it or they're like yep they're never getting rid of it either one it's never going away uh then there's the teen Miss and Ms. Strawberry pageant. Ms. Strawberry. I crown you Ms. Strawberry. There you go, honey. What is that?

Is that a divorce lady? Is that what Ms. is? No, Ms. is just non-denominational for marriage. You could be married. You could be single. It's just to not identify someone by their title like that. So it's just Ms. It's the female Mr.

So competition will be held there on April 30th. The Strawberry Sprint and Stroll, which is a race. I don't know if you're in some sort of strawberry contraption or what. There wasn't any pictures. I imagine like a giant plastic strawberry on wheels that you have no control over, and they just push you down a hill. That's what I imagine. No motor brakes or anything. No, no, no, nothing.

They just push you down a hill, and at the bottom, you just come to a stop eventually in a field somewhere. Like that Boy Scout car race where you got to build a little car, and then you roll it down a hill. Soapbox racing. Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, soapbox racing. That's exactly what it down a hill. Soapbox racing. Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, soapbox racing. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. The strawberry scavenger hunt.

Again, I don't know if you're looking for strawberries. Shit in the strawberries? Shit in the strawberries. I don't know. Strawberry doggy fashion show. Okay. Dress your pooches in strawberry attire, and then you get a free snow cone if you do that. What?

I mean. That's the prize? That's the prize. There is no winner. You just all get a free snow cone if you do that. What? I mean. That's the prize? That's the prize. There is no winner. You just all get a snow cone. Strawberry baby virtual contest. What the fuck is that? I don't know.

But photos can be submitted April 1st through the 30th, and then you start voting on Facebook. And it's a. I don't know. I don't know what it even is. What's the point? Yeah. I think it's a the... I don't know. I don't know what it even is. What's the point? I think it's a virtual. It's baby pictures. So you don't have to... Because a baby pageant

is weird where you hold the baby up. What do you think of that one? Like it's a prize calf or something? Huh? Pretty cute, right? Yeah, pretty cute, right? You throw it to the next one. They put it on a big hook and it weighs it. You're like, oh, wow. Look at that.

It's a little too fat for my liking. Oh, man. That baby is like a musky. I don't think I like it. It's a musky baby. So there's the Strawberry Festival Golf Tournament. Yeah. Strawberry.

Strawberry. Downtown Strawberry Jam. Okay. A little punny there. Enjoy live music, food, kids activities, and more on Main Street. Strawberry Idol. Okay. Which is share your amazing voice with us.

It's American Idol. It's Strawberry. It's fucking stupid. Jesus Christ. It's the most famous TV show that was ever on. We get it, people. It's the one. So there's your Strawberry Festival, and there's bands and shit that are so good that they don't even put them on the website and tell you who they are.

That's how good they are. And other music. And other music. Also, there's the Floppy Fish Festival. What is that? Or Flop Eye Fish Festival. Flop Eye Fish Festival. Flop Eye, in one word, E-Y-E, like flop and eye, cram those together, held each year in Great Falls and is Chester County's longest running festival.

The family-oriented festival traditionally brings thousands of visitors to the river town. Activities include fun for all ages with a street dance. They love a street dance down there, too. They really do. Get out of the road, for Christ's sake. People are trying to drive and go about their business. Entertainment, car show, carnival, roving entertainers. Oh, great.

Annoy me even when I don't come to see you, me thanks a lot love when they do that because i didn't want to see that pick a card fuck you leave me alone i was talking to somebody food inventors include a large variety of foods including fish well i would hope so yeah it's the fish festival um either way that doesn't matter crime rate in this town. What we are interested in, the thing that does matter. I'll tell you something, pal. Crime rate. Property crime is about twice the average of normal.

So it's there's some dangerous, some shit stealing going on. Well, let's find out. Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery and assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime over twice the average. So dangerous. More than twice. It's just this country town. robbery and assault the mount rushmore of crime over twice the average so dangerous more than twice it's just this country town they got stores just like the city and it's all nice but jesus christ watch out that maybe that's why you see people dying every day there's so much violent crime there's people just keeling over in the streets i thought they were sick they have stab

wounds look closer holding their stomach that's not cancer he's just trying to stop the blood flow he's got a head wound for christ's sake that said let's talk about a murder let's do it it sounds like they've got plenty it sounds like there's plenty to choose from but this is one that you wouldn't expect at all totally at all well let's start out here let's get right into this shit november 29 2001 oh boy some post 9-11 shit here as we like to say in that time yeah so yeah that's that was a time that a lot of things happened in this country and nobody talked about it because there was no point to well it wasn't on the news the only things on the news were are we gonna blow something up and who tries to who's trying to blow us up. And that's all it was.

It was all international. And is it possible that there's still people alive under that and we're digging? Yeah. What are they going to do with the site? There was a lot of shit there. But down south, though, I don't know if they were thought of it the same way. Or in rural South Carolina anyway, not like down south in general. So November 29, 2001, it's a little before 7 a.m., okay?

Before 7 a.m. This is not even in Chester County. This is two counties away. So we'll talk about that. There's a couple of guys here, and they are going hunting. Their names are Pennington and Robinson, these two guys, okay? They drove their 1996 truck to a hunting club, parked it on a logging road,

then proceeded to a four-wheeler, which was a quarter mile down the logging road. They drove the four-wheeler down there. They get out. It's their normal spot they hunt at. This is their usual deal here. Pennington gets up in his spot, finds the intersection

of two logging roads, where he set up up a camouflage tripod deer stand in the swamp. So he's like in the swamp above it waiting. He's in a tree somewhere like up in a blind. Yeah. Yeah. In a swamp area. After walking a short distance to the stand, he climbs about 15 feet up a ladder and Jesus prepares himself to wait. So there you go. That's what you do when you hunt ladder and prepares himself to wait. So there you go.

That's what you do when you hunt. You sit there and wait. By the way, a lot of this came from a book, and I'll give you the name of the book at the end of the show. I can't give it away early because it'll give away. The title of the book tells you exactly what happened, so we can't give it away now. It's got to be at the end.

If you wanted to be, whoever wrote it wanted to be at the top of the show, they should have named it something a little more nuanced. A little less on the nose nose you son of a bitch yeah and it did also send me looking for and finding another book which is hilarious and we got to talk about at the end so some very funny shit coming at the end there so um uh they he goes up in the deer stand there 15 feet up now robinson the other guy his deer stand was on the opposite side of those woods so he cut across the intersection drove past a cemetery on his way to the other side of the woods so they don't you know shoot each other i assume and uh i'm not a hunter but i would assume that's probably

your main goal is don't shoot the guy you came with probably right i don't know i'm sure it's happened before i mean it definitely happened before. I mean, it definitely happened before. The vice president of the United States did it while in office, so we know it happened before. Right in the face. Right in the face. Yeah, it's like, oh, sorry about that. I didn't mean to. The guy he shot was so old, too.

That was the funny part. And then he apologized for getting shot, which was the funniest thing ever. I got in your way. I mean, that was your shot. I apologize. The kids used to call me big face growing up i could never get anything out of just kids would punch and not but there's my face i go i'm sorry did i catch your fist on my chin i'm sorry about that look at all my wife's pictures every one of them it's the back of my head because i just walk in front of her when she takes a picture every picture is her and half of my head. See that? We just can't fit it in. So I say, just get half.

Always when somebody's shocked. Always. As he's driving, he notices a black Nissan Pathfinder, which was the 90s Pathfinders were like an SUV, but not a giant SUV, not a crossover. Kind of like a midsize. That was a great car. Holy shit, those are cool cars. Those are cool, those Pathfinders. So it's parked on the left side of the road.

About 20 feet from the truck, from the Pathfinder, he slows down to see if anybody's in it. And there's no one inside of it. So he's like, oh, shit. They're probably out hunting in my woods here that I came to hunt in. This sucks. So, yeah, he was like, ah, shit, I got to worry about that now. Terry, who's this guy, the second guy, Robinson, Terry Robinson,

he's the president of the hunting club, and he usually gets a printout of all the vehicles and the people who are hunting there when they're hunting. It's like you make an appointment. So he was pissed off that people, this guy's hunting where he's not supposed to be. I have this blocked off for people, this guy's hunting where he's not supposed to be. I have this lot blocked off for me. God damn it. So the members had bought the, they buy scheduling.

That's what you do. That's part of your fees is to have your spot be your spot. And that keeps things safe too because then people aren't just wandering through where i'm about to take a 300 yard shot well you know where other people are you know that's that helps too so you know where they oh this is that could be that guy rather than a deer so they um he makes you know he makes a mental note of the description and um drives down toward his deer stand there by the creek so parks the four-wheeler walks another quarter of a mile through a lot of dense shit, gets to his tree stand,

sits in his tree stand hanging out up there for about an hour. So waiting, nothing going on. He hears what sounds like a truck coming through the woods at that point.

So he goes, oh shit, it's probably that SUV that I saw, but who knows, that's the only other truck I could imagine that would be in here.

But people do come down this old logging road sometimes, but not often. So he can hear limbs and shit breaking because there's a lot of branches and shit in the road. It's a logging road. It's not paved or anything. So then he hears the truck stop a few minutes later. He says for the next three minutes, he listens to tire spinning and limbs breaking and more, you know,

a car stuck in the mud stuff. Yeah. So here's all of that. And he goes, Oh, that must be stuck there. Then he would hear the truck door open and close. And then you,

you know, look, look, so he can try to put a stick under it. Probably a lot of swearing. I would imagine if that was me or God forbid under it. Probably a lot of swearing, I would imagine. If that was me or, God forbid, when I was a kid, my father, there'd be a lot of swearing going on right now. A lot.

Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery+, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church

for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. 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. max or wherever you get your podcasts i could just tell you that so uh he heard someone talking and i'm sure swearing yeah yeah he's just pissed off because he says this is fucking my hunting up now yeah you're starting off all the deer trucks spinning their tires and people cursing at the

cursing their luck at the top of their lungs isn't good for deer. They don't usually come for that. Somebody loudly hating Nissan. Yeah. Son of a bitch. So he, uh, he's looking there now, uh, the other guy on the other side of the swamp, the guy who came with Pennington, he heard it too. Here's the tire spinning and all that. And, um, and also here's everything coming from the road as well. So then about 15 minutes later, they both heard the crack of a small caliber rifle about 20 yards behind him, 25 yards behind him, the Pennington guy. It sounded like it was a.22 anyway.

That's what he thought. He said he's very familiar. He's a hunter, so he's very familiar with what these firearms sound like in the woods. He said it definitely wasn't a high-powered deer rifle.

It was more of a little.22. He figured somebody's probably hunting rabbits or squirrels or some shit like that so he scanned the woods and he was nervous though because he's like i hope this fucking person knows i'm here or i could get shot obviously then he hears help help pennington does so he's like okay um he looks from side to side. He's looking out. He said it sounded like a little kid, like it was a little voice, like a boy, like a boy voice, like that sort of thing. Like a child. Like a child, but a boy child. He said he hears, please somebody help me.

I'm lost again. So he said, fuck, now I got to fucking deal with this. He listened a little harder. He could hear over here. I'm over here, you know, blah, fuck, now I got to fucking deal with this. He listened a little harder. He could hear over here. I'm over here, you know, blah, blah, blah. So he says, okay, yeah, come over here. I'm in a tree stand. Follow the sound of my voice and come over here. Harder for me to get down than it is to walk over here. So he said he could see the figure of a small look of a little boy of a boy walking toward him um you know fighting his way through the underbrush and he he gets over there to the deer stand and uh the hunter pennington asked him

how'd you get out here and the boy said uh you know and then he said and what's your name and the boy is dressed in hunting clothes and he's holding a rifle. So that looks normal. And the boy says, my name's Christopher Pittman. And they said, oh, okay. Then before the guy could ask any other questions, the hunter, the boy comes out with, this black guy kidnapped me. He brung me here.

He killed my grandparents and burned our house up too. Oh my God. That's what he says. So they were like, whoa, what the fuck? This Pennington's like, huh? He goes, what about that shot I heard a while ago?

Is that this guy? And the young boy said, it was the black guy. He shot at me. Okay. So he's saying basically he's running through the woods escaping from a murderer is what he's saying. And he's got a rifle. And he's got the guy shooting at him is the way this goes. So he's like, what the fuck?

Now, the hunter is a little freaked out. He's like, never seen just a little boy wandering the woods before while he's been out here. So that's odd. And the guy he's telling you is he's been kidnapped and his grandparents have been murdered.

So he's like, hmm, I don't know about that. I don't know. Is this kid part of some scam? Some kind of, you know, somebody trying to sucker me. He's in Realtree with a rifle and telling me, spinning him spinning a yarn. Who are you, boy?

Spinning tires and yarns like crazy. So what's up with that? Was that his? Was he the one in the car? Well, they don't know. That's what they're trying to figure out. So the Pennington's thinking, well, if the guy he's talking about, this alleged kidnapper, if he drove him out here, that meant that this guy was still out in the woods somewhere. So and he's got a rifle because he shot at the boy.

So he's like, maybe he said, well, who's to say this little boy is in some kind of setup now for this? Who knows what's going to happen here? So Pennington grabs his rifle, climbs down out of the tree stand there, deer stand, same thing. He can see that the boy is carrying a.45 caliber lever action rifle. Hey. So he's got a hitter there. That's not a. You got a bigger gun than me, boy.

Yeah, he's looking to take down a bear or some shit out there. That's a fucking big gun. And it was cocked with the hammer pulled back, and the boy had his finger in the trigger guard, and also he's waving the gun all around while he's talking and shit so the guy's like oh hey calm down um let's put that down a sec making me nervous so pennington said how about you handing me your gun and he said that that the boy gripped it tighter pitman the boy pitman he just gripped it tighter he was like um no I don't want to give it to you so he's like

you're a stranger I met in the woods yeah that's how deliverance happened isn't it I don't want to worse like the only thing keeping me safe right now is that I'm armed is that I'm armed yeah I'm about to be unarmed people go to jail for having things like this on film you know what I'm saying this is creepy I don't like this at all so he's he said you know i i'd like to give me your gun how about handing your gun he said no um so then um uh pennington took all the shells out of his gun like look i'm taking my shells out of my gun let's both be unarmed and um you that's fine. He ends up giving him the gun. The kid gives him the gun. He empties it.

It was full up with ammo. The kid's gun. Kid's gun is completely loaded. Shell in the chamber and everything. Wow. And he said, do you have any more guns on you? And he said, no. That was the only weapon he had with him.

And I was like, okay. He said, I want. And the boy just said, Christopher told Pennington, I want you to show me how to get out of these woods. That's all he asked for. So Pennington stood talking near the deer stand, and he's trying to direct him. He's like, if you go over there, there's a main highway out that way. You know, that's fine. He notices that the boy, Christopher, has a cut on him, on his arm, on his hand. He said, well, it's probably trying to get through these woods.

He probably got snagged on something. He said the boy looked nervous and scared, like anybody who would be wandering the woods running from a kidnapper for hours in a strange place lost. Normal, normal thing, especially a small child. Not small. He looks 10, 12, something like that. He can't tell how old he is.

So he said, I can't just send this poor back, this poor boy into the woods to say, there's the exit. I'll be hunting. What if the guy who's chasing him finds him and fucking dismembers him? I got to deal with that. Have that on my conscience. He's not asking where the bathroom is in this, in this restaurant.

He's asking, can you save my life? That's what I'm saying. He's like, he doesn't just say, well, there's a pay phone over there. I don't know.

So Pennington finally, and I'm sure after a big, I'm sure he did one of those. And he's like, fuck. One fucking day a week I hunt. Do you understand? You know what I got to go through with the wife just to do this one fucking day a week? Do you get it? It's a fucking fight. When I go home tonight.

She doesn't even get up to make my breakfast for me when I come out here, so I have to fend for myself. And then I'm out here, I'm going to shoot something, and then she's going to eat it too. That's not fair. Yeah, but she won't like, she'll still be mad at me.

Like, you had to leave the house for all day for this. I could have got it at the store. So, help me. I'm going to come back, she's going to bitch at me, and then I'm going to make tacos, and then she's going to bitch at me. So, that's what he's thinking. I think Pennington here.

He said, well, fuck. All right, I'll take you. He said, why don't you follow me? My partner's not too far from here. We'll walk over to where he's hunting. He's got a four wheeler and then we'll drive you out of here and get you some help. So so he's look, they're looking for the other guy. They find they find him in the tree stand over there robinson so they walk toward him with

some little boy you know he's like where's why the hell did you get the kid what's going on here um so um what we were hunting for man christopher christopher points out the four-wheeler and he said yeah that black guy stopped and looked at your four-wheeler when we first pulled in he knows it's here so uh robinson said well if he knows it's here, then he knows we're here, and he'll be looking for us to drive it out. We've got no choice but to leave it sitting right here. That's what Robinson said. Well, he's going to be looking for that.

We've got to sneak out another way. So they're like, you know, fuck, we have to, like the Viet Cong are out there. They have to get around it here. So he's like, shit. So they said, wait a minute. We're going to drive out of here. I don't think it's a good idea to just leave the four wheelers sitting here in the swamp. We should drive out of here. This is stupid. So they're going back and forth on that. Finally, they said, yeah, we're going to leave it here for now. We don't want to let this guy know where we're at. If he's armed, he can just pick us off one at a time as we drive through out of the woods on a four wheeler. That's stupid. as we drive out of the woods on a four-wheeler. That's stupid. He said we've got less of a chance of spotting him,

of him spotting us if we walk out in a better way. So they pointed toward a trail that they hadn't previously taken but would also lead them out. So they said we don't want to make any noise, leave the four-wheeler. Pennington said, I'm trying to get us out of here without anybody knowing it. I don't know if there's anybody in these woods or not, but I don't want to find out there's a guy behind us or a guy behind us behind some tree with a high-powered rifle as we come through. This is nuts.

So they know the property very well, which is good. The boy is very polite. Christopher, very polite. Yes, sir. No, sir. All that kind of respect for elders type of shit. Good boy. Yeah, manners.

Southern manners type of deal there. And so they go through the cemetery. They walk through the woods. They never saw any signs or heard anybody else out there. So they're like, maybe this guy ran away. Who knows? Christopher told them that he had a car somewhere on the road over there, but he never asked the hunters to take him back to it. They just assumed since it was his car, he'd want to go back there. that he had a car somewhere on the road over there, but he never asked the hunters to take him back to it.

They just assumed since it was his car, he'd want to go back there. So they said, is your car on this road? And he shrugged his shoulders. Christopher, he didn't know where it was. So they went up another road where they spotted the car up about 20 yards ahead. It's bogged down and stuck and all that kind of shit, stuck in the mud. They asked Christopheropher how his car got this far down the logging road and he said the black man he took it and drove it here okay so suddenly out of nowhere a dog runs out from under the car and charges at pennington oh god yeah so the dog is growling and barking pennington backs away from the dog he never saw the dog

before and he doesn't there's a fucking wild woods dog what is this you know what i mean so pennington said we might have to shoot the dog shit like i don't want to shoot a dog we might have to christopher never said that's my dog even though it is christopher's dog what the fuck chris christopher said it never it's never said it's my dog but um he said he's got a name too his name is christy chris d um he said he's got a name to his name is Christie. Chris D. He said Christopher said, go ahead and shoot it. If you'll give me their gun, I'll shoot it. That's what he said. It's his dog.

So Pennington thought this kid really wants to shoot the dog. No, he goes, the dog's barking at me. Let's see if it calms down for a little while. And eventually it chills the fuck out. And he goes, yeah, let's keep walking. We'll leave the dog here if he wants to follow. Fine. So they reach Robinson's truck at the end of the road.

One of the hunters there. Christopher gets in the truck, sits in the back seat. He's told that he's being driven to the fire department where Robinson's a volunteer fireman. He said he'll have access to the building and he can call 911 from there and get some assistance. There we go. Now, this is good. Get some professional help in here. So Pennington said,

just make certain you don't try anything up the road. He turned, and he was suspicious of Christopher still. So he was like, I don't know what your deal is. So he never said a word. It's a 15-minute trip, and Christopher was just silent in the back seat the whole time. They lead him into the fire department Christopher's told to

stand near a desk and they said take everything you got out of your pockets so Christopher pulls out fistfuls of bullets and puts them on the desk that's who's got his pockets he says that all you got with it with you and he said no I got a bunch of guns and some money back there in my car this kid's like 12

they're like yeah why do you have a car and dogs and money and guns when you're 12 when you're driving in the woods what the fuck is going on here so they call 9-1-1 and they go they say to christopher so i give the police the correct information when they get here can you tell me how again you were kidnapped so you know i know, I can give them a briefing. Mainly he's just curious to hear the story. So he tells a story and he says, quote, I was in the house cleaning the shotgun. I heard someone come inside the house. I just ran outside and this black guy started chasing me out of there.

He told me if I didn't stop, he'd shoot me. He killed my grandparents, took our car, and brought me out here. That's his story. That's it. Didn't mention fire this time, but he says that. Nor the dog. Nor the dog. They said, well, what did this black guy look like?

And he said, Christopher said he was tall, probably around 6 feet 2 inches. Okay. And he said, okay, he's about five foot two, Christopher, at the time. Ninety pounds. He's twelve. He's a prepubescent child. They were like, well, yeah, that could work. They said, did you get a name? Know the guy's name?

He said, no, but that black guy wouldn't tell me his name. He said he was scared if I got away from him, I'd tell on him. Gee, for killing his family and kidnapping him? That'd be surprising, right? I think you'd turn on me, man. I don't think you're loyal at all kid disloyal little cocksucker i don't like it at all i feel like you if you got away from me you wouldn't just get a job and go on with your life yeah just be like man when i was a kid one time a black guy killed my grandparents then go on washing dishes i don't think that would happen probably you're probably gonna need to discuss this maybe so um looks at him and um they're

just like what a weird this is just the whole thing is bizarre they don't know what the fuck to do now meanwhile uh the evening before at 11 52 p.m eight hours earlier or so in in Chester there. There's a fire off Slickrock Road and it's called into Station 12 that there's a fire. 11 52 p.m. And the volunteer fireman, this guy, Tommy Martin, arrives at the firehouse. He unlocks the whole thing, punches the alarm button, which is literally like an air raid siren that tells everyone in the town there's a fire yeah these it's not just an alarm that goes out like to the fireman it's just a fucking through the whole town so you'd be like where's the fire it's a tornado warning

you if you heard that you would jump out of bed and start looking around your house for a fire heard that you would jump out of bed and start looking around your house for a fire make sure it's not yours yeah is it mine fuck that's a terrifying noise you're not going back to sleep you might as well look for fire i suppose why not so uh that they get a lot of volunteers in the fire department that way it's like well trust me when something's on fire y'all ain't gonna sleep anyway so whatever you're doing whatever you're doing there's gonna be a big old horn in the background so y'all might as well sign up bring coffee and that way you just show up and at least you can see the fire and you know take part in it so uh he does that cranks out the noise they do all that and uh jesus christ man uh they to they Tommy. These are all volunteer fires.

People at the station as well. He calls in his brother, who's another fire volunteer, and he's at home asleep. He gets the call. They go out to the firehouse while they're looking. They're looking for signs in the air of smoke and fire. They're looking to see if it's a forest fire because that's what they assume it is because there's more forest than anything else around there so they're like oh christ forest fires are a pain in the ass flames jump around you got to cut down trees it's a you know it's a huge pain in the ass uh but they said that it they didn't think it was a firefighter or a forest fire by

the way they were doing it here the chief comes in the fire chief, James Red Weir. Yeah. Him and his wife come in. He's got to be 70-something years old because his wife and him have been married over 50 years at this point. Jeez. Him and his wife, Lucy. So him and Lucy get their elderly asses out of bed and start getting dressed and go to the fire. Yeah. Which is pretty awesome.

They say somebody called in a forest fire near the Pittman's house. So they go down there and again, they look toward the sky. They see the smoke and red says, I don't think that's a forest fire. No. So they're going to the house or near the house of the Pittman's who are they've been married a long time. Joe is the well, Joe Frankie goes by Joee frank his name is joe frank pitman they call him joe frank remember we said you have to have a second name in the south even if it doesn't work well joe frank doesn't work that's the worst i've ever heard frank frankie joe would be a little better than joe frank joe frank's one of them that's like one of the ones we make up when we go. Even if it was Joe Frank, they'd say, yeah, you're Joe Frank now. Todd Bob. Todd Bob. Joe Frank.

Jesus Christ. Joe Frank. Joe Frank. What the fuck is that, man? Jesus Christ. What is that? I don't even. There's no. It doesn't't why would you do flow at all i guess it's because there's so many joes there's got to be a fucking yeah baker's dozen joes you're joe frank and you're joe bill

and you're joe bob and you're joe fucking mike and you're joe joe mike yeah i was gonna say i was gonna say tim mike because i feel like i felt like that's a joe frank tim Mike and you're Joe Mike. Yeah. I was going to say Tim Mike because I felt like that's a Joe Frank, Tim Mike. Joe Frank is 66 years old. 66 years of being called Joe Frank. 66 years.

He never was like, please stop calling me that. Being waterboarded with joe just call me frank for fuck's sake too many joes for you i'm frank why do you insist uh and his his wife never i never wanted i never want to go by my middle name also no also uh he's 66 his wife's name is joy and she goes by joy frank so you know no i'm is Joy, and she goes by Joy Frank. So, you know, no, I'm just kidding. Yes, she goes by Joy Frank.

No. But it would make just as much sense. It would. She's 62. Now, Joe is an avid fisherman, hunter, outdoorsman type of guy, all that kind of thing. He was born in 1935. His dad's a mill worker who worked at the Minetta Mills in Lando.

So, you know, he gets married. He finds joy. They start having kids. Their first child is Joe and that's Chris's father, as we'll talk about the Pittman family. That's the little boy's father is Joe. These are

his grandparents that we're talking about. Joe Frank is his grandpa. Joe Frank is Christopher's grandpa, and then Joe Jr. is Christopher's father. So there's Joe Frank and Joe Jr., but it's not Joe Frank Jr., which is weird. What the fuck? They call him Joe Jr. even though he's not a junior.

He's actually, the son is Joe Dol joe dolphins pitman but they call him joe jr even though joe dolphins is the worst yeah i'm surprised they just don't call him that though joe dolphin there's nobody else named joe dolphins no joe doll just make it one word joe dolphins joe it's biblical joe dolphins that's what the name is. It's from the Bible. You ever read Joe Dolphus 3517? Joe Dolphus 3517 says, says, you don't need necessarily to wear shoes when you go to the grocery store. That's the one of the Psalms that he has.

Joe Dolphus. That's Joe Dirt's full name joe dolphus probably joe dolphus dirt i feel like that's his name one word so um holy shit man joe it was in the uh joe jr was in the u.s army and it was in the demolitions unit he liked loved to blow shit up, mixing chemicals and gunpowder and popping shit off and blowing shit up. Now, Joe Sr., here, Grandpa, Joe Frank, Joe Frank worked at the railroad for 43 years. Shit.

43 railroad years he spent. And then he retired from the railroad, and they lived in Sumter County, Florida, and they got all their shit and they came up here to retire, which you rarely hear of people leaving Florida to retire. It's known as fucking death's waiting room or heaven's waiting room or whatever the fuck you want to call it. And so you don't hear that often. But I guess you go here. It's cheaper. I don't know, man.

They did say people come here to finish out their lives. Right. Joe Frank's doing exactly that. Doing exactly that. In 1997, this is all in 1997 they do this. So it's been four years they've lived here, and they loved it. They loved this town. They got all sorts of friends.

And they immediately are in the fiber and fabric of the town. So Joe Jr. moved up there with Joe Frank? No, no, no. He still lives in Florida and all over the place, as we'll talk about. But Joe, Joe Frank, loves hunting, fishing, outdoor shit. Joy likes arts and crafts. She volunteers at the hospital. They both- Retired people shit.

Exactly. They both volunteer at church. He goes fishing. She volunteers at the hospital. They live on a 20-acre lot off Slick Rock Road, and they built the home there. So they have a house built, and they have a 20-foot motor home, too, in case they want to go out on the road. They're living like a retirement dream. They're they love it yeah it sounds great they built the

whole thing this house built by four years ago by their blood sweat and tears of 43 years of railroad work so uh at this moment it's on fire though the house yeah it's definitely on fire red weir the fire chief said realized it's got to be a structure fire because he said, and this is interesting, he said, smoke from a structure fire goes straight up. He said, it doesn't billow as much. It goes straight up. He said, think of it like steam from a boiling

pot of water because it's inside of something, so there's pressure. And the center fuel, when it's a forest fire, it's wide. When it's a structure, it's center fuel and just goes straight up. That makes sense. Yeah, when it's kind of pressurized inside, it's going to blow out the top rather than have everywhere to go and go to the sides. So now Red said that he's talking to his wife, who's his wife of over 50 years, and he says, you saw Joe and Joy tonight at church, didn't you?

This is one of those everyday at church kind of towns. She said she said yeah they were all there rehearsing for the upcoming christmas play oh they're in it they're in the it's the christmas play lucy played the organ and joe sang in the choir okay um and uh there and joe was in the whole deal and lucy is the red's wife the fire chief's wife she played the organ, Joe sang in the choir, everything. Christopher, the boy, was sitting in the church auditorium listening to the rehearsal that night and they said,

so Red asked her, did they look okay when they were at church? And she said, yeah. And he said, well, they'll be just fine when you see them again. I'm sure that they're just... Did they look okay then? There wasn't a house fire did they look like

maybe their house would be on fire later did that anything like that were they like did they have any burns all over was there any smoke coming out of their jackets did you see any just like just like a little cloud a little trail of smoke behind them maybe just something on ember possibly a little a little like bacon no something smell anything like that. No shit. Damn it. That's weird. So they expect to pull up and see them out on the lawn trying to put it out with a fucking garden hose while they, you know, the wife standing back there crying and holding whatever meager photo album she could grab on the way out or something. Watching her retirement literally go up in flames. Their whole dream here. So they get there.

They get to the fire station. Seven minute response time to go to the house, which is pretty goddamn good. I got to say for a small town. No, uh, Tommy Martin, one of the volunteer firemen had fished with Joe,

Joe Frank a bunch of times and visited his house, ate dinner with them. And, you know, I was like, Oh, my buddy's house is on fire. That's terrible.

So, uh, they, they get out there to the Pittman property and it is on fucking fire. It's engulfed in flames. The roof is already starting to cave in. It's fucked. The porches, big wooden porches are completely burned off on the outside.

Gone. The fire's everywhere. The grass, the surrounding woods, the 20-foot motorhome is on fire next to it. Oh, no. It's a fucking mess the neighbors are starting to come out this is a rural area but they're all walking over anyway the goddamn fire horn went off everyone's showing up you just look toward the sky for smoke and follow it and then go watch the fire i guess so they look around when they get there and they're like where's joe and

joy you know who because they weren't the red and his wife weren't the first to get there so they get there and they're like where's joe and joy are they around back what's going on or you know they take them to the hospital or something what's somebody take them to the emergency room and they didn't know so they do say that joy's car is not in the driveway oh so everyone's like holy shit maybe they're not home they're like they're probably they went to see a family member or something. Thank fuck. A candle fell over or some shit. Anything could have happened.

I mean, you could have a bad wiring. Anything could happen. It's a four-year-old house, so it should be up to code and everything. But still, accidents happen, and you never know. And they're just happy that, holy shit, it's better that they're not home than they burn to death in their beds. You know, Christ, that's way better. So they're like, well, we got to just try to put it out and see what happens. So they said, one of them said, Joy's car is missing and we hope they're out of town visiting relatives.

But who knows at this point. So they're putting the fire out. They're in the full gear, all that kind of shit. They had to check to see if propane tanks were around the house too, or we need to watch out for projectiles or what here. They get the fire out only 45 minutes to get it under control. By the way, that's impressive.

It's a pretty good, yeah. Within an hour of it being called in, it's out. That's pretty good. Not bad. So they said they shut the water off and now they're like, okay. They said, well, there's no life. Not bad. So they said they shut the water off. And now they're like, OK. They said, well, there's no life to protect here.

It doesn't seem like it's an unoccupied structure at this point, it seems like. So let's try to see if we can salvage anything from the inside for these people because they're all friends with them. So they don't want to just leave shit. So if there's anything sitting there they can grab, they'll grab it for them, bring it out in the yard. So they said they were looking all around they had to have you know ladders to get into the house because the porches were burned off as they're searching the main floor of the house they noticed something it's a five foot tall gun safe on the east side of the house and smoke is seeping from the from it it's a big upright steel gun safe yeah and so they crack the door open and see

that the smoke must have just leaked into there and leak back out they notice a huge collection of guns still in there um they're happy that they didn't blast it with water and fuck it all up too so they see that they count out 27 guns are in there shit and most of them are unharmed and still in their protective he had them in like stocking things so he said shit I mean they look untouched so let's get them out of here so they don't get ruined basically so they did

they put them all out and he said the guy Andy is the firefighter doing this he said I'm sure Mr. Pittman would appreciate us saving his guns when he gets home he's going to be happy at least all of his guns aren't gone so he some of the guns were hot to the touch even from the fire so he's handed them out to the firefighters they document the number of rifles and pistols and all that sort of thing and um they put them all into one of the firefighters trucks and you know get that ready. So once they're all locked away,

the Andy guy said he kept staring at a small wooden section jutting out just over the gun case. It looked like a 10 by 10 piece of a loft or an attic or something like that, but it hadn't burned through and it was still attached at the top of the ceiling joints. So they were like, okay. And Red, the fire chief, said, I believe that's where Joe and Joy usually usually slept up there. You know, pointed to the remaining mains of the second floor.

So they added the second floor after the house was finished, used it as a bedroom. And I think there was a small staircase there that's probably burned away now. So, yeah, they're like,'re like okay well we have to go look around um anywhere with a bed they said you can usually tell a bed because you'll see box springs even if everything else burns away you'll see box springs there yeah so they said they are looking for beds that way they always do that um so they said they got the the attic ladder they got a ladder up to the attic and uh they want a light so they can see up there and just to make sure there's nothing up there. And so the Andy guy says, go up there and tell me what you see because the other guy is smaller.

It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor.

I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid.

Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again. Leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Erin and Justin sit down to discuss a new case,

covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So the other guy goes up there. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. and then he says, oh my God. And they go, what? And he says, I hope it's not what I think it is. With the blunt end of the pole, he raked away some ashes from the pile and exposed what looks like the stomach area

of a human being. In the attic? In the attic area, the loft. He said the color and texture of the skin looked like when he deep fried a turkey. Oh, Jesus. So that says a lot. And the person's stomach had burst open like a fruit it was exploded basically and you could just see around it so he went oh my god jesus christ he said fuck um then he looked closer and he thought

he saw a second body as well so he called up a couple other firefighters to look as well and um he said how about you step up here and make sure i'm not crazy here and so they did and they said there's looks like two adult bodies are up here charred and not looking great so they went off fuck at that point they said well now we got to call call the sheriff's department call the coroner's office call all these people fire get. Get everybody in here. Everybody we got. Wake them all.

We got dead bodies. No one sleeps tonight type of shit. So he actually says, we haven't seen a dead body in about 15 years. So let's treat it for what it is until the authorities get here. 15 years. 15 years. Yeah. It's a small town.

I mean, they're not doing a lot. So they do. Now, back to Christopheropher who the fuck is this little boy this little he's like it's happening right now he's like 11 in season one he shows up you know with these two hicks wearing a hospital gown asking for hamburgers like this is that's what's happening right now and that goes and that goes and shit just wandering around so um he's had some some trouble not really his trouble but his his parents and his family's been a lot of trouble joe dolphus joe dolphus and his wife hazel have not didn't get along very well oh uh his mom being meaning joe little joe little chris's

mom they said a family member called the relationship quote doomed from the beginning. So that's all Joe Dolphus can't hold it together. Weird, right? Joe Dolphus isn't, isn't completely together. They met in high school, which is always a good time to have kids with somebody met in high school. Joe is a sophomore.

Hazel was a freshman. And, uh, by the time, by the time Joe is a junior and hazel is a sophomore they had a daughter named danielle who was in preschool so there you go so mom's mom dad's in 11th grade mom's in 10th grade and i'm in the first grade so yeah he does that um he ends up graduating from high school joining the army so he he joined the Army there.

They end up getting married right after he joins the Army for benefits, especially for the kid. And this is only his first in a string of failed marriages that don't really work out. Their son, Christopher Frank Pittman, Chris Frank here, the boy in the woods, he was born April 9, 1989. He's their second child. He's born in Huntsville, Alabama, because they were moving around a bit around then. That was with the Army.

So very interesting. Six weeks later, Hazel leaves Joe and goes back to Florida. Without the kids? No, no. Keeps the kid and leaves. Okay. Without the kids? No, no. Keeps the kid and leaves.

Okay. By October 1990, Hazel gave birth to another son by a different man, and Joe was deployed as a part of Desert Storm back in the day there. He went to Iraq the first time. Hazel leaves the family while Joe's away because she had left and come back with another man's child. While Joe's away, because she had left and come back with another man's child, she then leaves the family while Joe's away, leaving all the children with her own mother, Delnora Dupree, which is a very Southern name. That is an awesome name. Delnora Dupree. Sounds like a singer, doesn't it?

She sounds French and successful. Yeah, sounds like a soul singer. Delnora, ladies and gentlemen, Delnora Dupree. wasn't it? She sounds French and successful. Yeah. Sounds like a soul singer. Del Nord, ladies and gentlemen, Del Nora Dupree. She comes out. It's really sexy ones that sings dirty songs sitting on a piano. Yeah. Oh,

she's definitely like sitting on a piano. Yeah. She's got like gloves on. Yeah. Smoking nightclub. Yeah. Yeah. Doing some old school shit.

So, uh, like Mariah Carey's mom in the beginning of glitter that's who she is that's still nora dupree did you just tell me that you saw glitter yeah i did it for ps i hate this movie we fucking that makes sense you should watch it anyway because it's terrible it's fucking hilarious you want to watch mariah carey try to act for an hour and a half? It's amazing. Not particularly, but now I do. You notice in the last, it came out right now too, because she says it was only a bomb because 9-11 happened. She said that's why the movie wasn't successful.

Otherwise it would have been a big hit. So it came out right at this time. The funny part is, how many things have you seen mariah carey act in since then that should tell you how good of a job she did right there or before that yeah because jennifer lopez got into movies around then and then she's been in 8 000 movies since then so that tells you the difference and mariah carey had a very successful singing career 10 years before this. Oh, God. Every Christmas, you're going to hear from her. She will be heard from.

By the way, everyone needs to stop complaining about that. There are worse. That stupid fucking song that everybody puts memes about. The memes for two months before Christmas are way more annoying than hearing that song once in a while. Not only that, there's much shittier Christmas songs. Way shittier. Yeah, I've heard that song maybe six times in my life. I don't know.

It's not up your ass that much. No. It really isn't. Calm down. I've heard way more Taylor Swift than that. Well, we will talk about this and more at the end of our Patreon episodes this week. We'll get into all the Christmas stuff. So Delnora Dupree is left with the children.

And Mama Hazel here doesn't see the kids for another 10 years now. Stop it. 10 years goes without seeing these kids again. She has three babies. Yeah. Just leaves them. Done. Dupree, this is the mother, Hazel's mother, said they had no relationship with their mother and that was her choice.

My daughter left them when they were born, basically. A rousing endorsement from your mom. Jeez, that's her own mother saying that. That's not Joe's mom. Not Joe Dolphus' mom. And part of that might be your fault, Delnora. Something went wrong. I don't know who caused it, but you were there the whole time. So tell us what went wrong at least. You don't have to have a solution, but at least give us an explanation.

That's what we're asking for, Delnora. So Joe returns from the Middle East in March 1992, Joe Dolphus, this is. All right. And moved with the children back to Alabama where he's stationed. He's discharged in December 1992. And he moves down with Joe Frank and Joy in Oxford, Florida. Okay. So this is Danielle Pittman.

This is the Hazel and Joe Dolphus' firstborn here. She says, quote, my father was a single parent because my mother left when I was three and he got help from both sides of the family from my Nana and Pop Pop and my grandfather, which is Joe and Joy. And then the other one, my father thought fought in the Persian Gulf War. He was away about eight months. That time of life was pretty much a blur for me. I was about four. And all I remember is that my grandparents helped raise me. Yeah, that life was a blur for me. I should have been journaling during that time so I'd remember.

Whose fourth year is oh so vivid? Tell me everything that happened when you were four. You know, anyone out there right now. You know? From birthday to birth, go go pretty much a blur right i would describe it as pretty much it's a blur it's a blur it's all a blur daniel i can't even remember my fourth year man it's such a blur does she think that i was drinking every day doing pills everybody else remembers all of their doings and leavings and starting your Danielle oh Christ so you're adorable that's about four

she said uh my father was strict if we did something wrong he would discipline us with a belt okay that's what she remembers that that's not good traumatic shit that's all i remember is the traumatic yeah you remember big things when you're four oh my god when that happened this person died i remember my great-grandmother dying when i was four that was a big deal my one of not the one who was murdered the other one natural causes great-grandma as opposed to murdered great-grandma so um she says he would spank us and leave a mark. Sometimes he would miss it, and it would go up and hit like our lower backs

or right underneath our upper legs, but he would try to spank us on the butt with it. We had a chore list, and that would take us probably 30 to 45 minutes to do if we did them all together at the same time. So that's what you needed to do. She said Chris liked to play video games and he liked to play. He played in a couple of different youth baseball teams wherever he was. He'd sign up for Little League and he was a center fielder. Good at that.

He was nicknamed Bug because of his love of insects. You're all picturing Macaulay Culkin in My Girl. You're all picturing that right now. And so he's real thin described as quiet reserved and very thin so that's the boy they found in the woods you know a little boy i guess fuck it picture macaulay culkin and fucking my girl if you want to if it helps keep him away from bees for heaven's sake he's he likes bugs but hates bees. Hates them. They hate him. Well, really it's more about that, really.

Well, bees hate everybody. It's just a matter of you can accept their hate or not. She says, Christopher's always been really quiet. And when I was younger, I used to get in a lot of trouble because I would try to mother him. And he had a speech problem when he was younger. And he went to speech therapy for this. And people couldn't understand what he was saying because he couldn't pronounce his syllables correctly. Jesus, he sounds like Stevie, too, from the documentary.

And I would tell people what he was saying and what he was thinking, and I wouldn't let him speak for himself because I wanted to protect my baby brother, and I always did that for him. We were taught to be polite. If we didn't say, yes, ma'am, yes ma'am no sir yes sir then we would get into trouble that was a respect thing and we were taught that anybody even a year older us would older than us would get that we were taught to respect our elders yeah that's fine but that's also how kids get molested too yeah respect but also fucking take note of and fear and there's multiple things that go into that. Yes, sir.

No, sir. You can't touch my penis should be also something you need to tell them. No, sir. But don't fucking touch me, motherfucker. I'll cut your throat. You know, it's a mix. Yeah, it's a pretty good lesson. I'm going to start at no, sir.

Don't touch my penis is the name of the group. And I teach this lesson, whatever the acronym is for that. Well, NSD, TMT. That's what I'm going to start. Donate now. This year's fundraiser will have a performance by Delnora Dupree. So come on down. I think it's worth it just for that.

Thank you, sir. Holy shit. nora dupree so come on down i think it's worth it just for that so i thank you sir holy shit that's polite and also uh yeah no that's good you retain your dignity in august 2001 she goes on to say my biological mother came back oh no really hazel came back yep my brother had always asked about his real mother because he didn't know her at all. He always wanted his real mother. And she finally came back. She got a mobile home and was staying in that. And Christopher and I were over there every day visiting her trying to catch up. And about a month after she had been there, she told us that she met us at the door and told us. told us that she met us at the door and told us, and it's just there's some pauses, we weren't allowed to get out of the car and we were never allowed to come back in the house or see her again. Their mother told them that. Don't even bother getting out of the car.

No, no, honey, you're never allowed to see me again. Nope, never. No, no, no. Y'all going to die never seeing your mama again. Bye now. Closes the trailer door. What the? Get off my property.

Get off my land. Okay. Can you imagine that? No. Is that the most horrible fucking thing you've ever heard in your life? Yes. That's the cruelest shit ever. And we've heard dads say, don't you ever look at me again or I'll beat you.

That's not as bad as, I don't know what it is, but for a child but for a child their mom i guess it's a physical connection you popped out of them so there has to be some kind of connection in your brain that goes to them that your mom's not supposed to tell you go away and never come back now bye like no with without without any sort of like behavior that warrants it like you didn't you didn't steal her her fucking pension yeah that's what i mean this is fucking nuts it's fucking crazy go away and never come back never come back now y'all don't come back now you hear just out the door waving giving him a tupperware for something to take on the road i need confirmation you heard just smile tear Wave back now. There you go. Bye. Say yes, ma'am. So Joe Dolph is remarried in 1992 but separated again a year later.

And this would happen a couple times. He and the children would move back in with Joe Frank and Joy. And Pop Pop, who is what Christopher calls Joe Frank, he's Christopher's role model. Joe Dolphus even says this. Joe Frank is he's the he's his he's his Christopher's role model. Joe June. Joe Dolphus even says this. Joe Dolphus says my mom and dad were really their parents. He said Joy cooked for the family, washed the children's clothes. She drove Danielle 40 miles round trip to dance lessons in Ocala, Florida.

And every morning she took Christopher to school where he went to class as as she worked to be a receptionist, the mother. So the kids would play around the house, go swimming in the pool, do all that kind of shit. Christopher and Joe Frank, grandfather, are very close. So they both like hunting and fishing. And young Christopher is a sponge for Joe Frank's lessons of how to do stuff. And he loves to hear it. Um, definitely felt abandoned by his mother and didn't really have a great

relationship with his dad. Um, later on, he would say, quote, I haven't had that good of a life. My real mom left when I was two, which is almost like when you,

when you have children in high school, you don't give yourself a real opportunity to be a good person. Yeah. It's almost like when you have children with a sophomore that that might not work out right that weird that's strange it might affect the quality of life that you leave just a little bit you know what i mean holy fucking shit i give you the best opportunities to be a a real good parent just close so uh So Christopher in 2001, once he's told

that he's not allowed to come back to mom's house anymore, he starts to have a spin out a little bit. At one point, he threatens to kill himself and is hospitalized.

We'll talk about that. This is his sister, says, quote, the same day Christopher talked about running away, he came home with a bad grade and got into trouble with our father. Dad christopher had to buckle up on the studying

and he was not going to be allowed to play his nintendo anymore oh shit he had golden eye all lined up this is 2001 he's like no um he said christopher had mentioned something a few days before about running away he said he was going to see his nana and pop pop or going and staying with them but he did that a lot. He talked about missing them and wanted to go up and see them. I didn't think he would do it. They're the stable thing. When the kid craves like, I want to go

somewhere where there's, you know, I know that dinner's going to be made and like the house is going to be quiet and warm and people aren't fighting and mom's not coming in and leaving and not getting hit with a belt. I want to wake up to that's where I go. I want to wake up to the smell of bacon and their coffee they've been drinking since 5 o'clock in the morning because they're all – I want to smell bacon and coffee at 6 a.m.

Yeah. And that's what I want to be woken up with. That sounds great. No shit. So, yeah, she said he didn't think he would do it. Danielle said, every morning the alarm would go off and I would wake my brother up to get him ready for school. And then I would wake my dad up to get him up. I was in charge of waking everybody up when I woke up the next morning and I saw Christopher was gone.

I was like, oh, my God, he really did it. And so I went and woke my dad up and said, dad, Christopher's gone. Dad called the police. One of the officers had said something about if we knew uh if we knew if he had any money uh we can judge how far he the cops said we can judge by how far he can get by how you know how much bus fare he has basically what dollar figures in his pocket we'll know how far away and then you can go in a radius of that and figure it out um she the sister said i went and looked at my jewelry box and found out he had taken $70 from me, but I had told him that he could take it whenever he wanted to.

I had change in the drawer underneath it, and that was still there. I had a jewelry box where the top lid opened, and I had the money there. That was the bills, and I had coins and stuff in the drawer right beneath it, and that was still in my jewelry box. I earned that money from babysitting I did for four or five months. Jesus Christ. Four or five months of babysitting at $75? That's brutal. Christopher was found in Marion Hills at a store

that had an RV and a little travel center hooked together. It looked like a truck stop and kind of there was a convenience store and there they had a fast food restaurant in the side. It took police a day to find Christopher. He was probably 15 to 20 miles away from our house. He was playing video games when they found him.

Shocking. It's the closest place you can find with video games. That's it. Yeah, he was 11. His Nintendo had just been taken away, and this is how he was getting caught up playing video games. Me and my dad went and got him. Our stepmother at the time, because there's another one involved now, she came over to the house to help us, and we found out that Christopher had run away.

She came over there to support us and everything like that and to be there for us. Christopher was real, real mad, but I wasn't scared of him. I was scared he was going to hurt himself, but he never threatened to hurt me. This is when they got home. It was in the evening, almost into the night, when Christopher came home and I talked with him. I was in the kitchen. He said he was mad at me because I didn't stick up for him when we were talking to the police officer about some of the accusations he made against his father. Christopher said that his father was abusing him, and the sister didn't back it up.

So Danielle said I was trying to protect myself because I knew I was going to be living with my father. And if he was mad at me about that, and oh, I'm sorry. And Christopher was mad at me about that because he always depended on me to stick up for him. At this particular time, I did not stick up for him. And we got him and my father wanted to see what he would say when he wasn't around. My father wanted to know what Christopher would say to me while he was gone, so he said he was going to the store,

and he instructed me that he'd be sitting outside the window, and if I needed him to call him. Okay, so Christopher and I were in the house, and he was mad at me because I didn't stick up for him, and he was there in the kitchen, and I said something really mean to him. I don't even remember what I said, but there was a sheath hunting knife there,

and he picked up the hunting knife, and he said, you know what? Forget this. He was like, I would rather die than live in this house with you and dad. And he held it up to his stomach like he was going to kill himself. That's wild. And I screamed. I was like, he's going to kill himself. I was like, dad, come in the house because I'm scared he's going to hurt himself.

Dad came in and said, Christopher, give me the knife. Christopher just handed dad the knife and went over and sat on the couch and crossed his arms. He was mad. He never threatened me or dad, but he was mad at us both. I've never had any fear that he was going to come at me with the knife, but I called dad because I was scared he'd hurt himself. So she said, my dad pretty much gave Christopher a choice. He was like, if you want to keep giving these accusations about me and everything like that, then the police could take you and put you in another home. Do you want to go live with someone else or can you cool it and stay here with me and your sister? So he ended up not being able to cool it and he ends up being committed to an institution a facility for a little while. He's diagnosed with

mild chronic depression. Young Christopher. I don't know. Maybe that happens when your mom comes back after 10 years and tells you to fuck off. That might happen. I can't imagine he would have any sort of psychological problems at all. Weird, right? Very strange. So they put him on Paxil as well at that time.

At that time. After about a week, his father, Joe Dolphus, decides to take him out of the hospital and send him to South Carolina to live with Joe, Frank and Joy, because they're the stable ones and all that kind of thing. And they've been raising him a lot before that. So Christopher gets there there begins to thrive he enrolls in school and goes to church with his grandparents talks to people his nice kid everybody says he's a nice kid um you know everybody's happy problem is his paxil isn't available in chester they may have stores just like the city but they don't have pharmacies that carry everything so So the doctor, because there was – for some reason they were paying out of pocket. There was – nobody had insurance on him for some reason. So the doctor had to give them samples to try – so they could have stuff because they couldn't afford the prescription.

He didn't want to make it prohibitive. So he gives them samples of Zoloft instead. The doctor does. Now they're both SSRIs, but they're different. You know, that's, that's all there is to it.

So right, right away, Christopher starts to experience some negative side effects from new medication, which happens on new medication. His sister described him as manic around this time. He's also a child and doesn't know how to handle the side effects. Any of this. which happens on new medication. His sister described him as manic around this time. He's also a child and doesn't know how to handle the side effects of medication like that. That's dead serious medication.

Not only the side effects, also all the shit that caused him to need this medication. He doesn't understand how to process any of this shit. This is all being bungled. Yeah. So he said he experienced a burning sensation all over his body, which you'd have to take like Tylenol or Advil to quell. Yeah, don't take that. You would imagine so. Well, he complained about the side effects. They took him to the doctor, and he told the doctor about all the side effects.

And so the doctor took it as more of like a withdrawal from the other one than a this is bad. So he upped the dosage from 100 milligrams to 200 milligrams a day. Oh, my gosh. Ups the dosage there. So he'll later tell a psychiatrist that his mood changed on the medication to the extent that he felt like he didn't have any feelings. He just felt like he was dull, completely dull. Yes. Completely dulled. So, yeah.

Now, the doctor who prescribed the medication said that when he talked to him after he had been on the Zoloft for a little while, he described him as lots of energy, no plans to harm self, not flying off the handle at that moment. So, who knows? Now, he's living with the grandparents now for a couple weeks. He's enrolled in school. He's getting used to the Zoloft. He's doing all his shit. On the bus one day, on the school bus, he has an argument with a kid. This other kid is eight, by the way.

Okay. He's eight years old. Chris is 12. He's a much smaller kid because he's eight. So this is November 27, 2001 this happened. Christopher starts picking on this kid and according to another child

on the bus, by the end of the ride, it's a 45 minute bus ride, Chris had pinned the eight year old's head against the window and was choking him using two fingers. I don't know why two fingers, but he was choking him. One of the boys on the bus said

it began by him playing around and then it got more serious. The younger boy started crying, so then the other boys tried to start breaking it up. Like, hey, you're being too mean now. So when they got off the bus, Christopher told the boy

who he'd been choking, if he told anyone, Christopher told the boy, who he'd been choking, if he told anyone, Christopher would kill him. He's threatened to kill an eight-year-old. The boy just said, yeah, right, whatever. Kids are always saying, I'll kill you. That happens. The next day, though, the

parents of the boy who was choked reported the incident to the school. School officials called Joe Frank and Joy. They set up an appointment the next day to talk about this type of thing. Um, so, uh, you know,

they're talking about it all. Um, the, uh, and there's that. And then that night was the time when he is, he's a jerk in church. They go to church,

they're rehearsing for the play and he keeps kicking. Uh, he keeps kicking one of these ladies chairs from behind he's kicking a chair that they're sitting in christopher is so um she asked him to stop and then he kept doing it so joe frank had to take him outside and talk to him and then bring him back in and she said upon their returning into the church that christopher had an angry expression on his face and, you know, all of that shit. So so he got in trouble on the bus. Now he's cutting off here. But they don't discipline him the same way. Danielle said the only my Nana, the only way she would discipline us.

She did the same thing my grandpa did. But if we were sitting at the table and there was company there, and sometimes even if it was just Nana, Pop, Pop, Chris and I sitting at the table and we did something she didn't like, she would reach under the table, get the – she'd pinch your thigh and give you a look. She'd pinch you and go, you stop that. How hard though? Old lady pinch. Who knows? I don't know. Not old.

She's only 62. But we called it the evil Nana look. Like stop doing that right now. Everyone knows the evil mother is going to kill you look. Or mother doesn't want you to come to her trailer anymore look. Are they similar? I don't know. I bet they're the same.

Oh, man. She said at that point we would just kind of sit up and start behaving. But when Pop Pop disciplined us, he would sit down and he would let you know that you did something wrong. He would tell you that he didn't want you to do it again. I can honestly say that my entire life growing up with them, I cannot recall one single time Nana and Pop-Pop ever spanked us. Either one of us. They never spanked us with a paddle. Pop-Pop would give us a big hug and tell us he loved us every time. I never remember any time he didn't do that. After you indicated you understood and you weren't supposed to do it again, everything was okay.

So back to the fire. Now that we understand who this little boy is sitting in the police station. This is a little boy with a whole lot of fucked up things going on in his head. He has a host of problems in his head. A lot of problems. So they find the Pittman's charred bodies, like I said. They have to get later on, too. They have to pull him out with a crane thing because the structure is not sturdy enough.

Yeah, I was thinking about that. How do you get those people out of there? That's so fucked. On one of those stretchers dangling like you're rescuing them from a mountain. Yeah, right. Literally, they're like, don't spin it, they were saying. Don't spin them around. So, yeah, they're discussing what the hell could have happened.

And then all the firefighters back at the fire are like, where the fuck is their grandson? Their grandson's supposed to be with them. Is he in the house burnt up? Is he at a friend's house? Did he go back with his dad? You know, let's hope so. Or they said that maybe he's so small that maybe he was in a hot part of the fire and he's just like buried deep in ashes somewhere. Or gone entirely.

Just poof, yeah, disintegrated. So they said there's nothing they could do except wait for the cops. That's all they could do. Yeah. So Andy Martin here, one of the firemen, the guy who found all these people, found the Joy and Joe Frank, pulls some money out of his jacket pocket and says, well, we got to wait for the cops. Nothing we can do now. So he says, gives one of the people hanging out a bunch of money,

and he says, go to Hardee's and, quote, bring us a whole bunch of biscuits, as many as you can buy. Get a mess of biscuits. Mess of biscuits. He said, then go back to the fire station, get pots of coffee, and bring it back up here. He said, we're going to be here for a while until everybody comes in. So let's keep ourselves comfortable.

It's the South. We can't do nothing for a few hours without biscuits, right? Get biscuits. We'll be here a little while. Biscuits and coffee, please. Biscuits and coffee. So the investigator here comes in, Major James Mack McNeil. So Mack McNeil here.

He comes in. He's Mack McNeil. So Mack McNeil here, he comes in. He's the first one to respond. He works for CCSD, which is the investigation branch here. He comes in and they said, well, the firemen told us we had two bodies inside a burning residence. And we got to call the sheriff and all that kind of shit. They're calling all those people uh and they're initiating searches around the house too looking for anything kind of evidence they can find around there uh they already called joe pitman jr joe dolphins

and said your parents are dead your son is missing the house is burnt down that's a nice call to get at two o'clock in the morning yeah hey just want to let you know parents dead 12 year old we have no clue could be burnt to a fucking cinder inside or could be missing somewhere and maybe kidnapped we don't know your parents are dead um and and if you're wondering where the where your boy is he's definitely not at the house because it's not there either yeah no shit now as the investigators are walking around the house they asked to speak with andy martin he's the assistant chief fire guy and the uh the the biscuit wrangler uh he's the one who wanted biscuits he said during all this he said a number of guns had been taken out from the top and sides of the gun cabinet near the staircase. And this is the investigator's look.

And he goes, what else was in this case around here? And he said, oh, we tried to salvage the guns. And the investigator says, why would you do that? What are you talking about? Why would you do that? You don't disturb a crime scene. And he said, it wasn't like we found the bodies, then cleared the guns out. The gun safe was already open.

We saw it open and knew everything in it would get ruined. At that point, we didn't know about them. We didn't know they were dead up there. So there was no crime scene. Yeah. He said there was no life to protect. We were just trying to save some of the guy's property. And they said, has anyone issued a search warrant and executed it to obtain entrance

into the dwelling? And Andy said, I didn't think a fireman had to stop and get a search warrant before he entered a man's house to put out a fire. Which, yeah, that would be terrible. We're waiting on a judge right now. I know it's hot. I know it. But he ain't waking up.

I don't know what to tell you. Oh, shit, it caught the neighbor. If this constable doesn't get here fast, we're going to have three of these. That's the third one. That's the third. So the Williams informed him that it was required, especially when they had removed some property from the dwelling. And Andy said, I don't know about all those technicalities. I'm just a volunteer fireman. I'm just trying to put a fire out. Sorry. Jesus Christ. So then they're getting angry at each other. And they said, you know, they tried to separate the guys and say, hey, calm down.

So they lift the bodies out with a crane. They lay them out on a tarp before the investigators in the front yard. Photos are taken. Bodies examined. Joe Frank was lying on the bed face up, his legs hanging off the side of the bed. Like he either fell onto the bed or was about to get up from the bed. Uh, the smaller extremities of his body had been burned away.

No fingers or anything like that. That's all gone. There's just a trunk. Basically. Um, they said the, his body received a lot more fire damage than joys. Um,

cause they said he was probably closer to the main fire, main body of the fire than joy was, is all it was. Joy was found on the other side of the bed, laying face down with her head lowered in the prone position. The back of her head had a large gaping hole in it. Oh, boy. Now, they said that the heat of a fire often causes the brain to swell and eventually the skull cracks, but they weren't sure if it pops. They were like, have you seen it pop like that before? How hard would that have to be?

So while they're being examined they also noticed that one of the investigators noticed that they had blood on them. They're like, that's weird. Why would that happen? He said in his 30 plus years of investigation he saw a lot of bodies with blood and all the bodies that he's seen after a fire with blood on them.

There had been foul play beforehand. You don't you don't burst into flames and bleed all over yourself and dead people don't bleed. So that's the other thing. Strange. So they also discovered that there were a lot of shotgun shells in the yard near the woodshed one investigator said that you know it was a lot of evidence to pick up they're running around it's a big property csi comes in now fucking crime scene investigation unit they come in and they did a walk through again to see if anything had been overlooked. They'd locate a number, like we said, a number of spent.410 shotgun shells

and a fired cartridge case found on the ground near the house of the motorhome. A box of the shotgun shells were also found on a drum near the woodshed. All the items are labeled and photographed and all that kind of thing. They also noticed Joe Pittman's unlocked utility shed. And they said, did Pittman normally leave this building unlocked? And Red Weir, the fire chief, said never. Even when his wife called him in to come eat lunch, he would lock it before he left. I said, why is that unlocked?

That's weird. So after they review everything, the investigators believe the fire was deliberately set, which is what the kid said. Based on his training here, he said that it was a slow, built-up fire, definitely not an accelerated one. It had originated somewhere near and on the second floor loft area. And after it had been started, it first burned upward and consumed the roof, then started burning downward toward the first floor. So there's all of that shit. Now, back to the boy. All right.

They see spent shotgun shells, all this kind of shit. After talking with the hunters, they're looking at the boy and they're like, you know, he's wearing hunting gear. They said he didn't appear to be very upset to them, even though he just said, I was kidnapped and my grandparents were killed and our house got burned down. You'd be in a panic, right? I would imagine. So they said, son, we've got two guys outside this building who are very upset and concerned about you.

We're trying to figure out exactly what's going on here. We want to know if you can help us out. So Christopher sat on the couch there, and this is what he said. Quote, I was at home during the nighttime. I heard someone come in the house. I slipped out the back door and was hiding. I heard two gunshots up in my grandparents' room, and that's when a black male came out and found me. This black guy burned down my parents' house, then forced me to get in the car with him.

That's how we ended up in the woods. The black man took me against my will. I said, where do you live? Chester, South Carolina with my grandparents. Last night I heard two gunshots. He goes on it again. He then said, after I heard the gunshots, the black guy then came outside and poured gas around the house.

He burned it that way. So the guy said, did they pour gas? He poured gas on the house. He burned it that way. So the guy said, did they pour gas? He poured gas on the house itself. And Christopher said, no, he just walked around the house and poured the gasoline on the ground. Then he set it afire and the house burned down. They said, so this black guy takes you in the car and brings you up here.

And he said, yes, sir. They said, and he had guns that he had stolen from your grandparents' house? Yes, sir. And he drives up to the hunting and that he had stolen from your grandparents house yes sir and he drives up to the hunting lodge where he holds you all night yes sir that's right christopher says so they move in closer and said now tell me how you got away how'd you get away from the guy right so christopher said quote this black guy got out to use the bathroom and when he did i took off running he give him a nickname by now i feel like if he's gonna keep mentioning just this black guy sounds really weird

this black guy got out to use the bathroom and when he did i took off running he said when he saw me running he yelled out you can't go anywhere then shot at me once so they he said well what did he do then what did you do then and um christopher said i got his keys and i threw them into the woods i threw them keys into the woods i just kept running on through the woods yeah so he said huh so the investigator's talking about it he's thinking about it and he's like a weird story it's a weird event but i mean wow what a harrowing fucking night happened what a harrowing night man um so yeah they bring them in um they're setting up and they go well fuck set up a manhunt so they set up a whole huge thing i mean bloodhounds are being sent out through the woods

helicopters bloodhounds teams of fucking uh the the sheriff emergency response team the local sled unit that everybody they can get everything looking for a guy here said we've also got our team of tracking bloodhounds we'll take them first uh to the car and then go from there to get the scent so they said they considered the kidnapping of a 12 year old and a double homicide and arson a pretty major event in this area so that makes that man very dangerous. Yeah. All no expenses spared here. Nothing is it's too expensive while it's open.

So investigator comes in with the criminal investigators and he sits down with Chris and he says, Christopher, I'm sorry you've had to go through all this, but I need you to help me find the guy that kidnapped you. And he said, can you give me a description of the guy who kidnapped you? Maybe what he looked like, what type of clothing he was wearing, so we know who and what we're looking for. Christopher said, all I can remember is that he was a black guy. That's not helpful, Chris.

He said, about six foot two inches, but I don't know anything about his clothing. He said, could you tell me the last place you saw him? And he shrugged and said, in my grandma's SUV. So, yeah, they're talking about all this. And so they go back out. They let him fall asleep for a little while in there. They wake him up and, you know, they wake him up. They have a woman investigator to talk to him.

And she said, my name is Lucinda. You can call me Lucy. All that kind of shit. She said, I just came from Chester County. And because you're such an important person, I need to talk with you about what happened to your grandparents. So he's looking back. Christopher's very calm and polite, calls her Lucy, whatever, all that kind of shit. So she also says that, when was the last time you shot a gun? As she swabs his hands for gunshot residue.

He said um i think it was yesterday and he said i was target practicing with my grandfather we were shooting at pepsi bottles you know the green ones he means sprite but yeah that's what they were shooting at um so they said okay and they found bottles and shells so that all made sense so uh they said can you tell me exactly what happened that day? And he said, well, me and my grandfather were shooting at, we're target practicing. It was about four o'clock yesterday. We were in the back of the house over the creek at the end of the property.

We were in the condo. Granddad calls it a condo. It's like a tree house kind of, but it's really a hunting tree stand. We were shooting at Coca-Cola bottles. Jesus Christ, kid. They were greenish kind, like a Sprite bottle, but it didn really a hunting tree stand we were shooting at coca-cola bottles jesus christ kid they were greenish kind like a sprite bottle but it didn't have a label we shot for about 30 minutes we were squirrel hunting but i couldn't hit anything so granddad said i needed a little more practice so we shot at the bottle what happened next we got back on the four-wheeler and rode back to the house then we went to pizza hut at five o'clock. Oh, that's nice.

Have a nice sit down Pizza Hut. Then we went to choir practice. We got him a little after we got home a little after seven o'clock or maybe a little after that. My grandmother was talking at church. We got in about seven, ten, probably. I didn't get on the computer until eight o'clock, I guess, that time because I had a school project. I had to do that nasty homework. Nasty homework. I had to write a letter. We had to write about the poem we had read. It's called I'm Nobody. It's about a lady who stayed in her room for 26 years until she died of old age.

That period was back in 18-something. And she goes, that's great, Chris. I know I wanted all the details, but maybe less details, Chris. You're going she goes, that's great, Chris. Can we? I know I wanted all the details, but maybe less details, Chris. You're going a little harder than I want, Chris. Yeah. She said, you're doing fine, but I need you to slow down so I can catch up with her. Because he's just going real fast, moving, moving.

And he said, quote, I'm on Zoloft. That makes me real sleepy. The doctor put me on it. I went to bed at 9 o'clock. I usually go to bed at 8 or 8.30. It was about 11.30. I heard footsteps on the porch outside. I went into the bathroom. There's two doors.

You can get in from my bedroom or the kitchen. When I was in the bathroom, I saw him come in the back door. I couldn't see him good at first. I heard my shotgun rattle. It was on the sofa. I didn't have room for it in the safe. I wasn't going to put it up until the next morning. I usually keep it in the cabinet by the gun safe. I had a box of my shotgun shells by the gun on the couch. I ran out of the house and went inside. I hid behind the four-wheeler trailer. I heard somebody yelling, but I couldn't tell what they were saying. I heard four gunshots. trailer. I heard somebody yelling, but I couldn't tell what they were saying. I heard four gun

shots. It didn't sound like a high powered rifle, sounded more like a shotgun, and I started crying. So she felt bad for him, the investigator. She expected him to cry, but he didn't cry. What? Now she expected him to start crying. So he

continued. Then I stayed outside for a little bit, but the black guy came out. I don't know what he looked like. It was dark. Jesus Christ. He saw me. This is just a mess. He saw me and walked over to me. He pointed a shotgun at me. He said, do you have any transportation? I said, yes, my grandpa's truck. He said, go get the keys. The keys were in the kitchen. He walked around for a minute and said, what is in there? I said, my grandfather's guns. The black guy started grabbing guns and ammunition. We went down to the truck. On our way to the truck, we grabbed a gas can for my four-wheeler.

We got in the truck. My dog, Christy, was growling at him. I was sitting in the passenger seat. We just drove until we got there. He forgets to mention the dog came with them, which is weird. What kidnapper wants to bring the dog came with with them which is weird most what kidnapper wants to bring a fucking angry dog with them the the dog hates me put it in the car with us it's so weird i'm taking everything i don't care it's all a light-hearted nightmare on our podcast

morbid we're your hosts i'm alina urquhart and i'm ash kelly and our show is part true crime part spooky and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like 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. So he said, we slept some on the road. It looked like a place where people go dump their trash. There were knocked down trees and stuff. I slept. I don't know if he slept or not. So they said, okay, this black guy that kidnapped you.

So what did you do then? This black guy that kidnapped you. So what would you do then? Uh, this black guy has you kidnapped. Now what he says, when I woke up, I started hitting, we started hitting bumps and stuff. We were at the hunting place. We drove all the way down and got stuck. He got out and was looking at the tires. I got out and ran. He shot at me once. I got a little further and he shot at me again. He didn't say anything. I think he put the gun back in the truck where he threw the, when he threw the keys. Uh, I don't know if he had any more guns with him. Then what happened? I followed it down the Creek a little bit. Uh, then I went back to the truck. I got my 45 and some bullets and got some money. He took from my grandparents. I started walking,

trying to find the main road. That's when I saw the man in the deer stand and the hunter saw my dog. Uh, I got a glimpse of the dog, but I didn't know how my dog followed me here. So they said, okay. The investigator says, sometimes I have a hard time understanding things just so I can get my mind around what happened. Can you draw me a map of your grandparents' house? He said, sure. Draws it out. This is where the loft was. My grandparents slept there. He said said that's the gun cabinet the back door he labeled everything you know all that kind of shit signs and dates is drawing they said and uh would you draw that place you told me earlier that you hid from the

black guy i want to make sure i understand it correctly so he drew a thing side of the house hid here four-wheeler drew a little four-wheeler um he even wrote right there is where i hid from the black guy up above and below the four-wheeler so he said uh this is where i was hiding from this man that kidnapped me and killed my grandparents so he sits back so they're out looking like i said canine teams they go to the vehicle they go in the woods the only sense they sniff out were the two hunters and christopher that's all the dog can pick up so they're like not even piss not piss nothing that's all they're picking up all they're picking up is those two guys and christopher nobody else so they're like okay that's the dog says there wasn't a fourth guy in these woods

you know they're like that's. They search the pathfinder. They discover that the first thing they notice about the inside of the vehicle is that the floorboard gear shift was in the reverse position, and the driver's seat was pulled all the way up to the front. I was just going to ask. How far up the seat was? Yeah. Is it real high and real forward? Is it where a guy who's six two would sit i can tell you right now in a pathfinder if you're six two that position is all the way back as far

as it goes because at six four i can't fit in a fucking pathfinder from back then so it's pretty far back so it's back yeah so they were like that's weird It was pulled up so far it was almost touching the steering wheel. So the cops were like, who the fuck was driving this? This is crazy. So they're talking about this and they're looking in the car more. On the floorboard, there's a five-gallon container of gasoline, half full. The back seat of the SUV has been laid down. You can put the seat down.

And a number of firearms are there a number of firearms, uh, are there. Um, they were like, Jesus Christ. So they, uh, they, they were, they saw the, the pump shotgun back there in the backseat of the vehicle, the four 10, which was what they had before. Um, they said since spent shells for a similar gun had been found, they thought maybe there'd be a connection there. So they pulled it out of the vehicle to make sure they held it. They found a list of weapons in the SUV,

a Ruger.22 rifle, a box of.45 caliber ammunition, a box of.22 short ammunition, an old-timer's knife and sheath, I think that's the brand, a box of.410 ammunition, and another box of.45 caliber ammunition. So they're like holy shit this is

fucking this is wild i mean were they trying to overthrow batista and take over cuba like what the fuck is this so um they're like this is wild it doesn't look like i don't get it so mcneil old mac mcneil says i don't care this boy's been telling the truth i'll know a lot more after they process the car. But so far, his story isn't checking out. But until we have further evidence, we still treat him as a victim, even though this is looking weird. So, wow. Okay.

They called. Oh, yeah. I told you that, too. They called his father, all that sort of thing. Okay. So, yikes, yikes, yikes. Interrogation continues. Chris is watching tv yeah he's watching tv they have him in a room with a tv so they come in and they said christopher will you hand me that

remote we need to have an adult talk so please sit down yeah so he was like an idol yeah what the fuck he's actually watching walker texas Ranger, we find out later. Is that right? That's what he's watching. Well, he hangs out with his grandparents. That's probably what they watch. So McKellar, this is the interviewer, she puts it down to its lowest that goes, the TV, turns to Christopher and says, I have a lot of questions I need to ask you. But before I ask you those, I need to go through a form with you.

And then reads him his Miranda rights. Oh. Yeah. So he says, do you understand all you those, I need to go through a form with you. And then reads him his Miranda rights. Oh. Yeah. So he says, do you understand all your rights? Before I start asking you, he says, you know, he sits up, looks. They said, do you understand? And he said, I don't want my father. I don't want a lawyer.

I don't want nobody. That's what he said. And they said, Christopher, do you know how important a lawyer is? He says, I don't care. I said I don't want one. I said I don't want one. Damn it. I don't want more broccoli or a lawyer.

Leave me alone. Walker just read those same rights to a man on TV. I'm fine. I'm fine. Yeah, I just heard him. Chuck just told me. So he said that he didn't. They said anytime you don't want to answer questions, you can stop and get a lawyer and all that shit.

The review. They're reviewing the rights. So they introduced another agent. And this agent says, do you think your grandparents would want you to tell the truth? And he said, yes. And they said, okay, there we go. That's good. We got a yes out of them.

So they're asking all this type of shit. They're going through little stuff. And then he goes, there's a few things we need to clear up, Christopher. What do you think, Zoe? He said, first, we've had a helicopter up in the air over a hunting club for some time, and the dog team's been on the ground

looking for your suspect, but they haven't found anyone. Secondly, there's some issues dealing with your grandparents' vehicle. The seat was pulled up to match someone of more of your stature as opposed to the six foot two inch black male you said kidnapped you. And thirdly,

it's highly unusual that someone would kidnap both you and your dog, which again, that's what I said. That's true. So Christopher didn't say shit. So then he says, the investigator says, why don't you go ahead and tell me the truth about what happens,

what happened that night. And Christopher shrugged. And this guy said, hmm, okay. You want to shrug? And he just keeps kind of staring at him. And as he's staring at him, the other investigator said Christopher's arms fell limply by his side. It looked like he just took all the, you know when a kid just gives up? Yeah.

Fine and does that. That's what Christopher did. And he said, quote, I called my grandparents yesterday to come to the school i called them because the vice principal said he wanted to talk to them call him your fucking self then vice principal i don't get paid to be here fuck do i look like your secretary you're gonna have me snitch on myself go fuck yourself because the day before that boy on the school bus said i choked him said i choked him it was about one o'clock or something the vice principal talked to my grandparents he wanted to know wanted to know why i choked the boy on the bus because he was messing with me that's why he told my grandparents to take him take me home and then what happened

okay he goes on we got home about 2 30 or about 2 o'clock or 2.30. We talked for about an hour. They told me they were going to lock me in my room. They locked me in there after we talked until about 11.30. My grandpa said if I came out, he's going to beat me with the paddle. I came out at about 10 o'clock or something. I was going to get something to drink. My granddaddy got the paddle. I tried to get my shotgun. He hit me on my back and my butt. Then he said if I came out anymore, he would hit me across the head with it. He had beat me back into the room.

He hit me five or six times. The paddle is what my dad used to hit me with, which now it's the belt is what he hit him with, actually. So they said, well, what'd you do next? He said, when they went to bed, I waited about 10 minutes. I got the shotgun out of the cabinet. I took it in my room and loaded it. I took a box of shells from the cabinet.

I just put three in. Jacked one in, jacked one and put another in. I put three in it. Jacked one and put another in. I went in it jacked one and put another in i went to their room i just aimed at the bed i shot four times i turned the light on i didn't really care then my granddad's feet were hanging over the bed my granddad's face was to the side my grandmother was facing the closet her legs were in the bed i didn't care then i picked up the shell casings i threw them in the door of my. I picked up the shell casings. I threw them in the door of my room. He picked up the shell casings like a Gambino family member.

Then I got some candles from my bathroom closet. I got about three. I lit them. I put one under my bed, one on my floor, put the other one in the living room on the floor. Then I got some guns. I got a Ruger 22 from the gun safe. I got a 410 out of the closet safe, a gun closet safe that I had it laid on the sofa. I got two 22 rifles and my 45. I loaded up my dog, Christy, and I put him in the passenger seat. I got the gas from the

side of the woodshed. I put the gas can in the floorboard. It's red. It was about half full. I was going to stick a rag in it and blow it up. The car. That was the point of that. I backed out where the black pathfinder was. I turned on the lights. I got the keys from the side of the washing machine. I got $33 out of my grandmother's purse. It was in the dining room. I got some rolled coins from on top of the gun cabinet. I drove about 30 minutes. I stopped in Union. He didn't. He actually drove to Gaffney, not Union. He said it was this old trail that goes to an open place. I slept until about 530 in the morning. Then I drove to where the truck is now. I stayed there and slept until about six o'clock. Then I went a little further and got stuck. I got out and closed the door, went to the passenger side. I let my dog out. I got the 45 rifle. I shut the door.

I loaded it outside the truck. I put three in. There was an empty shell in the chamber. I didn't feel like taking it out. I told my dog to stay by the truck. I loaded the truck. I locked the truck. I buried the keys in the back of the truck under some pine straw. I shot at the squirrel with my.22. I shot it at once. Where'd you go then? Then I was just walking and that guy saw me. Then I started yelling for help. I told him a black guy was shooting at me.

I told him a black guy killed my grandparents. They said, yeah, this is a lot. Didn't expect that, did you, everybody? That's a turn that's a that's a fucking harrowing tale of horror uh it gets worse though gets worse they said are you sorry for what you've done and he said no i'm not sorry they deserved it what he said they hit me with the paddle my daddy used to beat me with the. My daddy used to beat me with the paddle. My daddy used to beat me with that paddle. I stayed with my grandparents when they lived in Florida. I stayed with them six years when my dad was in the military.

I don't know if I would do it again. Everybody hates me. I'm useless. My dad sits there while me and my sister do the chores. He's just free-firing. He's just free-firing shit off. You don't get sympathy now though yeah no no so they told him breathe take a couple deep breaths you're just you're literally just

saying anything that pops into your fucking scattered mind he said explain it better he said the house was on fire when i left i put paper around the candle by my bed i put paper around the one in the living room i poured cigarette lighter refiller in my bedroom by the fire. I went out to the back door. I didn't lock the door. He said, well, why'd you make up a story about the black man? He said, I made up the story about the black man because if I get in trouble, you're going to send me back to my dad. I'm just going to run away again. I hate my dad. I ran 15 miles before they found me. Talking about the first time. My grandparents beat me once while I was here.

None of that explains why you killed them, though. It doesn't justify any of this. No. They said, do you remember the shell you used in the 410 shotgun? Yes, the 410 shell was a number six shell, about 10 pellets, two-inch shell. So he knew. He had everything down. I mean, he's got all the facts. he knew right where his grandfather's feet were and all that kind of shit so um you know he writes they write it all out and then after he signs his confession um they

let him lay on the floor to watch tex walker texas ranger until he falls asleep climb on down there now watch a show yep like a child here's some chicken nuts so they come out and they go well he confessed to killing his grandparents everyone's like the fuck out of here are you serious stop it holy shit they thought at most maybe he had like an older friend like a 16 year old kid he met that wanted to rob the great they thought maybe that they didn't think this kid went around and did this shit that's they're like wow so it's crazy so their neighbors are all shocked

one of their neighbors the guy who called 911 said the family they were good people you ever hardly ever hear of something like that happening out here this is a quiet place it's a terrible thing to happen anywhere that is fucking horrific um absolutely horrific uh all the church people have a nice funeral for them and you know lay them to rest

and say nice things about them and no one's got a bad thing to say about either one of these people and not just because they're dead because they were actually decent people right so they're sending christopher christopher's got to see psychiatrists and all sorts of shit. They got to figure out what's going on. He's so fucked. He's between the ears. That kid is a mess right now. He's got to be a mess. He said he remembered everything about that night when he killed his grandparents. He tells the psychiatrist the blood, the shotgun blast, the voices urging him on. The voices urging him on. He says there was voices telling him to do it. He said even the smoke detectors, he remembers hearing as he drove away, he said, something kept telling me to do it. Something kept telling him to do it. the state, I should say, Dr. Pamela Crawford, she said that he provided, meaning Christopher, no non-psychotic reasons for killing his grandparents.

Like, you know, anything that would make sense. Non-psychotic. Not just, I feel like killing right now. He had nothing outside of the psychotic realm. In other words, no good reasons is what that is. Setting fire, taking the money, following detention by police. Christopher made self-protective statements to avoid arrest after admitting his actions. And in his mind, I didn't want to tell.

He said, I told you it was a black guy because if you knew it was me, you'd send me back with my dad and I don't want to live there. He has no idea what like that. That's not where you go. No. After this. But when you're 12, you don't realize that because in your mind, you go. No. After this. But when you're 12, you don't realize that because in your mind, you're a little kid. You know what I'm saying? And two years ago, you're a baby.

So it's crazy. You know, the last few years have just been a blur. Yeah, no shit. So they fuck, man. They're talking about all this. Now, there are laws on juveniles and all this sort of thing. And the problem with this shit is that they said that like – they're thinking about – they're like, well, we got to charge him if he killed these people. Do we try him as an adult or not?

He's 12? He's 12. No. Which is certainly not an adult in any stretch of the imagination the fact that he said you're gonna have to send me back with my dad and he's mean to me tells you right there he's not an adult you know he thinks i'll just watch walker texas ranger till this is over he thought that's he thought what what do you think he thought like where do you go now and he doesn't know. I don't know.

He has no fucking idea. Well, I told you what happened, so I guess I'll sit here and watch WTR until Dad gets here to pick me up. That's what it is. A previous appeal on interrogating a child said that, quote, that which would leave a man cold and unimpressed can overaw a lad in his early teens. He's not even in his early teens. No. We cannot believe that a lad of tender years is a match for the police in such a contest. He needs counsel and support if he's not to become the victim of first fear, then panic. not to become the victim of first fear, then panic.

He needs someone on whom to lean, lest the overpowering presence of the law, as he knows it, may not crush him. That's from a U.S. Supreme Court decision saying you got to have somebody with a kid when you question him. So they said a juvenile cannot be compared with an adult in full possession of his senses and knowledgeable of the consequences of his admissions. He would have no way of knowing what the consequences of his confession were without advice as to his rights from someone concerned with securing him those rights and without the aid of more mature judgment as to the steps he should take in the predicament in which he's found

himself. So all of this makes sense. This decision was about a 14-year-old, by the way, that I'm reading now. They said, without some adult protection against this inequality, a 14-year-old boy would not be able to know, let alone assert such constitutional rights as he had to allow this. So there you go. So that's after a 14-year-old. So they decide. This kid is so much younger.

He's so much younger and also not very mature for a 12 year old is the other thing. So they said they're considering it, though. The ultimate decision will be up to a family court judge. If he's found guilty as a juvenile, he could be free in nine years. That's how it works. OK, I don't like that either. Don't like that either. But if he's tried as an adult, he he won't be able to face the death penalty

because he's young um they south carolina did put in 1944 they killed a 14 year old they put a 14 year old to death in 1944 not not in fucking 1744 in 1944 yeah we were winning the fucking war and we're like, let's kill a child. What do you say? Strang him up. So the, there is no minimum age for capital punishment here, like on the books, like they have to be this age or above, but a Supreme court ruling in 88 prohibited the death penalty for anybody under 16. So, um, South Carolina also sets no minimum age for trying defendants as an adult.

They said pretty much a lot of the prosecutors will say anybody over seven is prosecutable as an adult. That I mean, why use don't use the word adult. Don't use a different word. Right. Use an enhanced or deemed what an adult is. Yeah. We know what an adult is and it's never an eight-year-old never never never it's never an eight-year-old yeah it just isn't anything that

eight-year-old there's never been an eight-year-old that served in the military there's never been can't sign a contract can't serve in the military if you like have a sexual relationship with that eight-year-old you'll surely be in prison having terrible things done to you and you'll deserve it. That eight-year-old's not an adult. They're a very small child. There's not an eight-year-old walking into a board meeting with a thermos full of coffee. It's not an adult. If your kid wakes up on Easter and says, did the bunny come?

They're not an adult. Can we say that right away? Can that be right across the board just make it easy for everyone if you lose a tooth and get excited about what's coming and not sad about your dental bills you're not an adult jesus fucking christ so He ends up, he posts a bond. They let him out. $175,000 bond. And he's going to be out for his whole trial.

He'll be restricted to house arrest and electronic monitoring. During lunch breaks, he'll remain in sheriff's office custody. And in the evening, he'll stay in the town Isle of Palms with family. Oh, they rented a place there. Okay. So he's going to stay with his family and not leave. Now, trial 2005. Oh, God.

He's tried as an adult. Stop it. He's being tried as an adult. Now, the prosecution is happy to wait a couple years on this because this happened in 2001. It's now 2005. The longer you wait, the maturity that's happening every day. The longer you wait, the worse the jury feels about sentencing a kid. If he's 12, you bring a 12-year-old in, they're going to go, oh, my God, he weighs 90 pounds.

Look at this. I'm not fucking convicting this kid. This is crazy. Whereas if you bring a 16-year-old in, you're like, oh, I'm afraid of him in the mall parking lot yeah fair enough this fucking punk yeah so what is his defense besides i'm a child which is an obvious one yeah no his defense is the zoloft defense okay this is kind of where this became a national thing here it's involuntary intoxication is his defense now um the pfizer who makes zoloft denied that the drug caused delusions hallucinations or triggers violence uh but says they does make uh you'll have more suicidal ideations was what they came up with in the research there but not uh out

to other people you don't lash out and hurt others generally. mostly linked to suicidal, not homicidal behavior. However, an attempt to link the drugs to violence against others is kind of, you know, it happens because the parents of one of the Columbine school shooters unsuccessfully sued the makers of Paxil and arguing that it was at least in part responsible for the homicidal acts of their son. So that's what they said. Now, fucking strange so in 2004 the fbi heard testimony for members of the public the drug industry and or fda not fbi and medical profession uh regarding the use of zoloft and children and a lot of parents were speaking out against zoloft and children including joe dulph, who was there saying this did

that. What it did is the FDA stopped short of making a finding that the drugs did cause the complained of side effects, but did urge the makers of the drugs to put a so-called black box warning on the packages, advising doctors and parents to look out for signs of aggression, anxiety, agitation in children and teens taking those medications. So did that happen? Don't know. We don't know.

I mean, when you get it prescribed, doctors will tell you if you start feeling this or this or this immediately, call or discontinue use. In 2001, they didn't tell you that. So they didn't know. The grandparents would have probably said, well, he just choked an eight-year-old against the bus window. I think it might be time to cut it off. So they didn't know. The grandparents would have probably said, well, he just choked an eight-year-old against the bus window. I think it might be time to cut it off. But they didn't know.

Now, the prosecutor said that they didn't think the Zoloft defense was viable. They said, I really think that was just a smokescreen. He just happened to be on an antidepressant when this happened. So they read his confession in court, everything I told you. One of them was, I took everything out on my grandparents, who I loved so very much. When I was lying in bed that night, I couldn't sleep because my voice in my head kept echoing through my mind, telling me to kill them. Through the whole thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show. You know it's going to happen, but you can't do anything to stop it.

That's what his confession said. anything to stop it that's what his confession said you know he he might just be too young to know that the voice in his head is a thought and the drug is encouraging yes thoughts that's what it is it's not he hasn't figured it all out yet right he doesn't he doesn't have voices right no he's all not that we know of no right no no i mean he only he's only on on his antidepressants not even for a year. So, I mean, he doesn't figure out how to do it yet. So I don't think so. He suffers from mom saying, get the fuck out of here. That's what he suffers from. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. That's. Yeah.

And in court, they talk about how he'd been whipped with a belt. His dad made him run down the street or do pushups as punishment. Army shit is that is the army. His sister said that the father did use the belt or do push-ups as punishment. Army shit. His dad was in the Army. His sister said that the father did use the belt but only on the behinds. Said that the doctors say that Christopher was angry because his mother abandoned him. And he became angry and uncontrollable as an adolescent. And all that kind of shit. So on Christopher's first visit to the psychiatrist on November 5th, 2001,

the doctor talked with Dr. Norman, talked with Christopher and his grandmother about running away from home. That was the last time and treatment at the, when he was in the hospital there, he was assessed and diagnosed with low grade depression. And that's when he got Paxil. But then later on he was switched to Zoloft.

Because they couldn't afford the Paxil, right? Well, yeah. They said, well, no, no. The doctor said they just didn't have it in Chester. Got it. Wasn't in stock. He said, I told Joy, Mrs. Pittman, I don't have any Paxil, but I'm going to give you another antidepressant that will work just as good.

I want Christopher on 20 milligrams the first seven days and increase increase to 50 on the second and third weeks. They said that the color change of the color of the pills changed with the strength, so they shouldn't have any problems determining which one was 25 and which one was 50. He asked for Christopher to return in three weeks and was told, you know, three weeks and there you go. And I'd like to take another look at you, see how you're doing after the initial deal there. Gave him the samples because he didn't want to make them pay out of pocket for that shit, which is nice.

So they said people who knew Christopher well said they could see a big change in his demeanor once he started taking medication. It was as if he turned to a different person. They said, quote, this is the reverend at the church that they all went to, Reverend Snellgrove. He's also one of the firemen who put the fire out. Everybody does everything in this town. Christopher was always well-rounded and

well-liked. He was as normal and carefree of a little boy as there was. But when he came to live with his grandparents, it was clear the boy had changed from prior visits. He'd become withdrawn and depressed. It was a noticeable difference that everybody could see. That also happens when you're a teenager, when you're 11, 12, and you start hitting puberty. You're like, leave me alone.

My dick's hard and I don't like it. And the rejection from his mom and the contentious relationship from his dad. He's got so many things happening. He just needs three years to get through this. Fuck, it's brutal. Yeah. It's wild. So here's Danielle.

So I saw Christopher at Thanksgiving. I was at my house with my father. Nana and Pop-Pop and Christopher were there, too. They came down on Thanksgiving, which was on a Thursday. It usually is. You could have left that out. We get it. Right? Wow. We all would have got that i think she's the older

sister fascinating yeah yeah and she's not dumb at all from her talking she's i don't know if she just that was just a brain fart i guess there to say that in court and they stayed until saturday my grandmother said she had an appointment for christopher that monday with the doctor and she had to get him back for that, which was coming up. I begged them to stay longer because I missed my brother and he missed me. No, no, no. You don't get it. We got to get him there now.

No, he needs a doctor. I remember telling someone that that was the happiest Christopher had been in some time. I remember he was weird, but at least he was happy. That's he's on antidepressants. Then he just started getting on him. So he doesn't know what to do with it yet. But all the time he was home, hepressants. Then he just started getting on him. So he doesn't know what to do with it yet. But all the time he was home, he was completely different than anything I had ever seen him before in my entire life.

He was completely opposite of what he'd been in the past. He would sit there and he'd be talking to him and he'd be sitting there fidgeting with his hands the entire time. And he would start a sentence. Then he would immediately change his change mid sentence into another sentence. And he would do this five, six, seven or eight times. He never finished one of those sentences that he started in the first place.

He was continually up and down, uh, in and out of the house. He was just crazy. He wasn't quiet. He was talkative. You couldn't get him to shut up. And this was unusual for Chris.

He's he snorting lines to under the table. He's not. Hey everybody. Yeah. Woo. Hey everybody. Hey, everybody. How's it going? This is great turkey, Grandma.

That's real good. I'm going to go look. Your right front left tire. Your right front tire. Both of them. Left and right. I don't know which one. They've looked a little low.

I'm going to go outside and check them out, OK? Grandma, I'll do that. If they're OK, I'll take it down to this thing. I'll fill it up myself. It's OK. You got a pump here? Or should I take it to the gas station? No problem.

That's great. He didn't finish his sentences? Hold on. I'm going to take some turkey with me. Got to go. Bye. Didn't finish what he did before.. I'm going to take some turkey with me. Got to go. Bye. Didn't finish what he did before. Is that turkey?

Is that the white meat? I really like the dark. Listen. What the fuck? When he was doing the interview, that's what he was doing. He was stopping and going into something else. It was like he's very, very scattered. So he said at some point, if you got him to where you could get him to be still long enough,

he would be sitting there next to Pop-Pop and he would be happy. Then he would get up and he would run out of the room and do something. He was all over the place. Then he would change and a few minutes later he'd be upset about something. Then a few minutes later he'd be over that and in tears about something else. That is not handling an antidepressant well. No. You need to go back to the

doctor and he had an appointment. So I mean you can only go when you have an appointment. I guess they could take him to the emergency room. They could have adjusted. But still, I don't even know. Breakdowns of tears. That's not good. So there's no doubt they have all the forensics and everything. There's no doubt that he did this. He shot his

grandparents. He set it on fire. That's not a thing. It's all about the pack. All about the Zoloft. That's it. So during the closing arguments, the prosecutor reminded the jurors how this was carried out. The shotguns, the burning. It's all very meticulous and very premeditated and scary. You know what I mean?

Hitman style. It's fucking grim. Bow, pow. Pick up the shell casings. Light the place on fire with a delay with a candle with paper and a thing. That's fucking grim. Pow, pow. Pick up the shell casings, light the place on fire with a delay, with a candle with paper and a thing. That's fucking nuts, man. That's what hitmen do. In the closing, though, they said, quote, I don't care how old he is.

This is a malicious killing, a murder. And as malicious a killing, as a murder, as you're ever going to find. And he pointed out there and he pointed out in his statement, in Chris's statement, and he says, he said his grandparents deserved it. That's that. So verdict comes in and he is found guilty of big boy murder,

big boy, adult murder. Um, yeah. Um, so during sentencing, this whole family's begging for mercy here, um, for him. Oh, boy. Yeah. So during sentencing, this whole family is begging for mercy here for him. Really?

Joe Dolphus said, quote, mom and dad, were they here today, would be begging for mercy for Chris. What? No, I don't know if they would. I mean, that's a. I don't know if he's the spokesman for them at that point. Joe Dolphus. Come on, man. Come on, Joe Dolphus. Chris's aunt said, quote, he's the spokesman for them at that point. Joe Dolphins. Come on, man. Come on, Joe Dolphins.

Chris's aunt said, quote, he's a good kid. We've got a good family, and I beg for leniency. They said, Chris, anything out of your mouth? And he said, quote, I know it's in the hands of God. By the way, have you played GoldenEye? It's really cool. My dad said I couldn't play it anymore. But no, he didn't break off there.

Mario 64? It's incredible. He said, I know it's in the hands of God. Whatever he decides on, that's what it's going to be. That's what he said. No, there's 12 people right there. There's no God here. So the judge, it's the judge that's sentencing him,

not even the people, because it's not a death penalty case. Oh, got it, yeah. The judge would go, well, actually, I'm God today. So if that's what you think, then I guess I'm God. He says, you, sir, you young child boy, stir kid, may fuck off 30 years on each count of murder. Oh, Jesus God. To run concurrently, though. So 30 years, which was the minimum penalty he could give.

That was the absolute minimum allowed by law. Maximum sentence was life without parole. So, or no, not life, not life without, cause he was too young for that. So life with parole.

So that was the, the most instead 30 years. And that's the minimum. So he was trying to help the kid out anyway. It still feels heavy. That's a lot for a fifth. That's twice his life. Right. So how much I've lived so far. a minimum so he was trying to help the kid out anyway feels heavy that's a lot for a fifth that's twice his life right so how much i've lived so far and i only remember like two-thirds of it

because i was too little that two more times well and shit thinking back like my earliest memory of like a real good memory is when i was 10 and and that was just five years ago, and it feels like for fucking ever. That's when I rubbed my dick on a couch by accident. That was my shining moment. I got to do the last five years six times. Six times. I don't think I like that. I don't know if I'm outlived that.

No. Joe Dolphus told the judge he supported his son even though the victims were his own parents and after that he called on both the governor mark sanford and president george bush to pardon his son please please don't he said i love my son with all my heart as i did my mom and dad and mom and dad if they were here today would also have begged for mercy. So the sister, Danielle, who's Danielle Pittman Fincham, she went on the Today Show on NBC and said that her brother is not guilty and her family will keep fighting for his release. You can't say he's not guilty. No.

You can say they should have tried him as a child. That's an okay statement. She said, I think everybody failed him in some way or another okay i see we shouldn't let danielle near a microphone anymore no and she's i feel bad for danielle too she's had her mom ran away came back told her to fuck off she hasn't killed anybody no you know points great i mean i'm sure she's got some pain you know i mean her grandparents are dead stable house wasn't really there it's tough in trouble communicating it little brother's a murderer who she stuck up for and tried to help all the time and it's it's tough man she said i mean you can't go through life and not fail

somebody in a certain way the fuck does that mean you can't i mean you can't go through life and not fail somebody in a certain way is she just using words to make sentences to go to other thoughts that she had she's saying we're all failures at some point at something but you can't say it like that i guess you can emphasize somebody in a certain way right but what's your brother killed your grandparents he didn't fail your grandparents no not at all he killed he failed all of you by killing your grandparents. She said, we're going to fight for him, and if I have to keep fighting for the next 29 years to get him out, he's not going to stay there the full time that he's supposed to. All right.

Well, we'll find out. We'll find out. So his father also said, quote, I was a single single father and I did the best I could for my kids. I lost my mom and dad. And today I lost my son to Joe. Jesus Christ. His lawyer, Christopher's lawyer, said we're devastated. We're heartbroken. We're mystified. The state chooses to treat a 12 year old as an adult. Honestly, that's it.

It just sounds ridiculous to even say it out loud in any other scenario if there was a child standing there for an adult activity you'd go he's not an adult he can't do this you can look at him and see he's not a fucking adult but the one is like once he killed somebody that somehow gives him magical adult knowledge that's what i don't get like he still has the same brain so it doesn't make fucking sense i get that you want yeah you want you don't want 12 year olds killing people with impunity no but i think juvie would have been okay and figure out something along those lines he's not even allowed to go by mortal combat by himself yeah this is not at all yeah it's fucking nuts man

so jurors also there was some controversy because two of the jurors admitted feeling coerced into their decision. And another juror openly discussed the trial with not only his wife, but his bartender as well. What the fuck, man? It's not your priest, asshole. You can't. I know it's. Wow. What a dick.

A different juror, though, juror Christine Peterson. She was the grandmother of a 12-year-old during this trial. Oh, boy. Yeah. She said initially the panel was divided on the drug's impact as well as on the question of Pittman's youth. How can he be divided on the question of his youth? Is he 12 or not? Yes.

Okay. Then what the fuck are we arguing about? What are we arguing about? If they're 80, do we go, I don't know if he's a senior citizen. Let's see how he acts. What the fuck are we arguing about if they're 80 do we go i don't know if he's a senior citizen let's see how he acts what the fuck are we saying i love that she was the grandmother of a 12 year old at the time because you forget real quick what it's like to be 12 fuck yeah there's zero responsibility not not an adult life is crazy you have no idea you don't even know. You don't know insurance exists yet. You don't even know it's a thing that happens.

You're in sixth fucking grade. It's crazy. Fuck, man. This juror went on to say, it bothered me a lot. It was not an easy decision, but everyone kept saying, look at the evidence. Look at the evidence. She added, I'm sure many of us had sleepless nights. Another juror said, this is a jur foreman, Arnold Height. He said,

if Chris Pittman had been 25, we would have come to a decision much earlier. Because of his age, it was very, very difficult. Yeah, this guy's a university professor, that guy. One of the jurors said, just because you take a prescription medication doesn't mean you can't be held accountable for your actions. What if you combine that with being 12, though? What about then? How about then? How about you put that with a 12-year-old on prescription medications that he doesn't understand or didn't choose to take? So, you know, not that he shouldn't. I don't know. I'm not a doctor.

There's so many medications that have such weird psychological side effects that I disagree with that statement. And disclaimer, too too neither of us are doctors so we're that's why we're not arguing about the drug stuff and what it does exactly because i honestly i can give you some stats of shit like that but i i we're not going to fucking go out on a limb and be like this is what it does to your brain i don't fucking know i'm not a doctor and i know what 12 year olds are though we're all so unique and different. Drugs affect different people different ways. Absolutely. So there's no way to fucking blanket any of it.

That's why ladies out there who've taken birth control pills, how many pills did you go through to leave down the right one, right? Right. It takes like five before this one makes me spot, this one I bleed too much, this one blah, blah, blah. This one makes me feel like that. I gained fucking 30 pounds in two days on this one. There's all sorts of this one. I hated myself taking this one. Yeah, this one made me depressed. There's all sorts of this one. I hated myself taking this one. Yeah, this one made me depressed.

There's all those different ones. So it could happen. So Pfizer, though, they feel Pfizer says that in a statement after the verdict, quote, Zoloft didn't cause his problems, nor did the medication drive him to commit the murder. On these two points, both the Pfizer and the jury agree. Wow. How about just don't make a statement on this that sounds really dick now they had in April a Santa

Cruz California man who beat his friend was acquitted by a jury of attempted murder after he blamed it on Zoloft but in at least two other cases in Michigan and North Dakota they rejected similar claims there was 32.7 million prescriptions for Zoloft written in 2003.

Yeah, that was a very powerful one. That is 10% of the United States population was prescribed Zoloft only in 2003. So think about that. Think about all the other medications. That's a lot of medication. That's a lot of people on medications. Last October, though, it was 2004, the FDA ordered Zoloft and others to give the warning about behavior in children. 2006, state supreme courts of South Carolina heard oral arguments on his appeal,

Pittman's appeal. A petition to pardon Pittman was also presented at the trial. The justices were asked to hold off on moving Pittman to the adult penitentiary, but the delay was denied. They're moving him there. And a vote of four to one, they affirmed his decision, the court's decision.

Affirmed, send him to man prison. Send him to adult prison. He should be fine. He's now 16 or 17? Yeah, 17. Yeah. 2008, the U.S. 17. Yeah. 17. Yeah. 2008. The U S Supreme court refuses to hear the case.

We don't want to hear it. Not interested. So don't want to hear the case. Oh, he's 18 in 2007. So yeah, 2008, they don't want to hear the case. So he's stuck until South Carolina circuit court judge, Roger young approves Pittman's post relief, our post conviction relief petition and granted him a new trial based on the finding of ineffective counsel. The judge refused a request by the state to reconsider his decision in December 2010.

a plea bargain pursuant to which he pleads guilty to the crime of voluntary manslaughter and receives a sentence of 25, receives a 25 year sentence, including time served from the 30 to life term. Okay. So he's currently imprisoned in the Allendale Correctional Institution with a projected release date of February 22nd, 2023. My birthday. I know that. That's why I thought that was so cool. And I saw it. I was like, hey, it 2023. My birthday. I know that. That's why I thought that was so cool when I saw it.

I was like, hey, it's Jimmy's birthday. So there you go. He's coming out on your birthday, Jimmy. Invite him to your party. That's parole, though, right? That's when he's supposed to get out of prison. Yeah, I think that's his out date because he got 25. Yeah, and he's got credit for time served.

I think that's his out date. Like he did the whole time. Or he did that bid or whatever. No, it's got to be parole because And he's got entire credit for time served. I think that's his out date. Like he did the whole time or he did that bid or whatever. Yeah. No, it's, it's gotta be parole. Cause if it's 25 years given credit, he did,

he's going to do 20 at the time. Yeah. So that's, so that's enough. Yeah. They're saying that that's when they have him. I guess they already approved parole and that's when he's being released as then.

So there you go, everybody. That's South Carolina for you. Old Chester. Watch yourself. Watch yourselves. That's a crazy fucking story is it not jesus christ i can't believe there's so many questions oh that's the other thing i have to tell you about this story uh the book it's from i gotta give credit to the book because a lot of that was from the book um the book it's from is hilarious it's called die grandpa die this is why i couldn't

right i couldn't tell you at the beginning because this is the full title die grandpa die a killer kid a loaded shotgun a horrifying double murder well good night everybody that's the whole show you know exactly what's gonna happen it's by dale hudson why do why dale leave out the fire for christ's sake no shit and then when you look that book up it's hard to hudson why do why dale leave out the fire for christ's sake no shit and then when you look that book up it's hard to find so another book you know when like the results come up under each other like they're connected and related uh the other book is it's like if you buy this book you should buy this book the other book is why did grandpa die a book about death from 1985 with a bunch of cartoon kids on the front with a kid looking sad sitting on their dad's lap and dad explaining that grandpa's dead.

You can get a $5.99 used. That seems like something you'd want in your collection, right? Why did grandpa die? So there you go, everybody. There it is. Hope you enjoyed it. If you did enjoy it, you can tell everybody by getting on whatever app you're listening on and giving us five stars. It helps drive the show up the charts so much.

But more than anything, tell your friends about the show. Tell people you know. Post about it on social media. We have no idea why it is that way, but the human brain takes advice from people you trust much more than anything else. So that, if you want to help out the show, that's really the greatest way you can do it is tell people about it give a review and then tell your friends and that's golden and put it on social media so thank you so much for doing all of that really uh you can head over to shut up and give me murder.com right now what's there today tickets are on sale for our live shows for 2023 all the shows through may anyway the rest of the shows go on sale in a couple weeks.

So, yeah, get those in there. First shows up Cleveland on February 10th and St. Louis on February 11th. Those are very close to getting sold out. So please get your tickets. Get in there right away. Also, we are going to have, in addition to crime and sports sticking around, we're going to be doing a new show that we will announce in the beginning of january so about two more weeks we'll announce what it is it's going to come out in february just like small town murder and crime and sports did and it's a new show that we're very excited about we cannot wait to tell you about it we think you're going to love it so uh we'll get on that very soon patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all the bonus stuff.

Huge back catalog. How many? 150 episodes or something of back bonus shit you're going to get. I've lost track. I don't even know.

There's a shitload of them. It'll take you a while to go through the new year with these sons of bitches. Get in there. Do that. Plus, every other week

you're going to get two new episodes. One crime in sports. One small town murder. Every goddamn week except Christmas. Where on Christmas is our one time we go, we're taking a little easy. Last year, my grandmother died, so that wasn't exactly partying. And then this year, my son's coming out, and Jimmy's got his kids at Christmas, and it's a lot of Christmas stuff. And the bonuses are a Christmas Eve thing.

I got 20 people coming over. So we are going to do a bonus episode, though. You definitely deserve it. That's our thing to you. We are going to give you it is our worst comedy gigs of all time that we've ever been involved in. Oh, yeah. Worst shows, hell gigs. And at the end of the show, we'll also talk about both our favorite and least favorite Christmas songs of all time as well.

Because it'll come out Christmas Eve so what the fuck why not so keep doing that keep hanging out with us and everything like that Patreon also if you sign up for that not only do you get all that shit anybody $5 a month or above but you also get a shout out yes you get a shout out by the way follow us on

social media at murder small on Twitter at small town murder on Instagram at small Town Pod on Facebook. But the people the people are the most important thing and we have the most wonderful fucking listeners. And Jimmy tell me. Tell me who they all are. Tell me about all of them. I need to hear

about it right fucking now. This week's executive producers are Nilou Rafsanjani up there in San Francisco. We'll see her in San Diego. She didn't come down to the show. I missed her terribly. Shelby Whitman. And she donated in Italian Grandma's Memory, James. That was very nice. Oh, thank you so much.

It's been a year. Brian Whitney, Centeno Kennels in Ontario, Canada. Jordan Bennett and Simon both up in Canada also. And Jordan's sister, Morgan. Hang in there, Morgan. Everything's going to be okay. Everybody loves you. Other producers this week are Bobo Brazil,

Peyton Meadows, Happy Hour, Checking In, and Albuquerque. Bobo, the great champion. He's an old school wrestler. 60s, 70s. Gary Friedman said he's the same age as us. Really? Isn't that bizarre? And he just happens to have all these old people

references. Well, he might like history shit. I like history shit. Or hang out with his grandparents or parents a lot. That's why I know who they are, because I'm a dork. I like to study. A great family is probably... Maybe a good family. That's all it could be. Half the hour in Brazil.

No, where at? Oh, that's Bobo Brazil. What? Bobo was not a dolphin, Jimmy. Sarah Surridge. Maurice Wiggs. Thomas Tonkin. Charles Cart cartwright terrence trent do you know who terrence trent darby is yes he's that singer from the late 80s yes somebody

donated in his name but that's terrence trent darby yeah janice hill rosa martinez's brother angel happy birthday angel uh duel of the butcher's forehead larry wow all these wrestlers and strength, Harvey. Janice Hill, Rosa Martinez's brother, Angel. Happy birthday, Angel. Happy birthday. Abdul of the Butcher's forehead. Wow, all these wrestlers. That's sweet. Larry Bird's porn stash, Robert Toski, Hannah Quinn and her pup, Kanyoki. Kaja, Christine Solberg, Mijelva Jensen. Jesus.

Karma chameleon? What the fuck are you talking about? I don't know. Elaine Carberry, Rowan Barnes, Emily Mann, Stephanie Allen, Ova Fofa. Ova Fofa. That can't be right. Roush Phan, Nick Akers, Anne Meisenheimer, Sharon Racely, Carolyn Grillo. Grillo!

Kristen Jensen, Cass Nanners, Lindsay Williamson, Rhonda Cooey-Brisson, Pat O'Brien. That can't be right. Maybe it's Pat O'Brien. Hey, everybody. I hope it's Pat O'Brien. I hope it's him. Let's watch some college basketball, shall we? Did you ever hear his tapes? I'm Pat O'Brien. Yes, yes.

His tapes are amazing. Courtney Valentino, Bo Coons, Jen Wong, Christina, with no last name, Marcus Ferrier, Cheryl Lyman, Seth Morrissey, Anita Serdel, Naina, I think, with no last name, Marcus Ferrier, Cheryl Lyman, Seth Morrissey, Anita Serdel, Naina, I think, with no last name, Sabrina Dunham, yeah, Durham, shit, Nicole Davenport, Amber Wright, Christoph S., Tammy Silver, Jeffrey Babcock, Jennifer Elogie, Whitney

Anzaludo, what? Whitney Anzaludo. What? Anzal-dwa. Antoine Hirsch. Justin McIntyre. Aaron Evers. Casey Cassie.

Right. Sean Kelly. Julie Metzler. Danielle Barnes. Patrick Murphy. Kelly Anderson. Mapner Honky Rebby. No.

What was that? Mapner Honk Rebaya. Nope. That didn't sound anything like the first time you said it. For Santhan Nagan, I think. Coena Messing. Quentin Graham. Melissa Kelly. Bailey Gaspar.

Gasper. Dianelle Delgado. Travis Schlemme. Val with no last name. Brad Jessup. Dana with no last name. Nathaniel Posey. Joni Forneau. Joelle Marie, Kelly Scott, Matthew Kohler, Leah Korber, Brian Scherbowski, Ray with no last name, Kara Gregg, Amy Waters,

Nope, that's Joe. Huber. Ashley Goker. Goker. Brody Crawford. Michael Stout. Sherry Davis. She got her name back after her divorce.

Congratulations. Hey, good for you. Suzanne Baxley. And also Stephen Baxley. Sherry Bombard. Roberta Shearer. Kelsey Juleseth White. Afton Moss. Wes Crawford.

Chris Griffin. McIler. McIler? Korth. Chad Vaughn. Times One Ender, X1 maybe, I don't know. Jamie Martin, Jason Enyart, Elizabeth Vasquez, that's not Liz Vasquez, that's another one. Mariah Carter, Sean Elkins, James Diaz, Sway with no last name, probably also Ann Tack. Gail the Snail, Darlene Davis, Jesse Delamate, B.B. Varner, Sherry Angelkis, Monica Farrell, Catherine Spear, Cherie Bondurant, Never Enough Dildos, Alexander, Bang Bang Bird Gang, Jennifer Rogers, Stephanie Wright, Amy Marsh, Barron. Nope, that's Aaron. Hone, Eliza Butcher.

Butcher. God damn it. Jordan Tesner, Jennifer Oaks, Alex Thomas, Don Perotti, Jordan Collins, Elizabeth Kay, Shannon Rogers, Jamie Jenkins, Brad Barley, Natalie Grosso, Ron Burress. Katie came in yours. You just ran out of gas like that. Oh boy.

Oh boy. BD, but yeah, bro. Joe, bro. Geraria. Uh, should have been followed with an, I don't know what I'm doing. One of those famous ones from back in the day. Teresa Crocker, Desta Lynn, uh, Lynn, Lauren, Lauren Fioto, Destalin, Lauren, Lauren Fiato, Martha Parker,

Amanda Dike, what? All right, this is not right. Amanda, Amanda Dickamy, Dickamia. Oh, you're,

you're got a part. Somebody's fucking with me. There's no way this is a real name. Amanda Dickamy. Is there a man to dick me up? Everybody, I'm looking for a man to dick me up. Ha ha.

Ah, You bastards. When I get a hold of you, I'm going to rip your tongue out and shove it up your ass. You better tweet us. That's a definite Moe's Tavern. Moe's Tavern. How can I? Amanda Dickamay. That's what it is.

John McGuire. Abby with no last name. Brittany Warapius. Rachel Fisher. Brittany Warapius. Rachel Fisher. Becky. War Penis. Family name. War Penis.

Becky Mockford. Amelie Elgren. The Carp with no last name. Chellius Thomas. That's probably not right either. Timothy Sawyer Garza. Sarah Dixon. Charlin Pepper. Timothy Snyder. Chris with no last name. What is it? Harlan Pepper. right either timothy sawyer garza sarah dixon charlin charlin charlin pepper uh timothy snyder

chris no last name what is it harlan pepper that that might be that's probably it's probably another mose tavern i'm just gonna go mose tavern when i see him that's what i'm gonna go i think that's a i think what a Best in Show reference, Arlen Pepper? Maybe. I don't know. Sorry. Go ahead. Timothy Snyder. Chris with no last name. Kevin Fest.

Noah Perry. Candy Brewer. Tanya Houston. Jenny Bebita. Samuel Redke, I think. Adrian Flores. Stacey Nicole Lawson. Sean Smith.

Neely Mitchell. Sarah Seward. Lauren Curtis. Carlos Calwood. Shayla Lolo, Amy Woodward, Paige Brush. Oh, boy. Mackenzie Sorensen, Katie Hofton, Josh Fisher, Josh Ryan. Nope, that's Josh Ray. Kenny Russell, Skanati Lee.

That can't be real. Kennedy Kitchen, Megan Kirbon, Shelby Giojette, Giovanni Gnocchi, Jessica Snow, Charles Ashley, Vanessa Borgetts, Kevin Owens, Tobias Gregory, Derek Kelly, Julianne Tufts, Sam Burris, and Daisy, and all of our patrons. You guys are terrific. Thank you. Thank you so much everybody from the bottom of our hearts we cannot thank you enough for what you do for us every goddamn day and you keep it up we'll keep

it up how's that good deal sounds fun we have one other thing one other thing Valerie Callahan is a UPS worker James I don't know if you know her oh no i don't great oh i've heard i've heard how wonderful she is my friend mark bash is really he really likes her and really he would likes her likes her really appreciate it if valley

valerie callahan would marry him and be val Bash, Bosh, Batch. Bash-a-han. Just shorten it to Bash-a-han. It's B-A-S-C-H, if you know Mark, that guy. He would like to marry you and be Mrs. Valerie Batch, Bash, Bashash. If you don't know who that is, I would refuse the invitation. Evidently, she listens every day at work. And they're going to be at our Seattle and Portland shows.

Or they were at them. They were. They'll be there this year. We'll see you then. Let us know if she says yes or no. Yes. Say yes. What a nice gesture.

You'll be Mrs. Besatch. That said, follow us on social media very easy to do there's links to everything and shut up and give me murder calm just keep coming back and seeing us

week after week after week after week and listen to the new show and listen to crime and sports and do all that shit and until next week everybody it's been our pleasure

Miriam 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.