Small Town Murder - #355 - Prove Yourself With Blood - Fletcher, Vermont

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

This week, in Fletcher, Vermont, a very manipulative man, likened to Charles Manson, and Hitler by a psychiatrist, seems to be able to get anyone to do anything he wants. That includes a young lady, who he manipulates into killing a man that she used to see, out of pure jealousy. This fits right into his character, as he also lured someone into cold blooded murder at his own hands. He even seems to be able to manipulate the legal system, for the most part, but will he finally get what's coming to him??Along the way, we find out that syrup needs ambassadors, that some people just know how to talk to people, and that if you're going to have your girlfriend kill someone, don't then have sex with her, while a house full of cops listen in, trying to get evidence on you!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Fletcher, Vermont, a very controlling man is full of jealousy and rage and knows how to express these emotions with cold-blooded murder. Turns out he likes it so much he does it more than once.

Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back 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, wild edition of Small Town Murder. And they've been very crazy lately. Last week, I don't even know what to say.

The hands-painted blue guy, Olivia Newton-John, Xanadu obsession. How do you top that? We have weirdness to top that. Don't worry. Before we do that, though, really, really quick, shut up and give me murder.com. Get your tickets right now to live shows. They added a show in Seattle on the Thursday right before the Friday show, and they added an extra show Saturday night in Portland as well. Those shows, like in Portland, there will be two different shows.

In Seattle, two different shows. So feel free to go to both as people have want to do. So do that. Cleveland is February 10th. Kicking it off. Get your tickets. We are excited. We cannot wait. We will see you there. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports

is where you get all of your bonus materials. We have so much bonus material, too. We have a ton of it for anybody $5 a month or above. You get the whole back catalog of bonus stuff. It's over 150 episodes, and you're going to get two new episodes every other week, one crime and sports, one small-town murder. You get access to it all. This week for crime and sports, quickly, we are going to talk about fantasy sports

and how it went from like four guys in a smoky room to the main cause of divorce in America today. So we'll figure that out. And then for Small Town Murder, we're going to talk about Kai the hatchet-wielding hitchhiker. Fucking yes. When I said we were going to do this episode, I didn't know there was a Netflix documentary about him. Yeah, it came out like two days later. That was weird as shit. I didn't even know it was coming.

So we'll talk about him, and it's a lot of crazy. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports is where you get all of that stuff and more. Shout out at the end of the show where Jimmy messes your name up. Oh, it's so much fun. That said, disclaimer time, this is a

comedy show. It's a comedy show. We're comedians. There will be jokes, and there will be murder, based on the title, which is's a comedy show we're comedians there will be jokes and there will be murder based on the title which is pretty obvious so we're gonna make fun of small towns because you know why everybody's from somewhere small and crappy most of us are from somewhere like that if you've told them if you've heard the fishkill new york episode you'll see that i am more ruthless with anything that i know more than anything else. So, you know, lighten up about small town stuff. We're just joking around. And we're also going to make fun of murderers because, you know what, why not?

Who deserves a little mockery more than murderers? So we're going to do that. What we don't do, though, we go out of our way to avoid is we try not to make fun of the victim, obviously, or the victim's family because, you know, we're assholes. Right. But we're not scumbags. Hey! That's how that works.

There you go. That sounds good to you. Oh, do we have a wild story for you? You think true crime and comedy never, ever, never, ever, never should go together? I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. Your life is probably, listen to someone say, and then her head was removed and buried behind the woodshed.

That's more boring, I think, and a little creepier, to be honest with you. Yeah, it feels weird. It's a little better to loosen up and try to take it with a little bit of a sense of humor. And that said, to do that, I think we should all sit back. I think we should clear the lungs. I don't care where you are. That's right. Let's say right now you're about to go in for like a meeting at work with your boss.

Get right up on the conference table, stand punch the ceiling fan and say shut up and give me murder let's do this jimmy shall we let's go on a trip expecting you to say something about a colonoscopy or something stand up on the table with your ass out oh i, I don't care. Yeah. Sway that tube around like a tail and fucking shout, shut up and get me murdered. I don't care if you're giving a colonoscopy. How'd you like to? I've met Mike before. No, no, no. I'm talking during.

In the middle of it. Right in the middle of it. While they're feeding it in there. I don't care if you're giving a colonoscopy. Feed in three feet of tube and then shout shut up and give me murder and see the look on the person's face. Swing that tube like a lasso, Doc.

Come on over here. Let's go on a trip, Jimmy. What do you say? Wag your tail, everybody. Feels good. Let's do this. We're going to Vermont. Hey! Oh, it's pretty up there oh this is uh very pretty this is northwestern vermont close to canada i mean it's on way up the key of the county it's in borders the canada borders the canadian border this is a place where

to party people go to montreal you know what i mean like that's that's the closest city to go party at. That would be like a couple hours to Albany. But it's rad up there, right? Montreal? It's so great, right? It's cool. I guess.

I don't know. It's very French, though. You have to account for the Frenchness of it all. So, I don't know. French Canadians are hot, though. I like it. Yeah, yeah. No, there's nothing wrong with that.

But I mean, I think there's a bit of an attitude. A little poo-poo to the Americans. And maybe if you came from, like, the woods of rural Vermont and you're in there at a party tonight with your flannel shirt and your suspenders on, they'll probably be like, I don't know, I don't like these people in our city. Please go back stateside. Please go back to how you say hole where you crawl out of.

Yes. Thank you very much. Go back, find rock. I don't know. I don't know. Rock to crawl under with your ancestor. I don't know. Crawl back into ocean like two generation ago came out with you.

Something like that. I'm not sure. Thank you for taking a break from cave painting. Would you like to buy baguette now? Baguette and cigarette? Baguette-er-ette I have for you. It's a baguette with a cigarette in. You eat it through the baguette, and then you come to cigarette at the end.

It's right there. Last bite includes cigarette. You smoke the rest. It's very good. You know, cigarette at the end of. It's very good. It's the best. We include, we put right in bread now. It's very good. It's the best. We include, we put right in bread now.

It's very good. So this is Fletcher, Vermont, like I said, Northwestern, up by Canada. Right away, the town website, the banner on here, you expect like, you know, a slogan or beautiful. Grab me, yeah. Grab me, pull me in. Well, they're trying to grab you and pull you in because they said large, large letters. Zoning administrator job opening. Pull me in. Well, they're trying to grab you and pull you in because they said large, large letters. Zoning administrator job opening.

Oh, hey. Town of Fletcher is looking for a part-time person to perform duties as zoning administrator for the town. Training may be available. We don't know, though. We're not sure what we have for you. We had a 20-hour a week job for you. So come on in, everybody. That's what they're trying to do here that's fantastic now the weird thing about vermont is vermont tried to be its own country they're the

texas of the north stop it yes uh in 1783 after the signing of the treaty of paris that ended the revolutionary war no no that's that's I, the Versailles Treaty. Don't worry. No, no, this is – I won't interrupt you. No, you knew Versailles was in France. That's good. Yeah, I get it.

I'm happy. You got it. It's a war that ended with the Paris Treaty. So you know what? A lot of them end there. That makes sense. it it's a war that ended with a paris treaty so you know what a lot of them end there that's it makes sense so my history lessons are mostly learned at a bar top with lots of alcohol involved people say interesting things i go oh that's fascinating and then i drink away those brains

and also they were drunk and half of the shit they said probably wasn't true also so it's probably good yeah i probably just nailed what they said. Yeah, perfectly. That ended the Revolutionary War, the Treaty of Versailles. That makes sense to me. No Corona, no London. That's right. So this made Great Britain recognize the independence of the United States. And for something very dry here, let's bring back the Sahara Desert Fart Fact of the Week, the driest, most arid fact there is that really is not entertaining at all article two of

the treaty agreed on boundaries between the u.s and british possessions to the north and included vermont within the u.s vermont's border with quebec was established at that point but vermont's government continued to take the position that it was independent of both the United States and Britain, and remained so until 1791. So for an eight-year period there, Vermont was, they said they were their own country, basically. And Quebec acknowledged it. Yeah, they were like, sure, why not? We don't give a shit. Fascinating.

There you go. So there's some things going on here. I found a Jesus Christ. I felt like a historical historical like a retelling some of these like old memoirs here. And this is interesting. This is 1855. We're talking about here to people that came here. Two men named Jefferson Fulton and Abel Chase were living on the east side of Metcalf Pond on adjoining farms and had difficulty about their lot line.

They had a property dispute. Okay. Okay. Which finally grew into an open quarrel. They turned into – they hated each other. Jefferson Fulton got a pint of rum and a butcher knife, drank the rum, and went to the premises of Abel Chase, who was with his son, who was 10 years old. Son of the dispute. This guy was making a fence with his kid here on the disputed property line. Within a few yards here, he says, well, old Jeff, time has come or whatever.

And so he ends up attacking. He figures he's going to attack him there. So what ends up happening here is when Fulton, Jefferson Fulton, the guy who was coming over to attack, had approached within reach. He pulled his butcher knife out and stabbed the other guy in the chest. And this guy turned to run. But as he ran, the guy fucking stabbed him in guy in the chest. And this guy turned to run, but as he ran, the guy fucking stabbed him in the back too. So this pierced his aorta,

and then he also then chased the boy here as well, but the boy ended up getting away, and he had to go back to make sure the guy he was after was dead. So he kicked him a few times and that was that. That was like the first murder in the area. And he won the property dispute. I think he was the winner of that property dispute. Now it's a dispute with a 10-year-old. So I don't know how that works.

I think they're a little more amiable. And then during the Spanish flu of 1918 and 1920 here, they can't figure out why Fletcher did not get affected by the flu. It makes no sense. There was seven so-called escape communities that were out. Fletcher, it's rural. It's remote. And there's seven of these communities they studied that were like that. And Fletcher was like the only one that didn't still get ravaged by it.

It's really fucking weird. And they didn't have like any precautions either. They just didn't spread there for some reason. So then they said that Fletcher also had the fewest cases of covid in Vermont as well. So I don't know what it is about the water there. The air don't survive something in F about the water there, the air. Viruses don't survive. Something in Fletcher, it's so weird. It just doesn't spread there.

Things don't spread. It's very weird. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I don't know. This county was named after, it's in Franklin County, named after Benjamin Franklin, of course, here as well. Here's some reviews of the town. What do you say here? Let's do this. Reviews, which, by the way, will be the subject

of our new show, Your Stupid Opinions, which is a show where we do reviews, but not just small town reviews, just reviews of anything. We want to hear, the internet is all reviews, and we want to hear people complain about things that are really not worthy of complaining about.

We'll do a couple of these from a restaurant here this week. So in town, here is three stars for Fletcher. There are not many job opportunities and most of them would not allow you to have an affordable income. Yeah. The part-time zoning thing.

You're not allowed. That's why I put that. You're not allowed to make a living. Here's four stars. They like it. Smuggler's notch is a business, and it's very nice. Smuggler's Notch? Smuggler's Notch.

Oh, that's different. Smuggler's Notch. That's like an asshole, right? Yeah, I think so. Smuggler's Balloon Notch. Stick it right in your Smuggler's Notch. Smuggler's Balloon Notch. Come on in, everybody.

It's delicious. i really thought that's what you said i was so gross that would have been great here is three stars there are not many places to eat and there's only one bar the restaurants are not open late that's not terrific so here's that's the only reviews i could find in the town because it's a very small town. But here is the review of the 158 Main Restaurant and Bakery in Fletcher. 158. What is that? There's a zip code? Probably their address.

I bet it's 158 Main Street. Got it. I bet that's what it is. So now keep in mind, this is on Yelp. There's 205 reviews of this place, and they have a four-star Yelp rating. So just to be fair. So I'm going to give you a five star to set the table and then go from there. So here's five stars

from Linda G. in Massachusetts. She says whenever we go to the area, we go to 158 Maine. The blueberry pancakes were so incredible and just huge. Three big pancakes. She's really excited about very small things. Three big pancakes. Jesus, three of them. She's really excited about

very small things. Three big pancakes. Really, Susie? What else did they have? Were there ponies to ride? Jesus Christ. I'll tell you this, though. Vermont does love breakfast, and they are so good at it. They have syrup.

Yeah, great point. It's a syrup town. Best breakfast I ever had was there. Go on. Fuck yeah. Great for leftovers. Don't eat leftover pancakes. Ew. Once they're over, they're over.

How dare you? They're a pancake. Yeah. It's already got syrup in it. 10 minutes after they're done, they're over. 30 seconds after they're done, they're over. You have to just eat them right off the griddle for the pancake to be edible. The eggs benedict were just perfect with quite a sense of lemon to them.

Everything was so, so good. We also got 12 cookies and two loaves of bread to take home. Yum. What's with the numbers? Yum. She's very specific. She wants you to know details so you know she's not lying. Highly recommended and be sure to make reservations.

Well then, this place sounds spectacular, doesn't it? Three big pancakes. I'm sold. Did anybody not have a great time, James? Well, Erica W. from Vermont, from Fairfax, nearby Vermont, didn't like it very much at all. She gave it one star here. Quote, never been able to eat anything there. With a frowny face. Colon dash frowny face colon dash frowny face so

not good um gave it three tries dot dot dot dot dot dot dot six so double the ellipses ellipses squared no good no good she thought for six ellipses and hit us with two words? Gave it three tries. No good. That's what she did. That's a terrible review. It's not good. She can certainly elaborate with one star. Holy shit.

First, it was a Philly cheesesteak that was so covered in cheese that I couldn't see the meat. Oh. That sounds awesome. That's the best Philly cheesesteak I've ever heard of. It gave me... I've never heard... Not enough cheese. Too much cheese. Take some off, you fucking complaining twat.

What are you talking about? When I picked it up, it was so soggy. That I don't care for. That's a problem. Have a stiff bread. Give me your wet meat. Yeah, I had to ask for another bun, and the fries are not hand cut. I'm sorry.

We'll not have anything to do with these machine-cut fucking potatoes. Well, dot, dot, dot. I dislike that. Okay. Evidently. She was going to say no good, but she's like, oh, I already said that. I already burned it. Damn it.

Next, I got breakfast. You think you can't go wrong on breakfast. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Four dots now. Very inconsistent with the ellipses. that's what i like about it that's why i'm that's why i'm pointing it out not true my pancakes were raw and i say raw because it's one two three four five exclamation points on raw she's furious raw just to liquid they just poured a glass they poured it in my water glass and walked away a glass of pancake a glass of pancake no good and i waited so long i had to take it to go because i was going to be late for work one waitress is ridiculous spelled completely wrong ridiculous

r-e-d-i-c-u-l-u-s no no and no dot dot dot dot dot dot no good she's not even nice either and another frowny face that's how she closes it out you think you think one person waiting on an entire restaurant is gonna be fucking happy about this she might be a little bitchy that's what i'm saying so that's you get differing opinions is what we're getting at here. So give it a shot. Sounds like the pancakes are to die for. I don't know.

If you like them wet. If you like a wet pancake. People in this town, 1,348. It's a small town. Tiny. And there are some remote properties. One of our people in our story this week is from the middle of nowhere. It's pretty much average with male and female. Median age is a little bit higher than normal.

It's 43 years old. More married, 66% married. It's usually 50-50. That's the thing about this area of the country. It takes a lot of money to live up there, right? Well, I think you need help on the property if you have a big property. You need someone to get the – Make less work.

Hit the maple taps. You know what I mean? There's a lot of taps to get to. I don't know how you're going to do it. So yeah, it's 2.1% single with no children. So it's not a party town at all. There's one bar, so that tells you a lot. Race of this town, 98.6% white. It's Vermont, though. If you've ever been to vermont you don't go wow i bet the mexican food is great here it's not something that's said a lot in vermont right you go three big pancakes that's what you say in vermont and that's you're fine with that but you've never said i'll bet december is teeming with tamale. Tamale month. So 0.0% black, 0.2% Asian, and then 1.2% two or more races.

0.0% Hispanic. It's incredibly Vermont. That is very Vermont and almost Canadian. So 43.5% of the people here are religious and the far and away runaway of highest religion is catholic because as we know catholics are the baptists of the north of the north they are there um last election in this county 52.7 percent of the people voted democratic 43.6 percent voted republican 3.7 percent independent because vermont rolls that way so independent wise uh low unemployment rate here i don't know if you're a lot of taps to tend you know that's i guess that's what it is

median household income here too 84 500 bucks that's vermont man it's amazing how they do that's a lot high it's normally 57 000 so that's that's wow figuring it're figuring it. Cost of living, usually $100, and it's average. Here it's $105. It's not even that bad. Wow. Yeah. Housing is a 93 out of 100. Median home cost $272,200 here.

I'm moving. I've had enough. I've had enough. I've eaten enough Mexican food for one lifetime. I'm done. So if we've convinced you, as we have Jimmy, let's show them around. We have for you and, of course, for Jimmy, the Fletcher, Vermont Real Estate Report. Your average two-bedroom rental here is expensive, actually.

It's $1,514, which is above the national average, but I don't know how available that is. Now, I have two properties in Fletcher and one in Cambridge, which is right next door. Fletcher, here's one, 2.13 acres of land. There's a bunch of adjoining lots for sale. Seems like somebody owned a big swath of property and now they're breaking it up. Somebody died and their family's getting rid of this shit. That's what it is.

A bunch of them are for sale, too, of different varying sizes. This one's $65,000. Two acres? Two acres plus of nice. It's nice. It's pretty. Very nice. Here's another one in Fletcher. 41.41

acres. So 41.41 acres. It's pretty. There's nothing around. And they said the soil has been checked, so it's good to build on. They did all that shit. So you can be ready to do a sub development or whatever you want to do. $269,000 for that. It's pretty. Hold on. Yeah. Hold on. Did you say 41 acres? 41 and almost 41 and a half acres. For less than $300,000. Yep. It's pretty beautiful. You can't buy one acre in Arizona for that price. No. Fuck no. That is amazing. And it would be a swath of dry dirt full of termites. This is beautiful. There's trees and hills and views and shit. Surrounded by a bunch of psychos. Well, yeah.

That's six of one, really, if you think about Arizona. Now, here's a house in Cambridge nearby. Five bedroom, one bath. So that's rough. It's built in 1851, this house. That's why. It's old. Four and a half acres you're on.

Very pretty land. The house is rough. It looks like it was last remodeled and redecorated in, I shit you not, like 1957. It looks like Beaver Cleaver's house and hasn't been touched since. I'm talking the kitchen, the wallpaper. The wallpaper in this one room is clearly like a child's wallpaper from the 50s. It's creepy as fuck. It's not dirty. The place isn't's creepy as fuck. It's not dirty.

The place isn't run down or dirty. It's just old. Grandma finally croaked. So this is Grandma Croaked Special of the Week here. $260,000 for this thing. This is unbelievable. That's a great value. That's not bad.

What are the pizza delivery options? Right? That's where you're going to falter, I think. I don't think 158 Main delivers. I don't think 1,700 people demands high pizza traffic. Nope. It really doesn't. It really doesn't.

I'm going to struggle. We're going to struggle. Things to do here. The Vermont Maple Festival is nearby, of course. Several things here. The Vermont Maple Festival Youth Talent Show you have there. The show awards over $2,000 in scholarships. Wait, what?

It's like Miss American Teen Princess from Drop Dead Gorgeous. Like, you won a $150 scholarship to, you know, Miss Katie's Beauty School. Oh, thanks. $2,000 in scholarships dispersed amongst people. Dispersed amongst the group. The Maple Ambassador Contest. Okay. What the fuck is that?

There's a boy and a girl. They're teenagers, and they have sashes on, and she's holding roses. So I don't know if it's like part beauty contest, but it says you have the honor, responsibility, and fun of representing the Green Mountain State's signature product during their reigning year. So you're just the maple ambassador. There's a maple syrup. Yeah. There's a maple syrup contest. The winners of this contest, you know what you get for winning?

Maple syrup. You're recognized as being the best of Vermont. That's it. That's it. Ragging rights. Ragging rights only. There's bands, too, bands too of course gotta have bands joshua glass and adriana chobot have a a piano duel with drummer andrew bedard so

if they have bedard i'll be there i mean i didn't know bedard was coming so holy shit um the phil abare band featuring keegan nolan holy what happened to phil keegan nolan's gonna be there and andrew bedard jimmy so many guests please move there let me stay in your house um the young tradition fiddleheads i don't know what that is. I don't know. Hopefully old enough to insult them afterwards when their show's terrible, I hope. Then there's Morgan Miles. They seem very proud of her. They have a whole thing. She's on Rolling Stone and Billboard, this and that.

Never heard of her. Some mid-40s, frosted-haired country lady. That's all of them. Some mid-40s, frosted-haired country lady. Yeah. That's all of them. I know. That's what I, yep. Morgan Miles. Yep.

Sounds, I mean, it sounds like if you made up a movie, if you're writing a script, and you're like, we need a country, how about Morgan Miles? Yeah, make her a mid-40s, blonde, frosty lady. Yeah. Also sounds like somebody you search on Pornhub. Yeah. Morgan Miles? Morgan Miles?

I hear she's got a fat ass. Let's look at Morgan Miles. She takes miles out of Miles. She takes miles. Miles and miles. And then finally, to close it out, Rockin' Ron the Friendly Pirate. Great. Oh, boy. A family fun time with Rockin' Ron singing friendly tunes.

Oh, boy. Oh, yikes. Crime rate in this town besides Rockin' Ron's performance. We'll leave you alone for this time, Ron. You've taken enough. When you see him, too, you go, he's been kicked while he's down. He's been kicked while he's down. Remember the Wiggles?

Your kids were in that range of mind. Remember they had the pirate in the Wiggles? Yeah. That's who he looked like. He's dressed like Captain captain feather sword or whatever his name was and he's like he's got a big smile on his face and he's like my wife hasn't had sex with me in three years that's the look if he doesn't laugh he'll cry if he does yeah the smile hides the frown for plastic holding a plastic hook thing on his hand. Huh? What do you think, everybody?

In his Party City costume. Poor bastard. That's what it really just looks very Party City. Party City pirate here. Crime rate in this town, property crime, is about one-third below the national average. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is about two thirds under the average. So safe as fuck. Wouldn't it be amazing if everybody could just make a little bit of money and have cheap shit?

That's what this is. You know, be able to forge your life. And guess what? You don't do great if economics weren't like things weren't like Things weren't like the way they are. Economics were everybody's favor. Hey, hey, everybody. Let's just all agree to this, okay? We all have money and everything costs nothing. Look at the smiles.

Wouldn't that be awesome? Yeah. Look at everybody smiling. Sure, we have nobody to make it because they have so much money they don't want to work there. But, you know, don't care. Works good. But, hey, that would be great. Yeah.

This is what happens. You just get a nice place. Ut good. But hey, that would be great. Yeah. That's just what happens. You just get a nice place. Utopia. Yeah. Party City Pirate. You just sit around judging each other's maple syrup. That's life. That said, let's talk about a murder, shall we?

Oh boy. Oh boy. More than one. Didn't favor everybody. That did not favor everybody. You have one guy who's definitely out for himself here. And two people. It's two murders here. Separate incidents. This is fucking crazy, man. Holy shit.

So let's get started. Let's talk about Gerald Max Ryan, first of all. He is born in May of 1943. He's a born in May of 1943. He's a born and raised Vermont guy. Is that a Vermonter? Vermontonian? Vermontonian.

You never know because a lot of times the states are like, really? That's how they want it to be? That's what you want to be? Maine, they're called Mainer. They call themselves Mainers. And you're like, you're going with Mainer, huh? By choice? Okay, I'll call you that if that's what you're looking for.

Sure. So, yeah, he's born in 43. His parents are Alfred and Arlene Ryan, and they name him Gerald Max. He grows up around this area. And, boy, is he a colorful character, as we'll get into. Doesn't seem to really work as a steady job here. We're going to catch up with him in about 1973. Still no steady job. 30 years old.

No, but he's got a trailer with other trailers behind it. It's a fucking mess, this situation. He lives in a rural area like his brother has a trailer that's kind of connected to his trailer, but it's a really weird setup um he marries a woman named shirley and he's gonna have a whole bunch of kids we don't even get it because they're this guy is like he looks like jim jones he just reminds me of jim jones he looks just like him and he the way he acts is like jim jones without the being a pastor or like without the cult leadership. But he just criminal.

He can get people to do things that he wants. He's very manipulative and he spreads his seed prodigiously. Like he he's always. Oh, God, he's always fucking other people. Like always. He has kids with tons of people. He's a total dirtbag when it comes to that. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid.

We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed

to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit

with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes,

you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife. Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx,

and I'm excited to bring you the official Jinx podcast. We'll be revisiting all six episodes of part one and watching along with part two as it airs on Max, starting April 21st. Bye-bye. The official Jinx podcast.

Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. So he's got his wife, Shirley. She finally has enough and divorces him in 1970. OK, yeah, but doesn't get out of his web, though. He keeps everybody in his web. It's weird. He'll have like at one point in the story, he's hanging out with his ex-wife while he's still married to his new wife.

And he's got his new girlfriend there as well. Wow. He's got like this, yeah, like a third generation of woman he's banging. How do you do that? I don't know. That's what I mean. You have to be a manipulative son of a bitch to be able to pull off the shit he does. Very Jim Jones-like.

First, you got to want it. Yes. I don't want to be around three people who have been inside that's the other thing first this has to be like preferable to you first so you have to be mentally ill to begin with here to want this and then on top of that to pull it off actually figure it out yeah like later on they'll compare gerald max ryan a psychologist will compare him to quote charles manson or hitler oh hitler if you're getting hitler as like you know as a fucking um if you like you may also like if you may also likes our manon and Hitler, like that's a wow. That's eye opening.

This also bought. Yeah, that's fucking eye opening, isn't it? It really is. And they don't say Jim Jones because this happens in the 70s before Jonestown. So 10 years later, they would have absolutely called him Jim Jones because of the way he acts and everything. Yeah, just trying make it tax-exempt is the only difference and not involving religion. So he divorces her in 1970. She divorces him due to his constant adulterous behavior, she said, just constantly fucking other people.

And so he marries a new woman very quickly, Kathy. So he marries Kathyathy almost immediately and he's married to her and that will fall apart too because of his constant philandering so he's he can't keep his dick out of the wrong maple tap we'll just put it that way it's wrong tree every time yeah so uh i thought this was my tree so uh he has a friend of his too named howard brooks and brooks was a in used to be an employee of the central vermont railway so he's not an employee at this point in the early 70s here because brooks apparently has a rip-roaring methamphetamine habit like is that right? Oh, yeah. In early 70s.

Early adopter. We're talking biker speed. This is bad shit here. Yeah. This will make you kidnap three teenage girls and take them to a fucking sleazy bar somewhere. He was fired from the railroad for it? I don't know if he was fired. Just stopped showing up.

Yeah. I don't know. Shows one over the other. Yeah, it happened in like 1970, so I'm sure the records aren't that well kept. But he's known, Howard Brooks is known as a bit of a, just kind of a mess with drugs and shit like that. And he has been friends with Gerald Max Ryan here for a long time. They've known each other. Gerald also, from what we find out later, definitely dabbles in some drugs himself.

Is that right? And that would be the only thing that would kind of make sense of his behavior is also drugs involved too. That also might lure in a few extracurricular ladies outside of the marriage. Yeah. Yeah, especially if you can hook them.

If you can get them, that's what pimps do. You know what I mean? So he's very manipulative. He would think that. He would think like, oh, you know, I can get her to really stay here. Any drugs. Guess what I've got also. Look what else I've got.

Taste this. Look at this. So in 1973, he's married to Kathy, who they may be getting divorced soon, but they're still kind of hanging around each other. And he's divorced from Shirley, who still hangs out with him. He's got Howard Brooks, who's his friend, who in early 1973, they have a bit of a falling out. Oh. Because Brooks apparently was helping his ex-wife in a certain way that we'll get into here. So he also has a new girlfriend who he's pretty hot for.

Not really new. He's actually been banging around with her for about four years now. Yeah. So since before he was divorced from his first wife. Yeah. Her name is Bonnie Lee King. Bonnie Lee King. At 1973, you know how old she is, Jimmy?

24. 19 years old oh no yes uh she uh he has been hooking up with her since he was about 28 and she was about 15 gross yeah i would say that's horrific that is not fucking cool at all so this is the type this is the level of uh rural we're talking here though this is like um king's her upbringing um later on a psychologist will describe her upbringing as quote like her house the home she grew up in quote one of the most isolated places in fletcher a quote a broken down house way off in the hills. Yeah. It's like this little subsistence farm she grew up on in the middle of nowhere. What happened to her out there?

It's terrible. This psychologist said that she was, quote, a natural product of an isolated home situation with a very narrow knowledge of the world. She's just literally just a farm girl, just sitting on the farm all the time, nowhere to go, lives too far to go anywhere. There's that. The psychologist described her family situation as lonely with an, quote, almost non-existent father.

And he lived there. Really? That's the thing. Almost non-existent is his personality and his presence in the house, but not physically. Physically, he's there. But they said her mother was very powerful, very domineering mother who lorded over the whole house. Subservient father who does more like a brother. Yeah.

Passive father. And and she's an only child too, Bonnie. So to have someone controlling and be in their web out in the middle of nowhere like that, you're really in there. She's also, Bonnie's also a diabetic. So her mother and her father,

everybody's been taking care of her, watching over her, sheltering her too. So they were afraid she'd get hurt, she'd get sick and all that kind of shit. So she's been sheltered. She was very overprotected by her mother. And everybody said that she was looked upon as, quote, somewhat fragile. Her whole family treated her like she was made of porcelain and would break.

She's the only child. She's a little girl. And she's got diabetes at a young age. Jesus. Is it an insulin-reliant kind? I'm not sure about that. That I'm unsure. It's probably, right?

It's got to be. I mean, maybe. I would think so because usually when they get it young, it's one of those things that's in your genes. I can't remember. I don't remember how diabetes breaks down into different categories, but I'm not going to make an asshole out of myself and try to make a medical diagnosis of this girl in 1973. Make some wild accusations, James. Let's get after it. There you go.

You know what? I think they stuck a needle in her ass three times a day, buddy, and they never let her out because she had to be home. Freaking the shit out of her hand. Her mom insists she had a special pillow she had to kneel on right in the middle of the living room, and her mom insisted on it. No. So she's brought up by a father who the psychologist said was, quote, very, very quiet, an almost nonexistent man. Wow.

So, yeah, Bonnie grew up in Fletcher. She went to Bellows Free Academy in Fairfax for school. to bellows free academy in fairfax for school and um they said that they called her a product of quote living most of her life in a small somewhat decrepit farmhouse a long way from anywhere ew yeah sounds like dorothy like this is or jenny and forrest gump fuck she just needs to she needs to pray for a concussion and uh to be taken away to a different place. For a couple hours. For a couple hours just to escape, man. Just for a vacation.

Decrepit is never a good word. Oh, decrepit? It's falling apart. I have a picture of it, too. Even if it's somewhat. Yeah, and somewhat decrepit. I have the picture of the house. It looks like, wow, what family was murdered in there

you know and the father came out with a bloody chainsaw and sat on the porch and waited for the sheriff like what that's what that house looks like and then taped off for 30 years and they let it go to waste and then this family moved in with you know it's really what it looks like yeah they said that she sort of lived in a dream world for most of her life, having been brought up in a social vacuum. She's just – if you're a kid and you're alone all the time and you have nothing even – it's not even like you're in the city and you stare out the window and see people doing things. You're just sitting there by yourself. It's quiet. Imagining what people do.

Yeah. You would have kind of a dream world because why not sit there bored? You might as well have a dream world. They said that at school she was considered clever by her teachers until about 12 or 13. Oh. Then they said her work began to deteriorate. And this is when social shit became more. 12 and 13 is when social stuff becomes as big a part of a student life as academics.

You know what I mean? And she wasn't jiving well with that shit. So they said that she was aloof and distant and had very, very few friends because she couldn't hang out with any. She wasn't allowed to do anything. She lived in the middle of nowhere and she's diabetic. So back then that was like, oh, we keep her wrapped in bubble wrap and put her away. Now, she this is all until she meets Gerald Max Ryan when she's 15 years old. Shit.

I don't know how they met. But this year old man, this scumbag talked this, you know, innocent, very innocent in a social vacuum quote unquote in the middle of nowhere person and he was her first sexual partner and what he called what she would later call the most influential person in her life from the age of from the age of 15 on yep he he fucking manson family to her hardcore Just the fuck told her she was, you know, told her she was smart and told her she was this and that. And what he does is these manipulators and they'd see a farm girl like this is like easy prey because they look and they go, where are the if I'm caulking, where are the spots where I need to hit? Where's the empty spots? Where are the parents not haven't filled on those spots?

And you come in with your fucking dick cock and you put it right in there and lay it right across and you go, there you go. No, you're pretty. No, I think you're really smart. No, you could do things on your own. Whether he thinks that or not, he's going to tell her that and then she thinks she feels like an adult and next thing you know, he's banging a 15-year-old

because they're not sophisticated enough to know that he's a scumbag who's just thinking of his dick. Horrible. Horrible shit. So not cool. So September 23rd, 1973 comes around. What a weird day this is.

Okay. We're in Fletcher. We're at Gerald Max Ryan's trailer. Okay. Shirley is over. His ex-wife. He's been divorced for three years. Her and her boyfriend, Edward Dagnalt, are both there.

No. She's out there hanging out, which I'm like, what? No. No. They're hanging out at his trailer. They hung out there from about 3 until 5.30 in the afternoon. They didn't just stop by they stopped a half hours that's a that's a visit man you could watch a fucking nascar race

in that amount of time that's a visit that's a whole football game that's a yeah that's what i was just thinking up there i don't know maybe trina i don't know if i don't know yeah i don't think so either i don't think so either well Well, the rural areas in the north are into racing, but not NASCAR racing. They're into different kinds of racing. They're into like mud and shit like that. Yeah, there's a lot of racetracks around. Snowmobiles. Up here would be snowmobiles.

They have the moose off, they call it, where you actually kill a moose and mount an engine in it. It's a big boat engine, and everyone rides a moose and see who wins. It's pretty interesting. It's a good one. So they do that at the Maple Festival. I didn't have time to read that part. So they're all hanging out at the trailer, which seems really. But there's other people there, too, that we'll get into.

There's a bunch of people here, honestly. It's a party, huh? It's a party at the trailer, including my ex-wife and her boyfriend, which, no. Is this a weekend? I suppose. It should be. I hope so. It better be.

Otherwise, none of these people have jobs because it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon. So if they're hanging out, I don't know. Quitting time at 2, they haul ass to this guy's house? Woo-hoo. Shit, get to the trailer. I need to be there. So during this time from three to five thirty, Shirley, his ex-wife, says that Gerald made several calls during this time to his now estranged second wife, Kathy. Yeah.

Who is not at the trailer. And she's actually living with who? Brooks. Howard Brooks. The one we talked about before. His old friend. Yeah. She's living with Howard Brooks and Howard Brooks' girlfriend.

Oh, no. Not in a polyamorous way, but like they're taking her in and, you know, quote, protecting her and all that kind of shit. So, yeah, this was in uh in in an apartment in saint albans okay now shirley shirley ryan who still goes by shirley ryan she said she overheard gerald ask kathy to come to fletcher to get their four-month-old son jeremiah who he is watching so add him to the mix here. Add a four-month-old, your ex-wife, your girlfriend, your current wife's on the phone. Oh, by the way, your 19-year-old girlfriend's there also.

Oh, Jesus, what a day. Everybody's there. It's a lot. So, yeah, Gerald had brought Jeremiah back with him from Kathy's sister's house in Dalton, so picked him up several days ago. So he's had the kid for several days and he's asking her, can you come get the kid? Yeah. Yeah.

There we go. I got some. I need to find more teenage girls to have sex with. So ask Kathy also to bring with her. Hey, bring Howard Brooks with you and Ronald Rich, who at the time owned a camp in St. Albans Bay. So she's like, why? And he's like, just bring him with bring him with. So following these phone calls, Shirley said that her former husband appeared quite upset.

All agitated and walking around and kind of not. His social skills went out the window. He was hanging out and everybody was kind of partying and then all of a sudden he's in his own world and he's grunting and grumbling and groaning about shit. And she said he started making preparations for Howard's visit. Oh. And now. Well, yeah, what are you going to set out?

Maybe. Chill a couple extra beers. I was going to say it's 530, so maybe not coffee. Maybe throw a couple extra beers i was gonna say it's 5 30 so maybe not coffee maybe throw a couple extra beers in the fridge maybe uh you know mixing the pancake batter he's gonna stay all night maybe a chip and dip situation do we have any salsa you know something like that we could look at yeah throw something together that powdered french onion shit in the sour cream mix it up whatever motherfucker with my nachos that's all he sees this shit well he

probably did all that but afterwards i'm not sure if he did that but what i am sure that he did is that he loaded a 16 gauge shotgun what what is this and placed it behind a porch door okay then this is fucking really wackadoo here he cuts a takes some scissors and cuts a hole in the drapes that look out to the front porch. So he doesn't have to open the drapes to see out. He can just like look through now a peephole. Yeah. Just going to say like you'd look at that and you go, oh, it's just drapes. Oh, with an eyeball in it.

That's no big deal. Oh, why is it moving? It's following. It's following me. It's following me. So he cuts a hole there and then he drilled, drilled a second eye level hole. He got a drill out, Jimmy, power tools, and drilled a second eye level hole inside the porch entrance. So like the door. Through the wall?

Through the wall. Yeah. So now he's got two points of view. Two peepholes. So they also, now that's all she saw. Other people that were there said that he also drilled

two additional holes in a garage that's adjacent to the trailer where his brother Richard and another guy named Robert Sweet were hanging out in this garage. They were in there with all the loaded weapons. So that's why they saw him drilling holes in that room because that's where they were, whereas Shirley stayed in the living room apparently.

So now at one point in the afternoon, becausenie king is over here as well like we said the young girl here um shirley said that gerald asked bonnie to leave well go why don't you go home now leave the trailer she said that at this suggestion bonnie started to sob uncontrollably which is he didn't say get the fuck out he's like hey i gotta do something when you take off for a little while and it was just like tears started pouring out of her face sobbing uncontrollably, which is he didn't say get the fuck out. He's like, hey, I got to do something. Why don't you take off for a little while? And it was just like tears started pouring out of her face, sobbing uncontrollably. So she's emotionally touchy. Let's just say there's a lot of overreaction per the environment. But I don't know.

He's making Swiss cheese out of the house. This is fucking weird. That's weird. So, yeah, maybe that's part of it. I'm not sure. But she said, no, she is asserting she didn't want to go i don't want to leave i want to be here no don't make me leave so eventually that weird place i don't yeah i don't want to go back to the decrepit desolated for desolate farmhouse so eventually though he persuades her to leave

because he can talk her into you'll'll find out, literally anything. Really? Oh, yeah. Now, she says, so here's who's there. It's Gerald, Max, Ryan. It is Shirley, Ryan, his ex-wife, her boyfriend. Bonnie is there. He ends up leaving. His one brother is there, Richard.

Then the sweet guy, Ronald Sweet, Rob Sweet, and then his other brother, Dennis, is there as well. So there's three Ryan boys, an ex-wife, a boyfriend, and another friend, and his new 19-year-old girlfriend. Fascinating. And he's on the phone arguing with his ex-wife and trying to get her to bring over the guy who is currently harboring her. Okay.

That's where we're at right now. Oh, and Phyllis Schoolcraft as well is there. Where's Phyllis at? She's, who knows? She's banging somebody, I'm sure, in this house. I don't know. Everybody's banging everybody or they're a brother. Or they're, yeah.

That's what's happening. She's not related to anybody, so I assume she's hooking up with somebody or they're hooking up with her. I don't know. She's banging Rob or a brother. Rob, Dennis, Rich. There's a shitload of people here. We don't know. Maybe she's the third for the other two. I don't know banging rob or a brother rob dennis rich there's a shitload of people here we don't know maybe she's the third for the other two i don't know who knows uh she was at the

trailer throughout most of the afternoon they were all the original point of people being here was ryan was pouring cement at a place in the yard it's a party so that's why he had his brothers there and the other guy and then he invited his ex i don't know maybe they were all cracking some beers after they were done pouring concrete yeah it's a party over there so uh phyllis schoolcraft said she heard gerald ask his brother richard and the sweet guy before they left the trailer to hurry back before rich and howie come now that's howard and the other guy that his ex-wife is supposed to be bringing over here. So around 5.30 p.m., everyone left, leaving only – this is weird. Everyone leaves except for Gerald Ryan, Shirley Ryan, and her boyfriend.

Okay. So everyone leaves. Just him and his ex and her new boyfriend are there. Which the smaller the group it is, the weirder it is. My nightmare. If there's 50 people there, you go, I don't know. I guess maybe it's just a social group and they all know each other. Best friends is here.

I kind of like that guy. Yeah, he's a nice guy. I don't want to cause any friction. Let's all get along. If there's four people there, or three in this case four including the child her and him oh no not happening so that's a that's an uncomfortable sitting in the living room there so nobody says it huh nobody nobody says anything about how fucked up this is this is weird right i'm just gonna go out and say it this is i'm uncomfortable right now.

I threw it back. You accepted that trash? All right. All right. Whatever. Hey, it's fine. So they leave. They're all there.

And Shirley and her boyfriend are there. Shirley said that Gerald asked her to stay for supper, but she said no because her boyfriend said he wanted to get out of there. As I would imagine he would. Let's not spend more time at your ex-husband's trailer, please. Everybody left. Can we go too? No, no, no. Stay for supper. Let's all have a good time. No, let's go. I didn't want to be here at all.

That is a terrible offer to get. Yeah. Would you like to stay and we'll have dinner at my ex-husband's trailer just the three of us no i don't want to do that absolutely people here they all left and it's just us now absolutely not um so they uh they ended up going out um to eat this is uh shirley and her husband her boyfriend they went out to eat at a restaurant in St. Albans. And then this is the three of them went out. And then her and her boyfriend went back to their St. Albans apartment at about 815.

OK. 815 p.m. She goes there. She said as soon as she got home, she received a phone call from Gerald. Oh, dude. He's just relentless. Max. Yeah.

Yo, G mac over here uh she said that he said quote oh my god she said quote hell he says i just shot howie and i'm gonna turn myself in okay that's the phone call she got she's like pardon um one more again she asked is is he hurt is howard hurt and she said she told her quote is what he said quote well how he slumped over and people from the van which is the vehicle that he got there in um which is his ex his estranged wife a couple other people there's like four people in there put him in the van and took him away so all the people from the van took him away so shirley said that gerald asked her to meet him at champlain volkswagen i guess a car dealership no meet me here she said okay think about how manipulative and controlling he is where he can get her to do this shit even after they're fucking

divorced and she has a new boyfriend for years this is wild i'm gonna turn myself in is the police station also a volkswagen dealership what is happening yeah are we meeting several detectives there and i can give them my is that where the chief of police has a day job why are we going there you have an office i know it's a part-time like the zoning administrator but so he said uh meet me there she said okay she got into his car when she got there well he just uh there i just shot a guy up so now at that point he asked her to wow um this is crazy it was asked by him to make a.22 caliber pistol, quote, disappear. He opened up the glove compartment, took out a.22 caliber pistol and was like, I need you to make this disappear for me. Tries to goodfellas her.

I was just going to say, yeah, there's obviously these friends of mine who would have gotten out of there the second their boyfriend gave them a gun to hide. But it was hot to me. That's how he is so he said he's gonna do that and then he's gonna go turn himself in the police barracks are about a mile away from the car dealers fascinating choice of place to meet too because if you're trying to be secluded and alone a car dealership is the last place you go right when you pull on the property everybody help you with something what What? What's that? Yeah, you're pulling in. Not unless you want to hide a 22 for me. You should put it in some car in there.

Look at that Maxima. Or no, it's a Volkswagen. Let me take a peek at that Passat. What do you say? Go throw this in the glove box of that Golf. Please. This Golf is equipped with the 22 caliber Ruger in the glove box. Nice. I didn't This golf is equipped with the.22 caliber Ruger in the glove box. Nice.

I didn't realize that came with this. These are good. So he also then instructed her not to tell the police that either Bonnie or Phyllis Schoolcraft had been at his trailer earlier that day also. So he's got a plan of what he's going to tell the cops, and he's telling her, this is what I need from you to back that shit up.

Neither of them were there. Disappeared this gun, and nobody was there. Got it. That's it. He said after he told her that, quote, after the first shot, Howard was begging, because he shot him once, and he said he was begging. But Ryan told him that he deserved it and then shot him again. Oh, boy. Yeah, he deserved.

You deserve this. And shot him again. So she said she agreed to get rid of the pistol, which is wild right there. And not to say anything that the two women were there either. So as soon as he left, she went to the police, gave him the gun and told him the story. Right. No, she. Oh, she stuck to the word. She went home home uh later on we'll talk to the cop she'll say

yeah we were there then we went out to dinner then we left i don't know anything else about it nothing else don't know anything about any holes being drilled any guns anything anything like that don't know anything i don't know what you're talking about why did divorce she is so loyal she's down as fuck because he couldn't stop fucking other people that's what i mean right he's got someone loyal and he's like yeah but she's 15 and i'm disgusting pedophile i really need to you know you used to be 15 once but now now you're not you're in your like 20s ew so oh my god disgusting so um she said she'd do that um surely by the way as a waitress in st albans that we'll find out also has a bit of a drug problem as well um she said that um she'll even tell the cops that she remembers a time not too long ago

when howard brooks threatened to kill Gerald Ryan. She'll even tell the cops that. I remember Howard threatening to kill him. Yeah, Harold's dangerous. He's a meth head, and he gets all jacked up and threatens to kill people, and he's got weapons. He carries a gun around all the time. As we'll find out, Howard had a gun on him. Really?

He had a pistol in a holster in his back and his back like on his waistband in the back he had a pistol back there and they find that the pistol is it's still holstered the the snap is still shut on it oh which will secure which will go against what gerald says gerald said he came in there i try about to pull his gun out like put his hand back there and snap the thing and start taking his gun out. And that's when he was like, oh, hey. So the bullets were fired. Both of them fired at close range, struck Brooks in the chest, in the back and in the right chest. Oh.

Back and right chest here. Now, we'll talk about which shot came first because that's important. Yeah, because that's incredibly important. The medical examiner said the bullet shattered Howard's spinal cord, ripped right through his spinal cord. They said that would have made him incapable of voluntary movement and that he would not have been able to stand up after this wound. He said there would be only reflex movement, if any. He said this is an instant paralyzation shot. Just severed his spinal cord.

Done. So that's, they said the one bullet hit him in the right chest and wound its way through the lower chest cavity and continued, went through the liver and finally ended up in his right lung. Oh my God. So every fucking thing it could hit on the way his right lung. Oh, my God. So every fucking thing it could hit on the way down is the worst luck ever. Boom. But, yeah, worst luck ever just took out every organ it could get.

They also said the tests show that there were heavy powder burns on the front of his clothing where the bullet struck, but there was none on the back of his clothing. Uh-oh. Yeah. What does that say pow come up to him finish him off he said you deserve him and shot him in the chest you deserve this looking in the eyes that's fucking diabolical yep uh they had they had the shirt where the straw where the bullet struck uh there um they uh asked if they were asked later on if the tests proved which was the first shot

and the doctor says yes but later on in court he's not allowed to elaborate on that because it's just speculation technically but he's like it's obvious what happened this and this and that that's what how it goes at a distance with this one but real close with this one yeah so they're thinking that he saw him coming he He went out through the garage, came around, shot him in the back. He fell over and then he came up and shot him right in the chest. Close range.

You deserve this pop right there. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to

grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. 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. Yeah, it's crazy. And the doctor said they did tests at the scene there, too.

They said the victim, Howard, here, his feet were pointed toward the front door of the trailer. And they said that witnesses testified that Gerald shot Howard, who was standing outside the trailer and they said that witnesses testified that gerald shot howard who was standing outside the trailer from inside the from inside the front porch of his trailer so i don't know if he was on the porch if he snuck out to the porch and ambushed him that way i don't know how it worked but that's the witness report here now um why did he do this exactly? Well, Bonnie will tell the cops, Bonnie King, that Ryan told her that Kathy was going to divorce him on the grounds of adultery and was going to call out Miss King in court here. Call out Bonnie for being the homewrecker.

That doesn't matter at all. But to a 19-year-old girl who doesn't know any better, she thinks this is a terrible thing that's going to happen. So he's saying that, yeah, they're going to do all this. And Brooks, um,

told, I guess he tell Gerald tells Bonnie that Howard Brooks said that he was going to pay, pay for this divorce. He was going to help Kathy pay for it. So Howard is facilitating this awful shit that's going to happen between us. So he, he frames it though.

Gerald frames it to Bonnie. Like he did this for her. I just did this to protect you. I didn't want you getting dragged through. He said that he did this in order to protect Howard from a quote, dragging in court of Bonnie through divorce court. Meanwhile, this would be dragging him for fucking a 15 year old.

She's a victim in that case. So she doesn't know that this is illegal. Absolutely not. No. So he ends up turning himself in at the Vermont police substation in St. Albans right after he leaves the Volkswagen dealership. And he is ends up, you know, obviously in jail, and he's going to go through a trial and all this shit.

Now, his angle is self-defense. Okay. He went in. He said, I shot Howard Brooks in self-defense. He came to my trailer. He's armed. You know, we've had some beef. And, you know, I thought he was going to shoot me, so I shot him.

Right in my front yard, you know. Okay. Yep. He told him in a signed statement that he shot Brooks twice with a 16-gauge shotgun. I thought he was going to shoot me, so I shot him right in my front yard. Okay. Yep. He told him in a signed statement that he shot Brooks twice with a 16-gauge shotgun, and he said both times he believed that he was reaching for the gun. Which shotgun. So he shot him once, paralyzing him, and then went over and stood over him and said, you deserve this, and bucked him at close range because he was looking for a gun.

So when someone you think they're trying to get your gun, you go as close to them as possible to shoot them, right? You don't back up five feet and buck them, right? That's how ballsy he is. It's a gun. It's not a knife. You don't have to be on top of them for it to work properly. Yeah.

So now 16 gauge is smaller, right? Than a 10 or a 12? I thought the 10 gauge was the one that you give to a kid, and then the 12 is like, I mean, I've got a couple of those. Those are dangerous, man. I'm going off. A 16 seems like it should be. I don't know if it's gauged like with earrings, because that's like the smaller is the bigger the hole. Yeah, 10 gauge is bigger, right. So. This is the second time I've heard you say 16 gauge and i did in a story and i i i

never heard of a 16 me neither until the until these two stories it's been like in the last month that's it that's it so um is there an eight gauge is there a 23 gauge who knows 24 gauge because there's a there's a double up buck is that is that fucking what's that yeah what's that just fucking the zero gauge is that like canisters flying out of there like look and i'm not a gun i realize there's gun guy arguments about it but look i don't know your fucking shotguns all right well these are more for like hunting for actual hunting you're not really a hunter you're more of a target kind of guy so yeah mine's mine's just homeland security my house that's it yeah there's all i

got a 12 gauge for some targets so um now um and witnesses back up his gerald's statement here saying that brooks was armed with a small caliber pistol but they say it was never left his holster and the police find like i said it's uh snapped shut and strapped to his belt in the middle of his back so yeah you know, they testified. Another question is if you're firing shotguns at guys, why do you want a.22 to disappear? I think it's just another gun that he had. I think he just didn't want to. He probably shouldn't have a gun, I would assume, because he's been in trouble before, as we'll find out here.

Not a lot, though, which is the weird part. You'd think by this time in his life he would have been in more trouble. I don't know. Maybe his proclivity for children makes him not want to talk to cops. Oh, my God. So the one girl, the peon, peon is her last name, that was also there. She said that Brooks, Howard Brooks, that she knew of, was a heavy user of drugs. And on September 23rd, because she was the one of the ones who came in the car with him. In the van. He was a heavy user of drugs. And on September 23rd, he happened to be, quote, crashing, coming off a meth trip, she

said. Crashing off a meth trip. That's a fascinating choice of words. Wow. That's, that's, that's mixing early seventies. Like,

you know, weed and LSD, like hippie culture with meth. That's really weird. I've never heard anybody, uh, meth trip off a meth trip. He's crashing off a meth trip right now.

Yeah. You want a trip right now? I got meth. That's not, no, nowadays we just say tweaking. He's coming off a meth trip. Yeah, he's crashing off a meth trip right now. You want a trip right now? I got meth. That's not, no. Nowadays, we just say tweaking. He's just tweaking. He's starting to get real tweaky and tweaking and shit. Chewing on his molars and shit.

All tweaky-like. Yeah. So she also said that Brooks and Ryan had been good friends, but about six months before, that's when the friendship ended, when his wife left and moved in with Howard and Howard's girlfriend. So he is going to be charged with murder here, first-degree murder, and he is going to plead innocent. Oh. Says it's self-defense. I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

He was shot. He said, I shot the guy. Howard was 29. Shot him twice with the shotgun. And not only is it self-defense, I'd also like a reduction of this bond you want me to pay to get out. $100,000. I don't have that. How about $50,000?

And so they're going to end up freeing him on a bond, $50,000 bond on a first-degree murder charge he's allowed to go. So, yeah, that's an interesting thing here. They're going to take him to trial. Okay. Obviously. He's indicted. First-degree murder. He's out on bail.

Goes to trial. And here comes Shirley, his ex-wife, on the stand. Okay. She tells the jury that at first she lied to the police because she did. She told them nobody else was there but me and my boyfriend. Okay. And then she hid the gun. By the time the trial comes around, she's like, you know, okay, fine.

I'll tell the truth because, you know, I'm under oath here. So she said that she only did that because she was afraid of what her former husband would have done to her if she didn't do it. That's nice. The man killed another man. With very little provocation. Very little. So she said she withheld vital evidence to protect her ex-husband. They asked her on the stand, why would you withhold vital evidence in a murder to protect

your ex-husband? She said, quote, because I thought he would stand a better chance of getting off. Trying to help him. Yeah. Trying to help him. Yeah. Trying to help him. That's all. So they also, in the cross-examination, they get her to concede that her statements to police were totally inconsistent with her testimony now because they were. So if you were lying then, who says you're not lying now?

Your credibility is fucked, love. It gets worse, too, as the trial goes on. We'll talk about that. Does she know what shotguns are or not? She probably does, but she also knows what meth pipes are, so that's a problem. You know what? 20 gauges are the little ones, so yes, by the way. Okay, there you go.

It just hit me right now. 20 gauge, yes. Okay. Stop your tweeting. Knock it off. Yeah, yeah, we get it. Put your guns away. They were loading them and cleaning them.

I'll tell these boys something. They said to her, quote, one of these statements was a lie. And she said, yes, it was. But now I'm telling the truth. Which one? So Gerald testifies here. He has to take the witness stand in his own defense because you've got to explain this away. Yeah.

You know, you really do. He's going to tell his story. Yep. By the way, the day he takes the stand is a couple days after his ex-wife takes the stand. And a huge report rips through the courtroom that his ex-wife, Shirley, who just took the stand, is now in the hospital after overdosing on drugs. Oh. Yeah, she OD'd after she testified. She must have, I don't know what happened, but...

Depression. Yeah. His wife, Kathy, his current wife here, she's believed to be an eyewitness to the killing here. Oh no, it's not Shirley. Kathy's the one who OD'd. I'm sorry. Oh. Shirley testified and that's all fine kathy then who had she's an eyewitness who's supposed to testify oh she panicking she

uh she od'd so i went with shirley and she's like oh no oh no this is gonna be bad yeah so they get harold on the stand here and the deputy attorney general, William Keith, he says, quote, you shot Howard Brooks in the back the first time, didn't you? Because that's the big deal they're trying to get across is how cold-blooded it was to shoot a guy in the back with a shotgun and then buck him. Ryan says, I did not. So the attorney asks him, well, didn't you tell Sergeant Vautier of the state police that you shot Howard Brooks twice the first time in the stomach? And he said no. OK, so then they held up the shirt that Howard Brooks had worn, which had the bullet holes, one in the back, one in the front, the whole deal. And they asked Ryan whether he didn't tell the police that in his original statement that before shooting Brooks the first time that Brooks had turned away,

meaning that the shot would have been in the back, he said, probably. That's Ryan's response, probably. So the lawyer says, isn't that, is that the truth? And Ryan says, no. Oh. So he went from probably to no. That's not what I said. So then the question is, so you lied to Sergeant Vautier.

And Ryan said, quote, you could call it that if you want to. Oh, boy. Yeah, which is not at all. That doesn't look good when you're a murder suspect on there. And they say, so you lied. And he goes, you can call it that if you want to. Well, so the jury here is going to, they have a couple options now, obviously. They are told that they have four choices.

Not guilty. Yeah. Guilty of first-degree murder. Guilty of second-degree murder. Guilty of manslaughter. Manslaughter to first degree, huh? To acquit. Those are your choices here.

So through this, they choose to find him guilty of manslaughter. Oh. After five hours of deliberation, seven women, five man jury, and he's guilty of manslaughter, which is obviously a much different sentencing deal here. Oh, boy. The guns are so loose. Yeah, the most he can get is 15 years for manslaughter. So the prosecutor recommends a 10 to 15 year sentence for him, which is still getting off pretty fucking light for what he did. So they and the pre-sentence investigation that they do, they do a big pre-sentencing report to find out where he is mentally. Is he remorseful? All this type of shit. pre-sentence investigation that they do. They do a big pre-sentencing report to find out where he is mentally.

Is he remorseful? All this type of shit. That said that the report indicated that Ryan should be incarcerated, quote, for some time to reflect on the death of his former friend. For some time. For some time. So he needs some time.

So, uh, yeah, that's, that's the whole deal. So he comes in. Jesus Christ. Does he say anything here? Yes.

He said, Jesus Christ, man. No, here? Yes. He's Jesus Christ, man. No, no, no. He begs later. We'll talk about that. So the judge comes in. This is John P. Morrissey. And he says, you may fuck off one to five years.

What? With credit for two months already served and all but six months suspended so six months in jail and you'll get credit for two serves so you're up for parole i don't know about five o'clock this afternoon did he have wow kathy and and and bonnie and and everybody sucking this guy's balls under the bucket have them all handy him what all under the robe he got six months plus minus two he got four months he ended up serving five months including the two that he served so he ended up going they he was in he had 62 months already served went to jail for three months and was paroled.

Manslaughtered somebody and minor inconvenience of life. Like you can keep your house with that. You can get five months that you didn't pay your mortgage. Five months people will help you out. Yeah. It's a trailer for Christ's sake. Holy shit. Your brother lives there.

He can fucking pay the mortgage on it for whatever. I don't know. So he's in there. He can fucking pay the mortgage on it for whatever. I don't know. So he's in there. He killed a guy. He got out on bail pretty quick. Yeah. He does this amount of times. He did two months, got out on bail.

And then here he is now doing three months. He killed a man and he didn't even have to go to prison. He likely did it in county. That is fucking intense, man. Yeah. county that is fucking intense man um yeah uh given him all that the sentence was based heavily on an evaluation report prepared by the corrections department which included information from a consulting psychiatrist clinical psychologist a correction a corrections counselor and the superintendent at the st albans facility they said that the uh it was a surprise to a lot of people the light sentence

a bit shocking i would say so uh keith william t keith the prosecutor said quote if i had known there was only going to be a mild lecture i would have not wasted the time and money to prosecute the case honestly so for that i wouldn't even have bothered what's the point five months what's it matter it's not justice. It took longer than that to put the case together for trial. There's a dead man's family out there. The prosecutor did longer time than the fucking killer in that one. So he was very, very upset.

And he called the evaluation report, said it was out of touch with reality. And he called it a whitewash and said that the it ignored the facts of the case so he is in jail now for a couple months now while he's in jail yeah for three months over this time period bonnie king one of his girlfriends um she starts seeing somebody else on the side okay this is somebody that she had, dated a few years ago but didn't have sex with him or anything, like a teenage, you know, are you my girlfriend type of thing, okay? He's 19 also. His name is Lawrence – wow, shit. J-U-A-I-R-E. Huh.

Junior. Warre? That was what I came up with Huh? Junior. Warre? That's what, that was what I came up with. Warre. Joir. I don't know what it, Joir.

Lawrence, Larry. They call him Larry. Larry Jr. They call him. Yeah. He's 19 years old. Larry Jr.

Age appropriate as fuck. Yeah. They went to school together and shit like that. So they had seen each other a little then, but then when Gerald Ryan goes to prison in the fall of 73, she had seen Larry Jr. on two different evenings, and the second time she saw him, they had sex. Oh, hey. Okay, now. Larry's a smooth talker, too. Larry's smooth, too.

And Gerald finds out about this because she tells him about it. Yeah. Okay. He is, as it's put here, enraged by this. I imagine. Enraged when he later learned about it. He responded. This is how Bonnie described his response.

He didn't find out about it until he got out of prison. So he gets out of prison. She tells him about it. And he, quote, this is her quote, he responded by, quote, throwing me on the floor and kicking me and slashing open her forearm with a can opener. Oh, my God. That is fucking crazy. She still has a scar from later on. How do you do that?

I don't know if she had the top of the can lid. Oh, it's one of those like. Oh, yeah. Like a poke. The ones with the point on the end. Yeah. You have to do for like beer cans. Right.

High C always. High C you had to do that always. High C and motor oil. So, yeah. So, slashed her forearm open with a can opener after throwing her on the floor and kicking her jesus that is quite the reaction dare you fuck somebody your own age while i'm in prison for murder right jesus i was only in county you couldn't wait it's just manslaughter fuck can't count on none nobody to hold you down no more man jesus crying not like i was doing 25

for christ's sake so she talks about her brief involvement she said that um this whole talk centered on her unfaithfulness and that he was so angry at this whole thing how dare you sir how many marriages have you ruined oh being unfaithful just adulterous as fuck with 15 year olds the fuck out of here hypocritical asshole oh my god so she said quote it just all added up and i finally realized what was going on in his head well what do you think is going on in his head? She said that what's going on in his head is his jealousy manifested itself into demands that she prove her love for him by helping get revenge. Okay? Hold on. Prove your love for me.

Prove your loyalty and love for me while I go do something horrible to somebody. No, no, no, no, no. Not while I do something horrible to somebody. While you do something horrible to somebody. This is this time that this happens. I was wrong. It's in between. He goes to jail for two months.

She fucks this guy. He gets out on bail because he's in jail for first degree murder fucks this guy okay he gets out on bail because she he's in jail for first degree murder that everybody says she he did she probably thinks well he's gone for fucking 30 years all right find somebody else instead two months later he's out and pissed off so when she got when he goes back in for three months he he's like, this is the time to do it because I'm in jail. So they can't say it's me. Right. And who's going to suspect you?

You're a fucking sweet little farm girl. No one's going to think it's you. Oh, my God. So, yeah, she he demanded that she kill him as a test of loyalty and also to atone for her unfaithfulness as well. You don't only do this yeah you have to show me that that was you're truly sad about it and sorry about it by killing the one guy who you fucked so wow um she said that she agreed to do this because he had convinced her that she was quote undesirable and that she would age more quickly than other women because she's a diabetic

and that no other man would any other man would eventually leave her because she's going to be hideous soon. Oh, dear Lord. And she said that he told her that, quote, no one else would accept me. So what he will want. You're a diabetic. So you're going to get ugly quick is what he said. So ridiculous thing to say you're 19 clocks ticking i'm saying by the time you're 25 you'll be haggard and decrepit like your house

that you grew up in and no one will have sex with you except for me because i you know will feel sympathy for your decrepit diabetic ass like no what terrible things he must have said to her he's a fucking asshole so it's got to be tough to be diabetic and live up there and not be able to eat the maple syrup, right? Dude. Or the nice thing is if you're like low blood sugar, if you're in the woods, you just turn that tap on. You're like, oof, okay, I feel better now.

Anywhere in the woods you can get a pick-me-up. That's a nice put your head under a tap. But you've got to temper it because too much and you're a mess and not enough and you're a mess. You're a mess. That's terrible. Now, diabetic, that is an awful – that's terrible. That's tough. Oh, God.

I know you can control it and I get that. I know a bunch of diabetic people actually, so I understand the whole thing. But it's just always seemed like a giant hassle to me. That would be such an inconvenient – I mean it's more's just always seemed like a giant hassle to me. Like that would be such an inconvenient. I mean, it's more convenient than dying. Sure. You know, to take care of it. But it's still very inconvenient just to live.

So she he told her all this. And then he said, after all this, look, you're nothing and no one will want you because you're, you know, you're like you're going to be the fucking creep show guy. Like that's what you're going to look like by the time you're 30. He he tells her that. And then he says, but me, I will always love you and take care of you if you pass this test and show me how loyal you are to me. Yeah. He told her that she was on thin ice and this test is her last chance. This is your last chance right now.

test is her last chance this is your last chance right now you're on thin ice so you can either have my undying love forever and take care of you and be protect you and do all that shit or you're you can be alone and just a fucking diabetic crinkled up diabetic who is you know looks 40 years older than your age because because your sugar's messed up a little yeah so did he say this on a phone how the fuck did he get this message to her he's i think this was uh through this i think this was before he went in he was telling us and then he went in and then he was like now's the time to do it so holy jesus this is a this is a lot man this is a lot um so he um she said she trusted him because in the past she said that he told her howard and kathy ryan um were going to take me there shirley ryan or kathy the ex-wife there, was going to take me through the court and drag me around.

And he, quote, settled it differently. So she took that as a measure of he protected me from that by killing Howard. So she took that as like, oh, and he's sweet. What's the difference, James? You kill somebody, you get five months. It's a minor inconvenience. That's what I mean. So she said, too, that Ryan told her that he killed Brooks to prove his love for her

and that she had to take care of her boyfriend Larry Jr. here to prove his love for him it's pretty simple it's you know switcheroo here so he said he told her also that if she followed the procedures that he had followed in killing Brooks

that she would get off with a light sentence that he has he had or get off completely and get no sense at all. So follow follow the procedures shooting him and then turning yourself in and saying he was trying to kill you. That's not a procedure. It's just it's just a lie. It's just a lie. And the guy then has to have a gun.

It helps that he's like a meth addict and all that kind of shit all that helped him a lot so right this is just a nice boy yeah absolutely so she said that um gerald coached her on every aspect of this pending murder including how to operate a shotgun because she didn't know how to do that she's a you know she's a small, younger girl. And so the shotgun and everything. She also said that he promised he would pay for her attorney, Joseph Wool, who's the guy who defended him and got him that light sentence. So he said, I'll even pay for your attorney when this all goes down and you'll get nothing. You'll totally get off. It'll be nothing. He said, quote, as long as you keep my name out of it i know wool will

represent you the attorney yeah so you do all this prove your love for me i wasn't involved in it at all you take the rap i'll just pay for this attorney he'll get you off it with a quote light sentence which i still have to go to prison what the fuck so this is you know he has filled her with a whole load of shit and we know she's pretty easily you know manipulated so finally october 3rd 1974 he's been in prison for about three weeks at this point how gerald has so she bonnie calls up her friend ro Bushy, calls old Roger Bushy up, and says, we need to have a rendezvous here at the Browns ABC Market, which is a grocery store,

food store, whatever. So she said that, this is Gerald's friend, Roger Bushy. She said that you're going to say you're going to test drive a car that Larry Jr. has for sale. And we're going to meet at the market, which is a public place.

You're going to test drive the car, okay? He didn't tell her. She didn't tell him what the motive for was at all for this. She just said, you just test drive this car. And he, being a fucking idiot, obviously, didn't go, well, why do you want me to test drive a car? Ain't going by. He didn't.

He just was like, all right, sure. So, yeah, she infrequently does he get to drive a car that he's like, I get to drive today. Great. Oh, really? Was it a Pontiac? Oh, dang. All right. Shit.

I didn't realize I get a Pontiac driving. OK. All right. All right. I'll do it. I'll do it. So she instructed him to bring Larry Jr. to Brown's ABC Market in Fairfield. And Bushy, he thought that they were going to buy the car. He thought that this guy thought, oh, maybe Gerald's going to buy the car. He's looking at it for her. They're having me test drive it to see if it's any good. That's what he said his thought process

was. I actually believe him because of his actions after this. Before setting out for the grocery store, she asked her parents if they needed anything. Going out on a quick ambush, need me to grab you anything, is a funny thing to say.

Which is fucking amazing. I'm running out to murder. You guys need any milk? Any milk or what do you know? Happens to be at the market. We had a salsa again? Yeah, because he didn't have any either. So her father said, yeah, please get me some tobacco to roll or chew.

I think it's chewing tobacco. So she leaves for the store but stops along the way in a rural area because her house is so rural. There's plenty of area to test fire the shotgun to see if she can wield it basically. See if she can do it. So she test fires the shotgun. Then she gets to the store. She waits a little bit while. She's there first. She sees

Bushy arrive. He enters the store and she left because she was in the store when he came in, when Bushy came in the store. She walked out of the store and approached Larry Jr. in the parking lot. They talked at his car first and then they moved over to her father's car where she was, that she drove and she sat in the front seat while he stood outside and they talked you know door open sitting in the front seat um she had a shotgun sitting on the front seat next to her yeah now larry jr is getting married three days from now oh yeah your best friend harry had a brother larry married three days from now. Oh. Yeah. Your best friend Harry had a brother Larry. In three days from now, he's going to marry.

So Young MC predicted almost this exact thing. I took a little liberty with the lyrics, but you get what I'm saying here. So Larry then likely had a girlfriend when he slept with her, huh? It was, yes. Let's just say yes it's a because they're getting married like now so right this was you know interesting little development yeah everybody's fucking everybody's dipping in everybody else's syrup taps in this town man it's a larry's keeping the friendship so that okay a lot of syrup cross-contamination going on in this town it's

real sticky in this town they're real sticky you never you never get the pure stuff right from the tree that jizz or syrup you never know you never know so larry jr's marrying diane richards and he asked larry jr asked bonnie joking around they're just making small talk he says he asked do you think i deserve a wedding present like are you gonna get you know i know we've been together you think i deserve a wedding present? Like, are you going to get, you know, I know we've been together. Do you think I deserve a wedding present? Like, are you going to get me one? Just try and make small talk. She told him that at that point, I heard you've been spreading stories about me.

This is a big thing in small towns is, quote, spreading stories. That's gossiping. So heard you've been spreading stories he said no no not at all uh i didn't spread any stories i don't know what you're talking about and then they discussed well i heard you said this and i don't like it and he's well i don't think we should be friends and we'll go back and forth and blah blah blah as they're talking she by the way when asked about the shotgun had told him that she might give it to him as a wedding present. That's why she brought it.

I'm only tired. Where are you going with that shotgun? Where are you going with that shotgun? That's why he said, do you think I deserve a present? And she was like, well, actually, you've been spreading stories. He said, no, I haven't, blah, blah, blah. And they're talking. And he's like, listen, no, I haven't.

We're friends. This is great. Why don't we all get together, you and fucking whoever. And he's trying to make nice, nice. As this is going on, she swings the shotgun up and points it at his midsection. She said she took a hold of the barrel and she said he took a hold of the barrel. He grabbed the barrel and moved it away but didn't act freaked out he moved it like hey don't point gun at me jesus like like she was moving the shotgun around and he was just

like hey watch out with that you know but not like oh god you're gonna shoot me then she moved the barrel back and shot him oh boy in fucking broad daylight in a grocery store parking lot from the driver's seat of a vehicle of her father's car right as she reloaded the gun oh my word she saw bushy the friend there bushy just come uh who had just come back outside from the store um and was he had come back they while they were talking he came out of the store and went and sat in in larry jr. Right. So he went and sat over there. And once this happened, she saw Bushy walk toward her, pause, and then turn and run in the store. Like, holy shit.

Yeah. Oh, my God. So she fired again at Larry Jr. to make sure. And she's a good assassin. I'll say that much for her. And then ran around the rear of the car screaming at the top of her lungs. I imagine, yeah. Which is, I mean, if you could, what would draw attention in broad daylight in a supermarket parking lot?

Well, two very large shotgun blasts would probably get people's attention. Well, what would do more? I don't know, a teenage girl's shrill fucking ear piercing scream possibly now is everybody in town watching also i bet that didn't go the way she thought it was gonna go and i'm sure that was holy shit disturbing probably she liked this guy other than what she has been told about him her Her actions are so much. I just read this 29-hour book on Jonestown and Jim Jones and the whole People's Temple movement,

and she just sounds so much like she's a Jonestown person. Like that's all it, that's the only way I can put it. For sure. Yeah, she's going to do it. She then dropped the gun and ran into the store where she ran up to Bushy. the gun and ran into the store where she ran up to bushy she told bushy hey don't mention gerald ryan's name to the cops when you're talked to about this keep his name out your mouth his response was to shove her away from him the fuck away from me you psycho bitch was like what he said he's like get the fuck away from me i'm not talking talking to you now. You just shot. I know this guy. What the fuck, dude?

I was going to drive. You just shot this guy. Yeah, I was going to buy a car. It was a Mercury. So a little while later, she went to a friend of theirs home here. She goes to a home that she knows a short distance away and calls the lawyer. Oh, that Gerald told her would represent her. The wool guy calls her.

Nobody's called the cops yet. No one's called. Well, I'm sure someone at the grocery store probably did. I hope anyway. That's a lot of mind in your own business at that. I'm all for mind in your own business. You know what I mean? Don't investigate.

But if you're in the middle of a fucking grocery store parking lot in broad daylight and shotgun blasts and teenage girl screams are ringing out, look into that probably and see if you need to call somebody. So she says that the lawyer told her not to talk to anyone and that the lawyer would see her in the morning. So he didn't even say go turn yourself in. None of that. She said sit tight. I'll meet with you in the morning is what the said okay wow so this is i gotta get some shit what this is fucking crazy my bedtime i'll see you tomorrow yeah and she they asked her later on why were you making small talk with him and all that and she said just to kill time

she was scared and just like trying to work up the yeah mustard yeah um she said quote the only thing running through my mind was jerry jerry she said it wouldn't work if i didn't go through with killing him so only thing grows is i got it just jerry's gonna dump me if i don't do this so So that's it. If Jerry dumps me, then I'm in trouble. What a waste, too, because Jerry, he's getting married in a few days. This isn't going to happen again. Get over it. Who cares? Yeah.

Shit happens. How many people have you banged since you've known Bonnie? You're married, for fuck's sake. So she said that after she shot him, she was rushing to reload. So she said that after she shot him, she was rushing to reload. And she said, in a sense, quote, in a sense, I could hear Jerry's voice running through my mind telling me to do it. She could see her like, no, go ahead, go ahead, which is, again, very Jim Jones-ish. She said that after she shot Larry Jr., she felt relieved because that's what Jerry wanted done. So now she got it done.

And finally, okay, now he won't dump me so yeah she called wool and did what he told her to do so this gets really interesting when roger bushy comes forward and because he right away he's willing to say everything he's not willing to keep gerald's name out of it he's like fuck this i wasn't him i he's mad that he basically was unwillingly made to set somebody up to be murdered that he liked so he was like what the fuck i didn't want to be a part of that shit so he's mad i was interested in helping him sell a car you're helping buy a car i was i was the i was the middleman of two happy parties for fuck's sake trying to sell a bonneville bonnie so he his account says that he heard her with the second shot tell him that he, quote, deserved it.

You deserve this. She carbon copied this. Mine is the place. It's insane. She's trying to be just like him. It's she's trying to be just like him. So then for six months, because she's followed her lawyer's advice, which was he attacked you. This is self-defense.

Right. Okay. He tried to get with you again. You said no. He got pushy. You know, good fellas thing. I said no. He started to get mad.

I tried to get out of the car. And that's yeah, that's when he hit me. So she said that she shot him in self-defense and that it was only her and her alone responsible for all of it. It's just me. Then in April of 1975, she changes her story and tells the cops, okay, here's what happened and tells everything I just told you.

Cause otherwise she had no reason she wasn't going to do this on her own no she said that she you know didn't tell the truth because she was represented by wool who told her to say that it was self-defense so she followed her lawyer's advice that's what you do so um wool's firm said they represented her for about two months but since gerald ryan didn't provide the money he promised, they dropped her. Oh. Well, dropped her, and then a public defender came in,

and a public defender heard what happened and was like, get the fuck out. Blame the guy who made you do it. Yeah. This is crazy. You're fucked. You did this in broad daylight in front of somebody who knows you. This is ridiculous. Just tell the truth.

Yeah. So she said she lied about her motive in the killing and everything else. And she finally told the truth when this all went down and they started working out a plea agreement. The agreement is that she will cooperate with the state here and participate. Cooperating with the state entails testifying and also setting him up for a sting operation. Oh. Yeah. mortifying and also setting him up for a sting operation oh yeah because they're like well this it's just your word against his basically unless you have proof of him saying this stuff we get him on tape saying some shit then yeah so they find a way here and that is they have a meeting

and this is supposed to be hey so we don't see you know no one sees us together with uh at the home of her aunt and uncle in rural georgia when he's out yeah so this is after he's out and they're they're just going to have a meeting to talk about stuff come on down to georgia come on yeah come on down to georgia talk about some shit that's how the song goes so they the police place microphones all over the farmhouse to monitor this conversation and two officers are stationed in the basement with recording equipment like you'd see you know in a van somewhere and other cops were posted outside the building as well listening so the uh purpose is to get him to discuss his role in the killings and then they listen in. So at first, though, this is fucking amazing.

Ryan wasn't wanting to talk to her about shit like that. He wanted to fuck. He's like, I don't care about that. We have time for that. We're alone. We're in a fucking farmhouse. Let's get it on. Pull it out.

So they engage in sexual activities, quote unquote, on the living room couch and floor. This is done with the cops not only listening with headphones on, but fucking right through the floor right there. They're like, I see dust coming down from the floor. I think they're fucking now. So they had to like fucking, you know, on display. Wait for stalagmites and of jizz to come down yeah which feels like that almost feels illegal like for if for a guy i don't give a shit but like if you know being a protective person if the genders were flipped i'd be like as soon as that starts

the cops have to come up and go no we're not we shouldn't be allowed to watch this. I don't know. But eventually, though, she said, oh, by the way, too, she was trying to protest this because she was pregnant at the time with Gerald Ryan's baby, by the way. Oh, dear God. That baby will be born stillborn and um i know it's a sad thing to say but it would have been 50 years of this kid being a fucking menace to society by now yeah poor that baby never had a chance and uh with that scumbag of a father so uh very sad though anyway it always sad when a stillborn happens it's terrible so um she said that the intercourse because it was a

she's a diabetic number one has other health concerns that she has a touchy pregnancy so she says she doesn't want to have any intercourse because it might be harmful and he said i'll hump away on you don't worry about it so he apparently that baby doesn't have a chance in there watch this yeah he porked that kid stillborn at this point i don't know if he hit the soft spot or what, but it didn't work out. Yeah. So during this monitored conversation, though, he told her to deny his responsibility for the pregnancy as well. Hey, by the way, don't tell people that's my kid.

He's pouring extra scum on this whole thing he's such a scumbag he said tell them that you fucked some guy while i was at the woodstock correctional facility serving my my murder time just tell him that yeah just tell him no somebody else because larry was dead by then so oh yeah somebody else just you bet you pork and somebody who knows? So then they discussed again how he told her how to operate a shotgun. And he said at this point that he still intended to hire wool to represent her full time. OK, 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 in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. The problem is these tapes, because it's 1974 and the equipment's terrible, these tapes come out like shit they're inaudible and all they have are the 18 cops that were listening to it yeah and fuck noises coming and and her word on the whole thing so they don't have the goods on tape so that sucks there. So she said that the investigators put pressure on her, obviously, here, clearly. She said that she lied about her motives then to a state psychiatrist even until the spring when she said, OK, fine, and told him the truth.

So, yeah, that's what happened. Yeah, the tape, they said it was unusable in court, which is way too much sex. Way too much sex. So they ask her also about a photograph of the dashboard of her father's car where several 12-gauge shotgun shells were visible there. So she said she shot him twice with her father's 12-gauge shotgun while she was sitting in the car with the door open and he was standing in the parking lot. So they have a bunch of evidence there that she came loaded up for even more. So they work out the plea agreement. She is allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder instead of first-degree if she agrees to help the state prosecute gerald ryan

so she does that obviously she is sentenced to by the way you young lady may certainly fuck off 10 to 25 years in jail for her jesus that's a far cry from five months keep that in mind okay and they put her in a hollow well maine in the Stephen School Correctional Center, where she then had a stillborn baby and was in the hospital for a couple of weeks because she had health problems afterwards. Holy shit. So. Ryan, at this point, is still out and about, obviously doing his thing. There's some letters, a series of letters from from gerald to bonnie when he was in jail and then when she's in jail uh but there's no overt statements about larry jr included because bonnie says she destroyed many of the letters that ryan told her hey destroy this letter when you're done reading it yeah she'd be like okay make this self-destruct. Yeah, absolutely. So they're going to arrest him also, though, based on, obviously, they did the sting operation.

They have her witness, you know, all of her witness accounts saying this. So they arrest him also. And they let him out on a $25,000 bail. So he's out. He faces first-degree murder charge, actually. his first degree murder charge actually he is let out on bail and has to stay at his parents house and

live there and be within four counties he's allowed to go so September 1975 is the trial for Gerald I'm going to have a trial here fuck man one guy testifies here the trial starts out with fireworks because

apparently this is Larry Jrr is not the first guy who got the treatment after you know paying bonnie some attention guy named harold garrett who's 24 years old he testified that gerald ryan tried to run him off the road after he dated bonnie once he went out with her one time. This guy at this point was married. He's a married farmer. And so they bring him in for a cross-examination. So they say, oh, that's what happened.

They let him off before cross-examination for some reason. He gives his witness statement. They say, can he be brought back for cross-examination? I don't know. Maybe it was a recross. And they indicated that he might have begun to drive home by then so the defense attorney said maybe we can run him off the road again which is pretty funny objectively that's pretty funny right run him off the road bring him back come on garrett by the way is a third cousin of gerald ryan so they're even fucking related.

This is a mess, man. They're all either cousins or Eskimo brothers. I don't like any of this. This is terrible. One way or another, they're related. They're related. So this is Jesus Christ, man. Fucking section Vermont is what this is.

It's incredible. Fuck. says it's incredible fuck so uh garrett he testified that he received three threatening letters warming warning him not to give statements against gerald or he quote won't live to see many more days another letter said sent to garrett said quote i've been watching your pretty wife and it's a shame you got to lose her so quick. What? That's some crazy. That is disturbing. Stalking and watching my family?

What are you, the Russian mob? What's going on? So upon the delivery of the note, Garrett said he saw Ryan drive away from his house. So he saw him deliver it. So I don't think he was trying to hide it at all. I don't think he was. Yeah. I think he wanted to make it damn sure appropriate and visible of what he's doing because I need to be scared of who did this.

Dude, this is wow. So yeah, they also talk about this. But these notes, by the way, were attached to their front door. Oh, my God. Yeah. There was him and his wife got notes saying not to testify, all this type of shit. Another person said there was threats against the family of Larry Jr. Oh, they've been threatening the family, the victim's fucking families.

Informed sources said some of the threats were received while both ryan and bonnie lee were in prison so bonnie lee king were in prison so it could have been anybody else he's got brothers and cousins and fucking everybody else here in addition they said they were told of a complaint by a complaint to state police by ryan ryan now says that someone shot at him last july when he was uh when he was riding on his family's, or he was at his family's farm in Fletcher. Jim Jones did this all the time. This is, oh, someone shot at me.

He claimed to be shot and self-healed a wound by the time anybody got to him to give him a fucking hand. I already fixed it. There was a big hole in me, and I fixed it up. It's a miracle. Back to doing what you're doing. So it's fucking interesting. There's all you're doing so um it's it's fucking interesting he there's all sorts of crazy shit that's going on obviously they said there's no

firm lead been established in there but ryan gerald said a bullet hit the bailing machine he was operating punching a hole in one side of it and a bullet was recovered and turned over to the state police. He couldn't have shot his own bailing machine. I went, wow. He also said the car in which he was riding, this is Gerald Ryan now, was forced off the road by a hay truck on July 10th. Evil hay truck. No. The day he was released on bail pending the current trial. He said that this, too, was reported to the police, and then the shooting incident said

was exactly a week later. I wonder if it was a.22 caliber. Yeah, I wonder. That's a good question. So now Bonnie here, we're going to get some psychological what's up with Bonnie. What's up with Bonnie is the question of this whole thing. I get it. She's a kid, and he's known her question of this whole thing. Like, how is I get it? She's a kid and he's known her since she was a child and he manipulates her, but she's got to

have some stuff going on here. So psychologically, the psychiatrist, William Woodruff, says in court here that he's been interviewing her. He called her a cool cat, not meaning like, hey, it's a cool cat right there. He means that quite. He said, quote, I don't think I've ever met anybody so calm and lacking in emotion. Cool cat like flat affect type of thing. He described her as, quote, an automaton. Like a fucking wind-up doll that you push in a direction. And that's interesting. He said that he's interviewed hundreds of accused murderers and likened King to an automaton at that point.

Then he said, I don't think I've ever met anyone so calm or lacking emotion. It astonished me. In the vernacular, you'd call her a cool cat. Or a psychopath? In the vernacular, you'd call her a cool cat. Or a psychopath? Or, yeah, or maybe that, or just maybe slightly autistic, or possibly just doesn't know social cues because she grew up by herself. Who knows?

He said that she had been brought up in a social vacuum by virtue of her rural surroundings and few friends in her school years. He he also said that he said that Bonnie may have been living in a fantasy world. He said having fantasies could be repeated since he was daydreaming at that point. On another, this was during the thing, hey, could you repeat that? I was daydreaming on the stand. On another occasion, they asked the doctor what he thought of Miss King shooting a 375 Magnum weapon known as an elephant gun in the air as a signal to call ryan at which point um the psychiatrist responded i didn't know we had elephants here he's trying to be fucking he's got jokes up there and shit why is this place such a fucking open mic dude this is a disaster everybody throwing jokes around this judge needs to fucking yeah there will be listen here listen fucking yakov smirnoffs of the crowd i am not having this hackery and bullshit in my courtroom

not doing it having quips about people being run off the road nor the existence of elephants in this town just answer the fucking questions or if you're gonna make a joke make it funny or else i'm putting you in contempt of court that's the fucking that's how it works if you don't want to take a chance on me defining what's funny don't make a fucking joke don't make a joke so during this testimony uh the doctors the prosecutor mentions the howard brooks killing in the same being is in the same vein of the larry jr killing and that causes a big kerfuffle because they're not supposed to introduce the previous evidence of the previous killing prosecutor calls it uh highly or i'm sorry

defense attorney yes defense attorney calls it highly improper and inflammatory. They made 28 objections to his testimony, 18 of which were sustained. He called, some more little quotes about Bonnie, he called her, quote, a pathetic figure who the prosecution will not try to put on a pedestal. He said that she was a farm girl of limited education. And then the defense attorney told the jury that King is going to tell you of Gerald Ryan's influence over her, enough influence for her to even kill for him. But do you believe that? Blah, blah, blah. So he is drugged up, by the way, Gerald Ryan. We'll find out what he's on in a second.

But he's on a shitload of drugs. So he just comes in a black suit and sits there and kind of stares at the floor uh that's what they do so um the psychiatrist also described bonnie's personality as hysterical meaning the medical meaning of the word um also said she was a shy seclusive person with a heavy dependency on others he characterized g Gerald's domination of her as being brainwashed, but then said that because of the pressure on her to be true to him and the jealousy he expressed about this whole thing that

he said it's also possible psychologically that she could have misconstrued his meaning and sincerely believed he wanted her to kill Larry Jr. to prove her loyalty. But she says that he said it explicitly. He meant it.

He didn't beat around the bush and was like, I don't know, maybe he disappears. It wasn't like a mob guy on the phone. It was, hey, kill him with a shotgun. Here's how you shoot. Yeah. Remember what I did? Try that. So the state's case rests upon whether they believe Bonnie or not.

That's all there is to it here. Other witnesses corroborate a lot of her story, but none of them indicate personal instruction on our personal knowledge of actual instructions by him on what to do there. So the it ends on the trial on a Friday goes goes to jury, and there is no verdict after Friday. So they tell the judge that they'll never agree on his guilt or innocence. And the judge goes, let's go. Let's fucking take it in there. Enough jokes, I said. Let's give this a shot here. Enough jokes, I said.

Let's give this a shot here. And also, before this goes to jury, in the jury instructions, there's a shitload of fighting about what they're allowed to think about the similarities between these two shootings. So the prosecution wants that in each case, the victim was shot in the stomach, dropped to the ground after being shot, then was shot again. In each case, a shotgun was used and was fired almost point blank. In each case, the victim was lured away from his home and urged to come to a specific location. In each case, self-defense was claimed and the person arrested was represented by the same lawyer, Joseph Wool of Burlington. And in each case, somebody said you deserve this. You deserve. That's the other one.

So now the defense attorney said that that's a very novel theory of law and has never been tested in a murder case. He's on trial for first degree murder and without pulling the trigger and without, you know, like paying her or any of that shit too he was in jail so this is they're kind of trying this out at the time nowadays that's immediate first degree murder but back then it was a new thing so um they said they told the jury at one point the defense that ryan quote would be aware of the honor conferred upon him if he was the first man in history so convicted so basically he knows what a big massive thing it would be if you two if you all of you juries completely went around the law the defense attorney said we feel he's either guilty of first degree murder or should be acquitted okay that's

what he says here that's one or the other well because they don't want this manslaughter then he's going to go to jail. Because he doesn't think they've made the case for first-degree murder. Yeah. So he's saying, you know, if you don't do that, you should acquit him. Put him in forever or never serve a day in his life. Yeah. Well, so the jury, the Friday after they said they'll never get along and they'll never come to a decision,

the judge sent them back to their quarters at 10 p.m. for a good night's rest. So then the next day they end up, he ends up dismissing the jury when they are hopelessly deadlocked at 11 to 1 for conviction. 11 to 1 for conviction, and it is a mistrial. Oh, boy. Misfucking trial. to one for conviction and it is uh a mistrial oh boy miss fucking trial so um yes that's obviously a mistrial there so that's pretty interesting um they try it again right oh they're gonna try them again yeah don't you worry here so um the retrial is in april of 1976 is the retrial. They asked the judge for a judgment right away.

The defense asked the judge for a judgment of acquittal before they even start their case. The motion is denied. Yeah. This is based on that quote. Common law holds an accessory cannot be convicted of a greater crime than the principal. And Miss King's pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second degree murder after the plea bargain. So that he shouldn't get first degree murder.

The state has failed to present evidence on which the jury could possibly convict Ryan without reasonable doubt. The case rests virtually exclusively on the testimony of Bonnie Lee King. So that's what they say. So under the Vermont law, which he's being charged with here, to be found guilty, he must be found to have hired,

counseled, or otherwise procured the commission of the crime. I think that falls into that. Otherwise procured means, can you do that for me? That's fast, yeah. You could get anything fit in there. And he taught her how to use a gun, so I put counseled in there as well.

Yeah. He didn't pay her, but that's – if he was involved in any other role, he must be acquitted no matter how reprehensible that role is, the defense attorney says. The assistant attorney here, Keith, is prosecuting again. says. The assistant attorney here, Keith, is prosecuting again. He counters with these arguments that under Vermont law, an accessory can be found guilty of a more serious crime than the principal. The extreme, he said, would be a situation in which the accessory is prosecuted, but the principal, for reasons of age or mental condition, is not. Also, that if the jury chooses to believe Bonnie, it can convict Ryan beyond a reasonable doubt. He said the case is a credibility contest. So the tape is in.

I mean, the tape is out because it's such poor quality. The fuck tape. It's out. During it, there's a little exchange where they mention that one of the officers hiding in the farmhouse basement was wearing a set of Mickey Mouse type headsets to monitor the conversation. And they tried to say, does that mean they're not good quality? And he's like, no, you look like Mickey Mouse because they're huge. Yeah. Yeah.

He said the person looks like Mickey Mouse. It's not referring to the quality of the device. He said a lot of tax dollars went into that equipment, sir. That's what he said. Very expensive. You just look stupid wearing them. And then the defense said, I can certainly see that. This is equipment that all these tax dollars went into that produced a 98% useless tape.

Nice equipment. Great equipment. All it says is give it to me harder. That's all I hear is, ah. Watch the baby. Watch the baby watch the baby i think i heard choke me in there somewhere so that's i don't like that so one statement they said that he heard uh from ryan did not appear to fit with the prosecutor's claim that he conspired with with miss king this is what the defense is saying here and the state policeman as the state policeman

told it ryan said to miss king quote you're a big girl now you didn't have to shoot him you ought to have you ought to have known better that's what the cop said he said at one point so he was being kind of i think he he was suspicious is probably the problem he was how can i fuck her and still not be incriminate myself um now the the defense um described her as a young woman who became involved in sexual relations with numerous men as a means of um satiating her need to be loved and be the center of attention okay that can be true either way that can be true and he could have told her yeah that that feels inflammatory sir that seems that's did i mention she's a hoover no it's fucking stupid because yeah you know why it's

stupid it's a fucking stupid thing to say that's all the that person you just described is also a person that you could manipulate to get to do things. So you just made their point at the same time. So Bonnie again said that he got the shotgun, showed the jury how Gerald had showed her how to use the 12-gauge that she used, where to aim, how to make it appear as if she shot in self-defense by ripping her clothing. Oh, shit. She tried to – that's what they tried to do. She had ripped clothes and all that kind of shit. examination, the defense attorney said to Ms. King here, you understand that this questioning is not a battle of wits, that this is not a game. And she said, yes. So they asked her if she had

been instructed by the lawyers to look at the jury when she answers because she turns and looks at the jury to answer questions. Yeah, she's doing the Amber Heard. So they said, looking at that, she looked at the jury and said, yes, they told me they were the ones who judge and they should hear my answers. Right. Which sounds very innocent. It's fine. And they then asked her if Gerald ever explicitly told her to kill Larry Jr. She said, no, but he told me I had to get rid of Larry and how to load the gun and where to shoot and how many times to shoot and to rip my clothes and to not talk to the cops and to talk to a lawyer and then he would pay for the lawyer.

So, yeah, kind of. Yeah. That means yes. So part of her testimony stricken from the record because it references the killing of Howard Brooks as well. So that gets that causes a conference in chambers and the defense attorney says, we're getting close to a mistrial here. So, before the

cross-examination, the jury requested that Gerald Ryan sit in a position where they could see him more fully. I guess he's been kind of slumping down and kind of hiding behind his attorneys. They want to watch him. Yeah. He testifies.

Oh, Jerry. He's got it. He's so cocky that he thinks I'll take care of this. I'll get up there and I'll tell him it's fine. He talked a girl into murder. He can talk a jury into freedom, right? What he's thinking. Same reason Ted Bundy represented himself. He goes, I can talk my way out of this.

So he said that he did not like larry jr because larry had had sexual relations with his then girlfriend but he had no part in the murder he told the jury that while he he had lied under oath at the inquest into the murder he's telling the truth now and that he had not ordered his former girlfriend to kill him in order to prove her love for Gerald. He they talk about the conversation in the Georgia farmhouse, which was monitored by police. And they ask him if he remembered telling Miss King not to pinpoint anything at her upcoming trial and to say she didn't remember so that the state wouldn't trick you into saying something that they might want to hear. Do you remember telling her how to testify and he said, yes,

no, what would make you feel better? That's Ryan's answer on the stand. Yes, no, what would make you feel better? Which one does the jury like? The judge fucking pipes up and says, don't argue with the defense. Don't argue with the prosecution

just answer the questions and um at one point the defense attorney from his table had to say to ryan while he was being cross-examined don't get into an argument here just answer the question he yelled at him his attorney completely out of turn yelled at him across the courtroom because then the judge said you shut the fuck up yep that's what he said stop don't write an argument just answer the goddamn question what everybody was thinking they wanted to say so um during after each each questioning concerning his testimony at the inquest earlier um they'd say was that a lie and ryan would say yes over and over again so in questioning on the many many letters he'd written Bonnie while he was in jail, the prosecution noticed that Ryan had requested she destroy the letters

and asked Ryan, would you have written the things you did about Larry Jr.'s death if you thought she saved them? And he answered, quote, I don't know. They asked him why he had expressed concern in his conversation at the Georgia farmhouse that law enforcement officers would find his prints on the shotgun. Ryan said, I don't know. When asked if he had told Bonnie to rip her blouse

to make it appear as if Larry Jr. had grabbed her, he said, I didn't tell her to rip nothing. But then he acknowledged that he, quote, might have told her she should have ripped it the night before when she told him what she had done the morning after the shooting. I didn't tell her to do it, but when she did do it, I told her that was stupid. You should have done this premeditated. This is how you hide it. it i told her that was stupid you should have done this premeditated this is how you hide it um then they asked him did you say you would procure the services of your lawyer wool for bonnie and he

said it depends on what way you look at it this guy's an asshole this is arrogance this is a guy that's used to being in control of shit and he's not in control of shit and he won't play along that's what this guy is this is a fucking asshole so it's totally what it is i will not i'm not you're not going to dominate me because you know even though i'm on trial for murder and that's exactly your job so this has been a mistrial before and it's fed into his ego he thinks he can do it again he got away with murder before he did three months for christ's sake he says that he never threatened to shoot any of the men that bonnie had had relations with, but could not remember if he had threatened any of them with other forms of bodily harm. He said that in the in the frequent quarrels he had with Bonnie about being true to one another, Bonnie would threaten the men she had affairs with, saying they used her.

He said she always tried to put the blame on the boys and would threaten to shoot that so-and-so. He said, though, that he might have described the men as garbage when arguing with her. May have. Those are garbage people. He also said that he couldn't remember even threatening Bonnie and said that he never hurt her intentionally, never cut her with a can opener or anything like that.

So, yeah, the jury, after an hour's discussion, they ask, they go in for an hour to deliberate. They come back out. They ask to hear the last 15 minutes of the state psychiatrist's testimony and the testimony of one of the cops. So can you give us that? So they read that. Then 10 minutes later, they come back.

Oh. And they say, got it. We got it. We got a verdict here. We got it. He's got Brian sitting there. His wife Kathy's here still somehow. Really?

She's here. His mother's there. His brother's there. He's got a friend named Harleen Wright there. We'll talk about Harleen. Remember the name Harleen Wright. That's his friend right now okay um so uh he is convicted guilty of first degree murder okay so he says well i should get bail before appeals i mean jesus christ i should get bail this is fucking ridiculous here this is. Now, during arguments at the bail request, the state attorney reported that the foreman of the jury had received an anonymous threatening phone call since the trial since it ended. would comply with bail provisions and cited what he called hysteria and paranoia in ryan's home

territory over larry jr's death he's like you know we don't know what he's gonna do they said ryan who's been taking uh librium i don't know that's a 70s it's a quote i quote tranquilizing drug from the 70s it's probably an elephant fucking tranquilizer. It'll put an elephant down. There's no elephants here. There's no elephants here. So I said that. So they said he stared downward as he had done during most of the proceedings when the verdict was given. Yeah. No reaction.

He got. So this can this. They go to sentencing here and it is a mandatory sentence. You, sir, may fuck off life in prison. Oh, boy. Now, first degree murder convictions carry an automatic appeal in the state of Vermont. So definitely we have to discuss the appeal here. So automatic appeal.

So automatic appeal. The state argues that the motives for the motives for both both the killings, Brooks and and Larry Jr. were the same jealousy on the part of him. They think that the state, he says, quote, we think the state misunderstands the theory of the motive of the motive exception. Evidence of other crimes is only admissible to establish motive when the fact of the commission of the other crime provides a reason for the defendant to have committed the crime charged. So that makes sense if you go backwards on that. It's admissible to establish a motive when the fact of the commission of the other crime provides a reason for him to commit the crime charge, like to kill someone to cover up a killing. That's what that would basically be. So he said, even if we accepted the state's assertion that there was a motive of jealousy

behind the killing of Brooks and that the appellant had reason to be jealous of the victim in that case, we do not find the probative value necessary to override the prejudice which could result from the admission of the Brooks killing evidence. We find this to be precisely the kind of evidence which is prohibited under Vermont law because, to paraphrase a case, the evidence would be effective only as it appealed to the tendency to believe that a man who acted on jealousy at one time may very well have been guilty of the same offense at another so basically says because you did something once they can't say that you always did that in court so they said the uh other exception on which the state relies is that which admits evidence of other crimes to show intent for essentially the same reasons we rejected the state's argument based on the motive exception, we hold that the evidence of appellant's prior conviction for manslaughter should have been ruled inadmissible. The exception which allows the use of evidence is to show the intent.

I already said that. The state's attempts to fit the evidence of the manslaughter conviction under the rubrics of motive or intent share the same flaw. of motive or intent share the same flaw. In neither case do we find any connection between the two crimes other than that connection, which depends on the naturally drawn but legally insufficient assumption that if he did it once, he'll probably do it again. What the fuck, man? That doesn't work legally. Based on the foregoing discussion, we hold that the initial ruling of the trial court, which denied the motion to exclude the evidence of prior conviction for manslaughter was error such evidence falls under none of the exceptions to the general rule that

evidence of a defendant's prior crimes may not be used against him and the failure to rule resulted in prejudice to the appellant that means thrown the fuck out unbelievable Unbelievable. Overturned. What in the shit? Let him out. Over fucking turned. October 31st, 1977, they overturned it. Unbelievable. Ordered a new trial here for him. A new trial. So, holy balls. April, Jesus Christ, man.

This is fucking wild. So, he has the whole thing. New trial, obviously. But This is fucking wild. So he has the whole thing. New trial, obviously. But time is going by. Every more time that goes by, the less this is likely to stick. And that goes with anything. You know what I mean? Unless it's a DNA situation.

It's like that. So they overturn. They order a new trial. 1979 comes around, finally. Oh, dear Lord. Okay. He's been out, by the way, this whole time. Yeah, finally lord okay he's been out by the way this whole time he's been out so they they're trying to get him to make a deal they're trying to get him to plea bargain they're trying to get him to do something so they end up having him finally agree to plead guilty to being an accessory after the fact. Holy shit. Because an accessory after the fact actually has a longer sentence than manslaughter.

Okay. So rather than manslaughter. It's longer than five months? It's longer than five months, yeah. That's like one to whatever. The minimum is 15 years on the accessory after the fact. Oh. So that's why they're like, okay, we'll get him on that.

And that's not the minimum, but one of we'll get them on that. And that, that's not the minimum, but one of the sentencing ranges you can do is that. So, um, you can get that or you can get something lower, but they thought they'd get better sentence out of this. So,

um, they, he admitted to having helped. He admits to having helped Bonnie fabricate a story, denying the killing in an attempt to avoid prosecution. That's what he's pleading guilty to. Not orchestrating the murder. He also admitted to lying at an inquest when he said that he had never shown her how to use a shotgun.

He said, as I've already said, I never told her to shoot anybody. That's all I want to say about that. I have shown her how to use them. Did tell her how to do it here. Yeah, that's the thing. So Franklin County State's Attorney David Miller urged them to impose a sentence of a six-year minimum. Okay? Judge, please.

Six-year minimum, citing the two felonies and his 73 manslaughter conviction as three very serious offenses in less than fucking in a couple year period here. They suggest also here that Ryan had been involved in a lover's triangle with Larry Jr. and that Miss Bonnie had testified at the trial that he had coerced her. So they said, so why did he show Bonnie had to use a shotgun? A consciousness of guilt, your honor. Gerald Max Ryan knew what he was doing. He did this because the taking of a human life was cheap to him. So sentencing comes around and it's fucking postponed a ton.

It keeps getting postponed. Postponed. Postponed. This is the most edging story on the fucking planet. You're never going to come. So they also say that there's a paperwork problem. That's what happened. He's also convicted for false swearing, which also carries years in jail.

I think it's a five-year minimum, but he's hoping that they'll run consecutive and not concurrent, but probably not. So false swearing charge stems from his testimony at the inquest. It's basically perjury, but a little higher. Perjury with some stank on it. There he said that he didn't tell her to use the gun. Now at sentencing, he's got to kind of try to work this a little bit. He says, yes, I showed her how to use a gun, but I never told her to shoot anybody

again he says that um and uh he by the way will be given credit here for 615 days already served on the murder conviction two years almost so he'll get credit for that he is sentenced to are you ready yeah you sir may fuck off three to seven years in jail of which he has credit for 615 days this is march 79 and he will be eligible for parole in a matter of a couple of months yeah what the fuck couple months no problem He'll be back. This man is a danger. By October 1980, he – oh, no, that's his kid. Holy shit. I thought that was him. Gerald Max Ryan Jr., his son, is arrested – or I'm sorry, pleads guilty to possession of a controlled substance as well.

So he's on drugs. It goes all the way up to that. Then I found here January 1st, 2020. Gerald dies at 76 years old. Jesus Christ. Out of prison for fucking 40 years. He lived 40 years. Unbelievable.

He loved welding and doing mechanical work. He worked at Ormond Bushy Excavating. Hey! You know that name? I wonder who that is. Yeah. He worked for their fucking family, dude. Wow.

The guy who, like, that's how small this town is. I got to work for the guy's family who testified against me in a murder trial. Unbelievable. That's a small town. That's small. Or those people are terrified of him. They're like, we'll give you a job. No shit.

Worked there for 27 years after all this was over. Worked there until he was 60, mainly operating their Fairfax sand and gravel pit and then the North Hero Quarry. He enjoyed going to tractor pulls. Yeah, he did. This is in the newspaper. He enjoyed. Hey, everyone.

Right now, I'll tell Sarah publicly, whoever puts this together, please don't tell people I enjoy. Quote, he enjoyed going to tractor pulls. Actually, you know what? Do do that because people will be like, really? That's weird. He liked tractor pulls? Wow. Did they also have skeet shooting in the things he likes?

He enjoyed going to tractor pulls, yard sales. Yeah. He likes rummaging through garbage and watching tractors and mud. And he likes to go out to breakfast because it's Vermont and that's what everybody does. Big fan of the blueberry pancakes. The funny thing, one of these articles of his trial and shit like beneath it in the newspaper was this giant picture it was a quarter of the page jimmy of this picture of this big guy not a big fat guy but like a big guy he's about 30 years old with a fucking ear to

ear smile on his face pouring syrup over a stack of like a dozen pancakes and it said this guy so and so is taking the all you can eat pancake breakfast seriously and he's just like i'm gonna eat all he is there's literally a dozen i'm not kidding i counted them there's a dozen pancakes it's a real picture it's not like a fucking fake advertising oh no no no this is a guy out and down we covered the big pancake breakfast down at the church and here's the guy who was eating the biggest stack look at that all you can eat well then all he doesn't shit that's it come on down he also loved spending time with his family especially his grandchildren oh my god he has survived by his longtime partner harleen wright of east fairfield

remember her around she stuck around from the fucking trial listen to this though yeah this is the greatest line ever in an obituary he is survived by his longtime partner partner harleen Harleen Wright of East Fairfield, his special friend Judy Bilodeau, his special friend, he has sanctioned outside the relationship fucking to the point where she gets placement in the obituary. She makes...

She made print, bro. She gets a credit for Christ's sake. This till his fucking dying day. He kept one in reserve. Unreal. In his 70s. His fucking slinging that northern Vermont dick.

Longtime partner and then a separate person, his special friend, Judy. Harleen and Judy. Oh, you two. his special friend judy harleen and judy so oh you too till the fucking end gerald ryan was so gerald ryan like till the fucking end this guy was the most gerald ryan of gerald ryan could gerald ryan you know what i'm saying what a terrible man what a fucking asshole this guy is i swear to god i could not find what happened to bonnie i know she did at least 10 years in prison and uh and i don't know what she did after that i found a woman that i thought was her that died but the date of birth was off i think that she was this woman was too

young to be bonnie so she was in vermont too and everything but it was just a few few years off so i'm not sure she might have changed her name and fucking went into hiding to get away from this whole thing so or she could have moved somewhere away from this decrepit north pole the decrepit farmhouse so i don't know that's a wild fucking story though man that's just believable that was in the 70s too it's just so culty jim jonesy Manson-y. It's crazy that somebody can be a part of that much murder and serve no time for it. Hardly. Just a couple of months here and there. He just probably used that as a refresher. Never even had anything negative happen to him because of it.

Didn't lose a car over it. Nothing. My truck door got taken off. And they said, the psychiatrist said, they said, well, what kind of person could brainwash somebody or mold somebody mentally to force them to do that? And he said it would have to be somebody probably older than them for the most part. And people like Manson and Hitler do that. So they compared him in open court to Manson and Hitler. Keep a concubine into his 70s.

That's wild. With full knowledge of his fucking quote longtime partner, Harleen. So she had to know getting into this that boy, his dick wanders. And I don't know. So if your dick wanders or any other thing you want to tell us about, if you like the show, wander and cock. Now, if you're wandering wing heads on over this way if you like the show tell the world about it get on everywhere apple podcasts whatever app you're listening on most 99 of them have a rating thing rate and review give us five stars it helps drive us up the

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I think they're done. And Portland and Seattle were sold out, so we added another show to both of those. That was kind of a planned thing, so other cities don't, we're not adding any other second shows. This was already kind of a planned thing, so Thursday night show, it always is up there in the Northwest. They're a fucking awesome crowd up there. So Thursday night show in Seattle,

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low price of five dollars a month or above so get on in there this week what we have for you episode wise for crime and sports we're going to talk about how the fuck is fantasy sports so popular yeah how to make a tv show how to make a TV, several hundred TV, how did, there's like a thousand podcasts about it. Look at the top 100 sports podcasts. 86 of them are about fantasy sports. That's ridiculous. How is it that that has taken over people's time, their fucking marriages have fallen apart, fallen apart, all of this shit. Also, they can fucking have bragging rights over ted and marketing for the

rest of the season that's that's all that is guy at work so you can go ha ha my team beat ted's tumblers kicked your ass buddy we'll find that out for small town murder we're going to talk about something very interesting kai the hatchet wielding hitchhiker yes who i didn't realize even the documentary was coming out about him before it came out so he was just on the list and there he is so uh we'll talk all about him that's a wild story just as crazy as it sounds the hatchet wielding hitchhiker check it out there um guy did a crazy interview on new on the news that you can or we'll we'll play it and react to it it's fucking wild so check all that out patreon. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. And

of course, you will get a shout out and I'm trying to think about it. When does that shout out happen, Jimmy? I got time for it. Right fucking now. Hit me with them, Jimmy. This week's executive producers are Matt Britt, Michelle Miller, Dean Kerr, Patrice Wichterrescue...

What? Wichterzuski? Wichterrescue. Ben Sullivan. And happy birthday, Jordan Bennett. Happy birthday, Jordan. Wicter Rescue. What? Wicter Zewski? Wicter Rescue. Ben Sullivan. And happy birthday, Jordan Bennett. Happy birthday, Jordan. It's a big day. Hey, happy birthday. One of our faves.

Because you're not special. One of our faves. Yeah. Happy birthday. You and Simon have a nice day. And that's it. The next day didn't happen anymore. It's done.

It's over. Our other producers this week are Peyton Meadows, Darcy Stander, Paul Egan, Teddy Hart's Calico Butthole Foundation. Oh, boy. Frank Burchap, champion of the fantasy football. Crime and Sports Small-Term Murder Fantasy Football League. See? Congratulations.

Congratulations. Let's find out about what makes you this way. Ty Adkins made a showing in it also. $17 and a Casio. Happy hour at home in Marrero, Louisiana. Cynthia Jean Willard. Catherine Collado. Janice Hill.

Happy birthday, Jennifer Stevens. Sarah Surridge is waiting on Paul Goschioni. Yeah, yeah. You know. Yeah, we'll get there. Lucy Cunniff, happy birthday. Sue Heil, Torres, Shitstains Family Foundation for Higher Learning, James. Other producers also.

Paul Johnson, Jackie with no last name. Carrie Ireland, Meg with no last name. Tim Beguret. Beguret, Beguret, Katie Ruddick, Matt DeLuke, nope, LeDuc, that's what it is, Cindy Bianchi. Beautiful. I wish I was better at this. Nick Kruger, Sarah Smith, Nick Clark, Dustin Gray,

Nicole with no last name, Quentin Casper, Gilly with no last name, Levi Wilson, Douglas Rydell, Emma Borelli, Lauren Veroff, I think, Bryce or Breece with no last name, Mary Meeker, Shauna Myers. Nope, that's just Sean. Sorry, Sean. Don't do too well. You just want to keep expectations low. That's all.

You keep them low, you get celebrated for pronouncing fucking Rachel correctly. And it's fucking. So just keep doing that. It's good. Kevin Wetclow, Angela Collier, I think. Roe, Roe, Roe Roy. John Glancy. Sally West, Eileen Hoffman.

Opath, Opathy, Opathy one. Jessica P., Sarah Keensler. Samantha Alesi, Aler. Samantha Alesi. A-leasy. A-leasy. Joshua Braun. Lee C. Naomi McKnight.

Daniel with no last name. Dolph Lundgren. Probably not, but I would hope so. I'm sure it is. Telly McKay. Alyssa C. Taylor Church. Spencer Peterson.

Huge crime and sports fan, that guy. He loves it. He can't get enough. Charlie K. Nope. Yeah. Castanaya? castania can castany uh mel with no last name aspen anders nanette roberts daniella with no last name katie martin chris with no last name jim barbado nicole with no last name caitlin froese uh kylie rowan aaron kennedy oliviaacher, I think, Bracker, Joanna Tiefenthaler. Yeah.

Tiefenthaler. Haley Moog, I think, Maug maybe. Zach Barlow, Sue Clark, Renee Welch, Heather with no last name, Michelle Craig, Andy Womack, Vanessa Cavanaugh, Savannah, Savannah, Savannah Pearson. Nice and low, Jimmy. Nice and low. Good job. You got to boot a grounder once in a while.

So when you make a play in the hole, everybody notices. You know what I mean? Vanessa. Yeah. There you go. Don, even Jimmy can pronounce this more. Robin, no, Rainbow, Rainbow, ASMR. Samantha Weiler, Dylan Hatcher. Joe Mama.

Andy Smith. Colin Sebastian. Asia Redgrave. Corin. Maybe Corin. I don't know. Stevenson. Stephenson, maybe.

Who knows? Janet Walsdorf. Ryshawn Ralston Roach. Camden Whitney. Sean Young. Probably not that one. Nick Smith. Riley Foster.

She's wearing a bat suit in the studio. Earl Smith. Riley Foster. Earl Stevens. Amber Miller. Neville. Neville? Maybe. Kun Ha. Cassandra Nolan. Spencer with no last name. Wade McLeod. Andrew Bertram. John Hope.

Maybe Gene. Break the Mold. Shanika Morgan. Lisa Cox. Michael Velez. Rita with no last name, Chickadee Hill Cakes, Carrie with no last name, Christy Maverick, Teresa Blau, maybe Blow, Tiffany Tate, Paula Jordan, Callum Alexander, and Asty Bearcat, I think. There's no fucking way I'm pronounced. Dick Butch, Dick Man. Dickman, maybe. Dickman. Laurie Jenkins.

Jesus. Jay Joubert, Dylan Hauer, Nelson Colon, Stephanie Thompson, Jackie Whitaker, Jamie Tibbenbets, Tibbenbets, Nakomas McGinnis, Nakomas? Nokomus. Nakomomus. Vavi Arison, Samantha Plunkett,en smith chelsea mellick justin mehi kobe uh reagan fish anthony alvarez page would know last name robert uh heiner uh callie would know last name mariela sanchez cody kenner page kunkles rice schwitters uh rachel would know

last name jorge antonopoulos what? How did I do that? Not bad. Joyce Erickson. You mixed up Spanish and Greek flawlessly, like a fusion restaurant that's gone in the game. That was a good job. Ruth DeFries, I think. Deferries. John Bergun. Keim.

Keim Goit. What? C-Y-M-E. Keim. Keim. Keim. Chill me. Daniel Antonebeto.

Antonebeto. Z? I can't do it. No, you can't. It's a lot. He loses. He sputters out after the third vowel. He's like, I don't know what's in there anymore.

Anto Benedetto. Bingo. Philip Johnson. Jenny Lyons. Stacey Gathers. Stephanie Russell. Elora. Elora Guy,

Jennifer DeMarco, a la Medusa, Akiya? Akiya Hardiman? Akiya. It's Akiya. What are we doing? Thomas Martin, Ivan Castillo, Daryl6283, Nikki Kane, Pickles, no last name, Ian Holt, I think. See you in Portland, Ian.

Bethany Hammonds, I think that's Ian. Ashley Martin, Rob Sanford, Allison S., Meredith Fisher, Abby with no last name, Robert Hogue, Liam Spurrell, Spurrell maybe. Lori with no last name. Samantha Sargent, Dylan,

Dylan Larson, Kevin Sullivan, Galena Gavilchik, Lily with no last name, Ian Furman, Jeff S., Lindsey Gillum, Jonathan Goldsmith, Daneen, Sean Madden, Emily with no last name, Amanda Marble, Kaelin, Sinclair, Taylor Thomason, Jessica DeFrost, Abby Shadoff, Jammary Parsonow, Jeremy Parsonow, John Hennessey, Becca Moore, Paul Saley, Kendall Martinez, Samuel Andrew Lowe, Liz Dunn-Cole, Jen C., Liz Sanders, Malcolm Dial, Jessica with no last name, Mackenzie Brockman, Vivian Vaca, Landon Doherty, Alexandra Shea, Robert Bowden, Cindy with no last name, Natalie Sue, Stephen with no last name, Zach Stewart, Alex McCombs, Sherry Bourne, and all of our patrons. You're fantastic.

Thank you so much, everybody. You fucking people are awesome. We appreciate the shit out of what you do for us. Never fail. Thank you so much, everybody. You fucking people are awesome. We appreciate the shit out of what you do for us. Never fail. Thank you so much. And make sure to look out for the new show, too, Your Stupid Opinions, where it's reviews and we really get into some funny stuff. It's going to be so much fun. It's going to be.

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