Small Town Murder - #359 - Gerald & Alice: The Deadly Duo - Pavillion, Wyoming

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

This week, in Pavillion, Wyoming, when two wayward souls find each other, it seems like their turbulent lives will finally be settled. That is, until one of them has tells the other of a secret that couldn't be told to anyone else. A secret that can't be taken back. From there, they make deadly new secrets, as a couple, leaving four people dead, in their wake. The problem is, with no bodies, it's very hard to make legal cases, until a very unexpected source comes forward with all the evidence to close this nightmare of a chapter!!Along the way, we find out that disco, comedy & magic don't go together, that any amount of blood in your car is probably too much blood, and that you need to keep your kids close, but kep your kids who know murder details even closer!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Pavilion, Wyoming, deep, dark secrets are kept in the vast landscape, hiding a couple's evil deeds for years until all the terrible details finally come to light. Welcome to Small Town Murder.

Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another crazy and man, is it nuts edition of Small Town Murder. They get crazier every week. And I don't know what to say. They're doing the world is doing this.

It's not us. We'll just say that we're just finding them. Sorry about that. Very quickly before we start, head over to shut up and give me murder dot com. Get your tickets starting. If you're listening to this when it comes out normally and not a week early on the subscription thing, then it is in a couple of days. Cleveland, Ohio kicking off the 2023 tour.

Oh, baby. Still tickets left for Cleveland. Get them right now. I don't know if they'll be left by next week when it's coming out, but who knows? Tickets there. We're also in St. Louis, but that's sold out. Also, extra shows added in Seattle and Portland. And make sure Detroit, too.

Get your tickets there. And Pittsburgh is getting close to sold out. So definitely get those tickets there. Shutupandgivememurder.com. Head over to patreon.com slash crimeandsports. If you want more material, that's where you get it all. Anybody $5 a month or above, you're going to get a ton of stuff, including the whole back catalog, over 150 episodes of bonus material

that you're not going to get anywhere else. And on top of that, every other week you are going to get two new episodes, one crime and sports, one small town murder. You get access to it all. This week is no different. For crime and sports, you're going to get the 10-cent beer night deal here, which there was a nickel beer night before that, which is even more dangerous. Unlimited nickel beers, which is scary. It's insane.

But this was 10-cent beer night, and it ended in a riot with things on fire, of course, and fans attacking the players on the field. It's good shit. I can't wait to tell you about it. And then for small town murder, we're going to talk about something really cool. Small town scams. Yeah. These old towns, these guys would make pamphlets and send them back east and say, oh, beautiful thing. And, you know, gardens and farms.

And it's going to be great. And then you get there and it was just a sandy hole. And some guy was like on his yacht with a cigar and your money. With a cigar made of your money. Drifting away. Cigars on a trailer going away because there's no fucking water here. None at all. So that's patreon.com slash crime and sports.

Get in there. So much fun. And you get a shout out at the end of the show where Jimmy's going to screw up your name terribly. Well, he wants to get it correct. So that'll be fun stuff. Very quickly here, the disclaimer is a comedy show. We're comedians. Terrible murders are going

to happen. And the thing that people get most angry at us for, honestly, isn't even the murder part, which is the weird thing. That's how good we are, I think, at going around that. Because what we do is we don't make fun of the victims or the victims families because we're assholes all right right but but we're not scumbags

that's how that works so we we cover that pretty well but people get very angry at the town stuff we make fun of where we're from the worst it's just it's a roast it's not a any and like the reviews we didn't write those people other people just reading them so history we it's a roast. It's not a any. And like the reviews, we didn't write those people. Other people just reading them. So history, we were just reading it. What happened? And then talking about it a little bit, making some jokes because we're comics. Relax about the town.

We might take some fucking assumptions here and there. But what are you going to do? It's caught. We're all from a terrible place. We're making jokes about it. Chill out. Have fun with it. There you go.

So that said, that sounds good to you. We're going to have a great time. If you think true crime and comedy should never, ever, ever maybe we're not for each other who knows maybe it's a bad date and we say goodbye and you know how happy we didn't put three four years into this relationship but for everybody else i think it's time to sit back let's clear the lungs i don't care where you are, honestly. I really don't. We talked about a colonoscopy. Pop out of the dentist's chair with the sucky thing in your mouth and shout, Shut up! And give me murder!

There you go. Let's do it, everybody. Let's go on a trip, shall we? The man says he wants a burger. Get him a burger. He wants to shut up and give me a burger. I think he's, get this man a burger. He's clearly starving.

That said, let's go on a trip, Jimmy. What do you say? Let's go. We are going to go to somewhere we do not visit very often. We've only been there three times in the history of the show. Holy shit. So, a while here. We're going to Wyoming. Wide open there. Yes. Because there's not a history of the show. Holy shit. So a while here. We're going to Wyoming, wide open there.

Yes, because there's not a lot of people there, and then there's a lot of open space, so the few people that are there kill each other less because, I mean, you have to find somebody first to be able to kill them, right? Yeah. You have to know where they are. Possibly the best license plate in the country, though.

Oh, that's a cool license plate. It's their college football team's helmet. That's all it is. Right. With that fucking Bronco. I don't know if they still have it. Probably not. Everybody's changed their bullshit.

Yeah, you got to change it up. It used to be cool as shit. Yeah, it used to be damn cool. This is Pavilion, Wyoming. Okay. Pavilion, like a pavilion. It's in central Wyoming, right there in the middle. It's far from most everything.

Four hours and 45 minutes to Cheyenne. Right in the middle. It's far from most everything. Four hours and 45 minutes to Cheyenne. Right in the mountains. There is nothing there. I mean, that is some wide open country. Two hours and about two and a half hours to Jackson Hole. Do some skiing and that sort of thing. And five hours. Yeah, just be a general rich douche.

You know, go up there, mingle, rub elbows with other douches. You know how it goes goes sit on a saddle bar stool and drink your douches beer yeah douches retired politicians euro douches things of that nature cowboys yeah fake cowboys um and it's about five hours to hillsdale which was our last wyoming episode which was uh episode 291 nicknames of Death. So it's been a while. Anyway, this is in Fremont County, area code 307. History of this place, just a little bit here. This area had one of the last big land rushes of the West in 1906.

August 15th, 1906. A little late. A little late for that, for Freeland. August 15th, 1906, a Denver newspaper said, quote, not since the Oklahoma rush has there been so much interest manifested in the opening of a reservation. Which is a weird way to say this land we just took. So nearly 10,000 people showed up, which is like half of the current population of Wyoming, I believe. That seems like a whole lot of people. That's a shitload of people to show up in the middle of nowhere. They all lined up and waited for everything, and they claimed all the plots and everything like that.

Land was sold at $1.50 an acre in the first two years after this opening, then $1.25 per acre. an acre in the first two years after this opening, then $1.25 per acre. And then anything that remained unsold after five years was auctioned off to the public at $1 an acre. What is that today's money? $1 in 1908? I mean, it might be $50. Yeah. You know, $50, $60 an acre.

That's awesome. That's crazy. So finally, then after eight years the secretary of the interior could sell any lands to the highest bidder this was the land nobody wanted obviously but then railroads came so people would speculate and buy land hoping the railroad would come through their blazing saddle situations basically how it goes there and um the uh they also have a problem with water quality nowadays. Oh, is that right? Yeah.

In 2008, people five miles east, northeast of Pavilion complained of discolored water, which that's not great, foul smells, and then illnesses they suspected was due to water quality. And so in 2010, they had a big investigation into the whole thing. Who did it? The EPA. It was an environmental issue. They didn't do the environmental issue. Who did that? Oh, that's fracking.

Fracking did that. Yeah, it was underground. They said that it affected. Isn't it crazy that big corporations might go out in the middle of nowhere where nobody's looking and, you know, not do things. Destroy the water supply well we've had a few of these towns where like some corporation left their of course shit in the water and they still can't drink it we had one it was like 60 years they couldn't drink the water for the last 60 years that was in alabama yeah yeah yeah in alabama they found benzene naphthalene phenols and metals in the water oh my god and recommend that they use fans while

bathing or washing clothes to avoid risk of explosion of explode this isn't don't drink it you'll get sick this is the water will explode do you understand how bad the water has to be for them to fear explosion in a fucking confined area the gases will really put a fan on it yeah the fumes in your water are bad wow that is crazy turn on a fan when you shower i've seen flammable water before but i've never heard of that water might explode that i've never heard before this is crazy wow holy shit um so yeah they found out in 2016 a study confirmed the chemicals used in fracking was impacted the drinking water um that was it was it was well water and shit leaked into the wells fantastic so um there's only one review of this town so reviews it's not it's it's out there man it really is there's not one review of this town, so reviews. It's out there, man. It really is. There's not a lot of people.

It's five stars. This is the mayor of Pavilion here said this. Don't worry. I have a lot of fans. It's okay. Free fan when you enter town. They just have a stack of box fans out there by the welcome sign. Constant breeze in my house.

You get flagged down like a roadblock when you go in and they're like y'all staying just driving through okay now go ahead and then y'all stay in oh well here take your box fan just in case y'all never know when you're gonna do laundry wow here last go so uh it is pavilion is a great little town when there is a crisis everyone works together to solve the problem no okay hopefully you can drink the water soon. We all got the fumes out of the water. Let's do it. And all the people consists of 230 people. That's the population here.

Oh, okay. It's the middle of nowhere. I mean, more male than female by a good amount, actually, because it's a lot of, like, ranching and things like that. Like, ranch hands come in and, you know, cowboys and shit like that. There hire like ranch hands come in and cowboys and shit like that. There's a 54% almost male. Median age is like 32 and a half, which is lower than average.

There's a ton of kids here. This is, yeah, this is all of the old people demographics are lower because it's cold in the winter. It's rough work. Like if you don't retire here, you retire from here because it's hard. But all the environment will murk you in your retirement age.

Yeah. All the demographics under 45 are all way high, especially kids under 14. They're way up there. 56% of the people here are married. So it's a little bit higher than normal. 80% white in this town. 0.0% black. 0.0% black 0.0% Asian

yeah 10.9% Hispanic so it's just kind of Cowboys and Mexicans and Native Americans obviously too it's 5.9% Native American religion 33.9% are religious here which is lower

than the average it's usually about 50-50 and it's spread around pretty clean. The highest one, and it's under 10%, is Mormon. Is that right? Yeah, and that's under 10%. So it's spread out, some Methodists, a couple of Baptists, a Pentecostal or two, a Presbyterian here or there sprinkled on top for flavor, like paprika. there sprinkled on top for flavor like paprika so uh politically in fremont county uh 30 and a half percent of the people voted democratic in the last election 66.3 republican 3.2 independent

a little more independent than most out here um because it's it's an independent type of place yeah you have you have to be kind of independent. If you live in a town of 230 people where you can't drink the water, you've got to be somewhat independent. The water's explosive. You're fending for yourself out there. You are learning stop, drop, and roll very early. Very quickly. Shit, you're learning shrapnel comes from the washing machine.

If the washing machine blows, look out for shrapnel. from the washing machine so if the washing machine blows look out for shrapnel is a thing you learn at a young age i lost a kenmore in 1994 oh man tell you what i didn't put my fan on and it was a problem so the unemployment rate's about average here it's a touch high but not nothing much the median household income, a little bit low, $48,182 a year, which is about $5,000 below the national average. Cost of living, $100 would be average, regular. Here, it's $92.7. So a little bit low. Housing is actually lower than the norm, but there's not a lot of it available is the problem. So it's valued low, but when you sell it, that actually sells higher. But Wyoming in general, like the places where there's population, it's expensive.

It's expensive. The places like Jackson Hole, that's like Montecito or something. They're like $20 million estates and shit. It's crazy up there. So median house cost here, $230,100, which is lower than the average. Yeah, it's not terrible. So if we've convinced you, have we talked to you yet? If we have, we have for you the Pavilion Wyoming real estate report. The average two-bedroom rental here goes for $871.

I don't know if there are any apartment complexes in a town of 250 people. So most complexes have more people than that. So I'm not sure. So the houses I found, this here is a 2,012-square-foot house. They don't really say the bedrooms or bathrooms on this one. It appears to be about a three bedroom, two bath maybe. It's a good sized house. It's like a fancy log cabin is what it is.

There's a gym there in the house, but it's like log cabin style. So you feel like you're working out in the woods, which is interesting. It's very Wyoming. Zillow insists that there's a large tree in their description. They tout this tree that you're really going to love. And there is no tree in any of these fucking pictures. And it's just wide open space. So you'd see a tree.

So I don't know if the tree's now been cut down or something. But that was the drawing point. And that's not even there. Maybe the house used to be the tree. I don't know, man. It used to be in the tree, maybe. Ten acres, though, it's on. Ten acres of nothing. That's great. $450,000

for that. No! So, I mean, ten acres and a house. Here's a three-bedroom, two-bath. It's on 19 acres, so a little more here. 1,352 square feet. It's, um, it looks like a standard, it looks like a here. 1,352 square feet. It looks like a lonely house that, in an old Western, like the bad guys, you'd sense trouble when the bad guys rolled up to the house and a woman came outside in a bonnet and it's just her and her two little kids there

and the husband's gone or something. You're like, oh, they're going to rape everybody. That's what this house looks like. Oh, that house is going to get burned down. Oh, yeah. Anyone could scream and in miles around, no one's going to hear you. So that's not good either. That one is $475,000 for this house.

With 19 acres. 19 acres, yeah. So the acreage, though, it looks like, I don't even know if shit grows there. It looks pretty rough. It's probably very rocky. though, it looks like, I don't even know if shit grows there. It looks pretty rough. It's probably very rocky. Yeah, it is. Four-bedroom, two-bath, 2,376 square feet. Very weird.

It's like half regular house, half cabin. It looks like one of the two were added onto it. And it's kind of cool, though. It looks like if you were going to move to Wyoming, this is the house you'd picture in your head that you would be moving into kind of thing. And it's on 40 acres. Holy shit. So it's a lot. But inside the house needs some updating.

It looks like it hasn't been touched since about 86. It looks like the interior of full house kind of thing. It's not good. $595,000 for that, though. For 40 acres. 40 acres in a 2,400 square foot house that needs some renovation. Goodbye. You're never going to hear from me again, John. Grab some tile

and go there. Grab some tile and go there, man. I'll hit floor and decor and grab a U-Haul and be on my way. You'd off yourself in three weeks up there by yourself. You'd lose your mind. Are you kidding me? You'd be calling me desperate in like three weeks. You'd have like scraggles of hair coming out that you forgot to shave. You'd be like a mess on the top of your head.

I can't get internet signal. I can't call my therapist. I can't do anything. I'm stuck here. Keep me on board, man. My God, this is terrible. Why did I do this? Oh, my God.

I yelled at it. All because I'm a cheap fuck and wanted 40 acres for nothing. I yelled and it echoed for about 45 minutes, James. I can't take it. Please get me out of here. I just kept hearing it repeat and repeat and repeat. There's bears at the door. I think I called them.

Oh, man. Oh, no, I don't know what to do. You'd be losing your mind out there uh things to do in this town i mean if there is any but i found a couple of things there are some things and allison found some things here too uh there is the fremont county heritage festival oh okay i like that enjoy western style family fun uh-huh at the Heritage Festival Craft and Vendor Show Fiddle Contest. Oh, boy. Oh, yeah.

They break it down. There's a Tykes Fiddle Contest. Jesus Christ. A little Tykes and a bigger Tykes. So you get, like, the age groups. And then there's the older people fiddle contest. And there's, like, rounds of two songs. You have to compete.

It's probably a big deal there there's a dutch oven cook-off which just makes immature people like us laugh because we're like oh man you can't call it that whose farts are the stinkiest you can't call it that anymore you guys you just have to say uh you bring in all their wives to judge? This is Susan from Laramie. Well, when Trevor stuck my head under the covers last week, I'll tell you what. Snot came released from my nose like I had rubbed pepper in it. And tears shot from my eyes like my grandpappy just died. Is the Dutch oven cook-off, is it just a bunch of jars that people trapped for?

You got to off them? That's what I mean. Well, there's prizes. You have three hours to prepare your best dish in your Dutch oven cook-off. First prize, 200 bucks. So make it stinky, people. It's not bad. Then there is best bread is $25 and Best Dessert.

These are not to be cooked in a Dutch oven. These are just anyway. Bring it how you wrung it. Yeah. Yeah. There's also a cornhole tournament, a trade show, and a, quote, bull riding extravaganza. Yeah. So there's a whole extravaganza.

I feel like we should get in on that. Do they do it different? Because if not you shouldn't use that word the bulls wear outfits and they they do runway work first and then they buck people off it's a it's a different experience an extravaganza jimmy it's a gala it's a gala event all right here's a brahma and some louboutins he comes out looks flashes his ass a little bit trots on down down. Cowboy jumps on him, he bucks him off. It's very, it's an extravaganza.

It's the only way to describe it. I do want to see a bull in Louboutins now. That would be a good thing to see. Come on. See that fucking red bottom. Then there's the Fremont County Fair. You can go here also. They have a carnival.

Junior livestock sale. So that's children and livestock for sale. The same thing. Monster Truck Insanity Tour. That sounds like a lot. Monster Jam exists. What's so insane about it? It's insane.

It's like the extravaganza. It's the Monster Truck Insanity Extravaganza Tour. That's what it is. Is the driver on the outside of the car? It's not very insane. It's not insane. That would be insane. Let's see how insane it is.

Is there a guy sitting there with another guy with a remote control controls his car? That would be insane. I watch that. Pulling out their big antennas. That would be awesome. Like'd watch that. Pulling out their big antennas. Yeah. That would be awesome. Like seven strokes pulling it out. Like slot cars and shit, yeah. Super long.

Oh, it's a long one, yeah, because you've got a lot to control. That's what I kept doing. It's a big machine. The Timmy Challenge, which is a, quote, bull ring event. I have no idea what this is, and there's no more information on it. So you've got to beat Timmy, apparently. I don't know if Timmy's a bull or if Timmy's a guy. Timmy's out there, and he's done something bad,

and we're treating him like a gladiator and just releasing bulls at him. That's possible. I don't know. There's the Ranch Rodeo, the Wind River Rodeo Roundup, so two different rodeos there. Fremont Family Day. That's for the kids, I guess. Hog and Mud Wrestling.

Hog and Mud. Hog in Mud. Hog and mud. I feel like you're wrestling hogs in the mud is what I feel like that is. Don't like that. Don't like that. And then there's the parade. And then the music comes, of course.

The performers. Well, I have a couple of musicians and then something else. Music by Kale Moon with a C. Kale with a C. Kale. Yeah, Kale Moon is his name. And he looks kind of douchey. And then Jared Rogerson, who claims to be fun for the whole family.

Oh. So I don't know if he sings country kid songs or what. Not the other guy. He swears a lot. Oh, he curses like a bastard. He gets in here just saying, These fucking nights on the ranch with the sky above my fucking head. My titties flopping to the side.

That's a different song. Kale's out there countrifying Tupac, but I keep it family friendly. Keep it family friendly. They both wear cowboy hats. And then the party people, which is described as disco comedy magician. Three words. Which makes my head hurt. And I want to clothesline him off a stage already.

Oh, boy. I hate that shit. It's reigning men, and then they make it reign men? Is that what happens? And it's a joke? If you're really magic, you don't need to be funny. Right. People develop a sense of humor because they're not magic.

That's the point. So that's what I've always said about magicians. If you're really magic, why does it need a soundtrack? And if you're really funny, you don't need a card trick. So those two things, they shouldn't go together. That's my point. Don't like comedy magic for these purposes. Crime rate in this town.

What we're interested in, of course. Property crime, a little bit over. It's about half of the national average, which there's 230 fucking, who are you robbing? What's happening? What are you stealing? What are you breaking? I don't know. Rustling.

Maybe some rustling. I'm not sure. Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course assault. I almost didn't say robbery there. The Mount Rushmore of crime is about 25% under the average, too. So it's not even that far down as what you would expect. So that said, let's talk about some murder here. Let's talk about several murders because there's a bunch of murder in this one.

Let's talk about first Gerald Uden. Okay. U-D-E-N. Uden. Gerald Uden, born in 1944. Old Gerald here. He comes from a different kind of a family. It's like a kind of a hoity-toity, upper crusty southern family. His mom's side goes all the way back to colonial people that fought the British in the Revolutionary War. And they had the U.S. Supreme Court Justice James McReynolds was a family member, an ancestor. He's famously sexist and anti-Semitic mainly. That's his claim to fame.

The Supreme Court Justice. The Supreme Court Justice McRreynolds was yeah um and his grandpa grandpa euden was an early would go out west and would hang out with buffalo bill to hunt buffalo so yeah his family's kind of famous um grandpa euden the buffalo bill hanger hanger on he he gave Gerald his first rifle when he was a kid. Told him about gun safety. This is when he's in first grade and had him shooting sparrows nests under the farmhouse eaves and would get a penny a nest. With bullets? With bullets.

Jesus Christ. Climb up the fucking stepladder, sir. What are we doing? Yeah, let's get a pellet gun in that kid's hand, too. There's a fucking bird. I mean, they're like, shoot him. It's a sparrow's nest. Merkits children.

A penny a bird, not a penny a nest. A penny a bird, he paid him. So, yeah. At one point, he had to, one of his friends, he shot his friend in the forehead with a BB. So, he's got BB guns. And Gerald said, well, while he was upset that he shot his friend and was in trouble for it, he was aiming for his forehead, so he was happy he hit what he aimed for. I'm pretty impressed with how I did. I did a pretty good goddamn job here.

So, yeah, his family ends up kind of in Wyoming, too. He joins the Navy. We'll just cut to that. He joins the Navy when he was 17. His dad had to give him permission because he was only 17. And he does that in June 1960. He qualifies as a sharpshooter as well. He had never swum before, so he learned to swim.

He's got dumped by his girlfriend while he's out on there um he went to cuba during the bay of pigs oh fucking mess there and he um yeah he went to africa so he got around the world a little bit had a bit of an adventure and then he got discharged because this is before vietnam so, I mean, they were like, all right, see you later. There was no active. Good for him. Yeah. So he does that. He gets discharged and he ends up going to Wyoming. There was nobody left where he's from.

So he's like, fuck it. I'm going to Wyoming. So he moves out there. He had a 59 Ford sedan and moved out there. And, oh, by the way, great information. A lot of this comes from a book and I'll give you the title and all that and plug it all at the end of the show, too. So, yeah, he ends up shooting on out there. His 59 Ford had just died, so he got on a Greyhound bus and went out to Wyoming.

Took the 59 Ford and jumped on a Greyhound. On a Greyhound. I guess it blew up there. It's a five-year-old car, though. I think I'd work on it, but I guess not. Yeah, I'd rather push a Ford than ride a Greyhound. On a Greyhound. The Ford, I guess it blew up there. It's a five-year-old car, though. I think I'd work on it, but I guess not. I'd rather push a Ford than ride a Greyhound. That's what I'm saying, especially all the way the hell out there. So his parents lived in Lander, Wyoming, and he paid his parents 50 bucks a month in rent,

and he found work as a $2.29 an hour maintenance man, which was half-decent money back then, for U.S. Steel. There was a, what's it called? Taconite? Taconite? Is that how you say it? Taconite? Probably Tassonite.

Tassonite? That's probably right. There's a mine out there near all this shit. So he got a job fixing equipment and oiling machines and doing some welding and just general maintenance guy around there. So yeah, he's doing all that. He finds himself is what he's trying to do in Wyoming. He wants to have a family, wants to get a job and a family. That's what he's looking for here.

So he's trying to figure it out what to do. He had been a radio man on the aircraft carrier USS Independence is what he was doing. And I thought it was bored, basically. he was doing and I thought it was bored basically he was boring he thought it was boring well his job for the most part was to listen for Soviet submarines off the Carolina coast so he just listened for sonar which is yeah but he thought it was boring he likes to like he likes to hunt and get out in the open and shit and he's like this is boring I'm sitting on a ship listening to sonar over and over. Yeah, that's got to be boring as shit.

I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife. Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you The Official Jinx Podcast. We'll be revisiting all six episodes of Part 1 and watching along with Part 2 as it airs on Max, starting April 21st. Bye-bye. The Official Jinx Podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts.

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? wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Erin and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle in theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener.

Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Anyway, he gets here from Nebraska, which is where he's from, and he's working in a lumber yard after a while. And he's interested in guns and he's interested in ladies.

He's interested in meeting a young lady to have a family with as well as hunting. And he was in the Navy too. He became kind of a collector of firearms. And he's the type of guy that from 30 feet away he could tell you exactly what kind of gun that is and what, you know. Is that right? Yeah, he's that kind of dude who could tell you what it's worth, you know, this and that. And the dollar.

Yeah. Five years earlier, they had a stock like this, but they shaved it down and he'd start telling you all that shit. Like people with cars. He's that kind of guy. That kind of shit. So he did all of that. Everybody said he kept his weapons immaculate

and they were perfect and he had all his gun magazines. He was super into it. And in Wyoming, that's a good way to meet chicks, apparently, is being into guns because they are too. In 1965 in the fall,

he got a bull elk. He shot one, which they're fucking hard to get too, those bull elks. They're also fucking enormous. Oh, they're enormous and one, which they're fucking hard to get to those bull elks. They're also fucking enormous. Oh, they're enormous and terrifying, but they're hard to get because they're on the when they're they're very touchy. Normally from 300 yards away, they'll hear you and run away. And then from and then if you in season when they're out looking for pussy for some elk pussy, they're on the hunt on a pussy hunt when they're out looking for pussy, for some elk pussy, they're on the hunt, on a pussy hunt.

When they're looking, then they're super aggressive and dumb as shit. They'll like ram the side of your car because they think you're a female elk. I only know this because Hunter Thompson lived in Colorado and wrote about him all the time. They're also like the leader of the herd, too. Oh, they're huge, too. So they're mad aggressive. And super aggressive anyway. So he shot one of those, and he was psyched.

He was like, fucking awesome. Look at me. I'm better than an elk. Look at me. I've conquered this animal. So he conquers this animal here. He hauls it home with him and butchered it on a telephone pole in his dad's alley. That's nice.

Yeah, he did all this shit. He splayed it out. Nice. Yeah, he did all this shit. He splayed it out. He splayed out this hide across some dirt in his backyard. And he got the flesh out. He was going to.

So weird. He was thinking of having some of the skin tanned into a piece of leather by a guy he knew. He was thinking about that. He said, I don't know where a girl walked up. Yeah. A girl named Barbara Ann Phillips walks up. And she lived next door. she's the girl next door and they'd seen each other around but you know whatever she's still in high school he's in his early 20s so they're not thinking about you know she never looked at him but she came over and uh she said where'd you get them? Meaning the elk.

She's into that. And he said, Twin Creek below Limestone Mountain. And she said, how big? He said, five by five. And she said, nice. How much did he weigh? So he's like. Give me this elk stats.

Give an elk stats. He's like, this chick's interested in elk stats. This is cool as fuck. This is like a guy. This is like if you're hanging out now and they're like, someone comes up to you and go, a girl comes up to you and they were like, hey, you know what Steph shot from three tonight? You'd be like, huh? Say again? What was that?

You just, okay. All right, sure. That would shock you into starting over. And it's the 60s and her name's Barbara Ann. This is amazing. Bar, bar, bar. Yeah, it's all of it. Yeah, it's got the Beach Boys there. Yeah.

She said, nice. How much did he weigh? He said, maybe 700. So that's a lot. That's a big fucking animal. She said, what'd you get him with? He said, Winchester 264 Magnum. She said, I got a 270 myself.

Was yours long shot? And he said, 100 100 yards once through the heart went down like i hit him in the head with a hammer and stayed down she said what are you gonna do with the hide this girl is like hardcore she is into it yeah jesus barbara ann elk killer over here she is she's hardcore man he said i don't know, a blanket maybe. And she was like, yeah, cool. This motherfucker's cool. Oh, and then he hits a bed reference. He's smart, too. Yeah.

And she's, yeah, being a little flirty, he's thinking maybe. He takes things flirty, too, like that. He really does, yeah. So she also is a really good shot, actually. And, yeah, she's like, look at this guy. And she's impressed. She's like, he literally brings home the meat. Look at this guy and she's impressed she's like he literally brings home the meat look at this guy yeah and she thought he was cute and he she thought he he

was enamored with her because he thought she was cute and she's into elk butchery like that's not normal for a teenage girl she looks like with these words coming out of her mouth that too um so she said um they he asked her out at one point point and they went to see a movie at the Landers Movie House. And they're immediately in love, basically, here. She's only 17, though, but she's about to be 18 and graduate. She's in her senior year of high school. And this is the 60s. Probably 15. Yeah. Yeah. And this is the 60s,s too so as long as it's not

as long as she's not 12 and his cousin i think it's they're gonna let it go 14 and his student that would that oh my god that's so crazy that was too much man so barbara ann's uh uncle is a preacher married them in december of that year right absolutely yeah right? Absolutely, yeah. They have a $75 a month apartment over the old JCPenney. Wait, what? JCPenney had apartments over it? Apartments over it. Apparently it was like a Main Street JCPenney.

This is before malls and strip malls, so I'm sure it was on Main Street with apartments over it. So you could run out of anything and be like, run downstairs and grab me. Get a range oven. Just bring it back up here.

I think. Go get a basketball hoop and bring it up here. I'd like to have one now. A basketball hoop, some shoelaces, and a range. Can you forget that for me? And a new fishing pole. Perfect. Great.

I'll meet you up here. See if they got a canoe. Swing by the jewelry section, too, and see what they got there. See if they got a canoe. Swing by the jewelry section, too, and see what they got there. So they ended up, they bought a used trailer after that and parked it in Gerald's parents' backyard. Yikes. And they were hunting and fishing all the time. And he loved it.

She could bait her hook and, you know, had her own hunting rifles and shot really well and loved sex. And it doesn't get any better than that. I do like a girl that will do some outdoorsy shit, but let me bait the hook. I like that part. You want to feel like the guy? I don't know. I just feel like I don't want you to get all these all these uh worm guts and power bait all over you I feel bad for you just you just got your nails done let me handle that I don't

think I don't think Barbara Ann's doing her nails though no I don't think so either I think she keeps them sharp in case she needs to claw Moose's eye out or something and gets in some close combat she just files them to a point probably I'll bet they're I'll bet they're shorter than skin line because they get in the way of getting the ammo reloaded. That too. I'm not sure. So they had some problems though because Barbara got put on birth control pills. And ladies, I'm sure you know this. Guys, you might not know this, but guys think of birth control pills.

And there's a standard pill and you give it to a girl and then she doesn't have babies and that's that. birth control pills and there's a standard pill and you give it to a girl and she doesn't have babies and that's that whereas there's a fucking million different birth control pills that are completely different and made from different things and are completely different reactions so a lot of times when a woman goes on birth control it takes like five pills to get the right one that doesn't make them break out or gain 40 pounds or their whole body up yeah or feel sick all the time or be lethargic or all this type of bleed for fucking seven weeks straight or in barbara ann's case get life-threatening blood clots oh no yeah so and this was the 60s too so i don't know i'm sure that's refined now because this was you know what 70 years ago it's a little different so um this puts her in the hospital yeah so she is in the hospital

for a few days and she's still you know hurting when she gets home and gerald said well you're home now so let's get to those chores and you know let's get to calm down let's get to cooking and cleaning here um yeah. I don't care. Blood clots or not, I'm still hungry when I get home at the end of the day, is what he said. Welcome home. I got you a new Dutch oven to cook with. Well, I got you a couple of Dutch ovens. Let's go through them.

They're different. Here's one. And you're going to make the other one. Yeah. So he said, you know, get up off your ass. Yeah. Let's do this and get back into the swing of things. And she said, sure, I'll get up off my ass and I'll go down to the court and file for divorce, you asshole.

And she divorced him because of his reaction. Well done, lady. I like it. She's decisive, Barbara Ann. I mean, she likes you. You're the elk guy. I like you. I didn't like what you said there. You pissed me off. I'm cutting you off. That's it. Done. I can bait my hook. I mean, she likes you. You're the elk guy. I like you. I didn't like what you said there.

You pissed me off. I'm cutting you off. That's it. Done. I can bait my hook. I can sign my own papers. That's it. Yep.

Barbara Ann's badass. Yeah. 1973, he meets Wanda. Okay. Now, Wanda, some years go by where he's just playing the field and meeting girls. I mean, he's meeting them and not really falling in love with anybody. But he meets Wanda who everybody says is just a nut basically. She's a nut.

But she likes to shoot guns and do all of that. The book that I'm reading here that I have a lot of stuff from described her as, quote, a dishwater blonde with a feral streak. What? A feral. Like she likes to go wild she loves sometimes homeless and something well that's what they say a dishwater blonde with a feral streak she loved motorcycles and the wild thing that's the line from the book quote unquote she likes to fuck ride motorcycles and take off out of nowhere she's a party she's a party she's the She's a party. She's a party. She's the, she's the, if the main character

of a romantic comedy movie, I almost called it a romanticist comedy movie, a romantic comedy movie was a guy, this is the girl he meets. Got it. He like works

for an insurance company and he's real buttoned up and she comes in and like spills his coffee all over him and is like, oh my God, I'm so sorry.

And then by the end, I'm sorry. Yeah, by the end of the day, they're like being chased by people she owes money to and he's in love. And he just can't leave. She's just so rad. Gotta have it.

So they have another quick wedding. They move into a trailer behind a bowling alley, which is the class there. He loves having a home real close to commerce real close to something yeah close to something i need it close to somewhere where i can have my disposable income taken from me yeah we'll go drink at the bowling alley stumble home it's fun um this lasts six weeks and then wanda takes off on him again we're all in wanda six weeks she's feral what are you gonna do he left the door open too long one day she just skirted out he was like ah shit damn it i thought i had her house broken but yeah that's the only way i've described feral

he brought the groceries in and left the door open he left it yeah they had another bag couple of bags out in the car he had a cup 2packs of soda he couldn't grab with his bags. So he runned off. He was trying to just hook it with his foot to close it, and as he was doing it, right out of the door. He's like, damn it. Wanda, come back here. She never even looked back, just tore ass, ran as hard as she could.

Well, it's more frustrating than saying the name of what you're calling and who or what, and it just keeps going the other way. Oscar did that last week. Oh, really? My dog, my young dog. He just turned a year old, and he's really good, too. In the house and even in the yard when he's on his thing, you say, Oscar, come here, and he runs right to you. He stands there. What do you need from me?

He's all attentive, super attentive. He's into it. Oscar reporting for duty. Oh, that's what he looks like, too. His chest sticks out. What do you need from me he's all attentive super attentive he's into it reporting for duty oh that's what he looks like too he's chest sticks out what do you need from me i'll sniff out any bird you got he's a german short-haired pointer so he's always looking for birds and pointing at shit and you're like stop pointing he'll sniff the air and then point and i'm like what a quarter mile that way there's a bird that doesn't help me and i'll tell him that you're not helping and he's like what i don't know shit so we can go inside it's cold i dropped his leash the other day putting a glove on trying to get gloves on while holding his leash outside because it was cold dropped his

leash tried to step on it and he just kept walking didn't realize and then he realized he was off and just started like kind of trotting through my Ended up across the street in a neighbor's yard. I had to go run over there and grab him. And I'm yelling, Oscar! Not even just, he's just sniffing and looking around. I'm like, you son of a bitch. Yeah, yeah, I'll be right back. Hold on, there's something over here.

Little bastard. Vondo's in the backyard with cinder blocks all around. He'll go, he'll wander. You've pissed, you've done all the pissing you're gonna do we're going back in the house all the pissing's done von let's go and he just keeps walking what are you doing come here and he just keeps on where are you going i can't hit animals yeah i know you just stop you want to have a talk with them i want to sit them down but they're they're just staring at you they don't know what you're saying when i say vaughn you come yeah see you know like in

the house when i do it you come remember that same thing you just know when we're outside there's no food in my hand so you just walk away and astral if you're in the woods he'll come that's the thing like he'll stay close by and come you can put him off the leash but like not in the yard it's too much distraction there's things to smell it's crazy crazy. We've got to work on it. We're working with him. This is just a yard, man. Come on, dude. He won't come back. He won't come back.

Nope. I'm running behind him. He's just trotting a little faster. I'm like, never look back at me once. He can hear you. Oh, he could hear me. He knew I was coming. So anyway, Gerald here, he's depressed after Wanda leaves.

I believe it, yeah. He's sad. So he goes back out on the market again. He's 30 years old now. Self-closing hinges. That's what he's got to do. He's like, I know better now. I know better now. I know what to do.

He's looking for a lady. He's actively looking for a lady, not just if he comes across one. He tells his landlady, a woman named Fran. By the way, this is like 1974 Tinder. There was no Tinder. Yeah. Or there's no apps, so you had to tell a lady named Fran that you were looking for love. And then if she came across anybody, she'd say, I know a nice young man.

A lady who you give a check to once a month yeah so she knows you've got it i'd like to say yeah she knows you have money she knows how you're living i'd like to start an app called fran now it's just it's the equivalent of a lady named fran hooking you up with somebody you just give your your lifestyle living arrangement and we try to match somebody with it yeah so uh well fran had owned the vacant lot behind the bowling alley that he rented the trailer from with wanda there so uh fran was a rodeo lady back in the day so yes she was and uh she knew everybody she's been there forever um she knew everybody and she liked gerald and said said told him that she hated to see a good

man go to waste oh so she's gonna find him somebody take him well a few days later a knock comes at his door and it's a woman mid-20s um from the from this is right from the book here i'll describe her i like the book descriptions because they're weird um it was a very good very well-written book by the way i'm not knocking the book writing but it's the descriptions are always weird it was a dark haired dark-eyed woman in her mid-20s a little chunky but not bad looking she's very honest she yeah well i mean you just you want to you want the person to picture it you're not trying to be nice it's you're trying to put the picture of this you're you know writing a movie for their mind so uh she had big glasses too big old glasses

nice smile too and she's holding a gun now normally when you get a knock on your door and you open it and it's a it's an armed stranger you're concerned yeah in wyoming that's considered a friendly gesture hi how you doing just brought my rifle i'm not even kidding because it's a rifle it's a rifle she said you gerald and he said yeah i'd go who's asking a lady with a rifle what why are you looking for gerald i wouldn't admit to being gerald to an armed stranger who just knocked on my door immediately no let me get him slam the door lock door. Yeah, fucking lock it and shit. Well, you don't have to slam it because you have those self-closing hinges now after Wanda got away.

So you don't have to slam. You just step back out of the doorway and it slams right in her face. Like a school for three-year-olds. That big arm on the top. Yeah, real quick. It just sucks it closed. Take a child's arm off. It closes soolds. That big arm on the top. Yeah, bang, real quick. Just sucks it closed. Take a child's arm off, it closes so fast. That's what you want.

It's an arm guillotine. Good news, bad news. Good news is your child's here. Bad news, missing part of his arm, but he didn't get away. So her name is Virginia. And she said, I'm Virginia. I was wondering if you could help me. Fran sent me over here, said you were the guy to talk to.

Would you mind maybe taking a look at this rifle and tell me what it's worth? Can you do that? So he thought it was nice. He knew all his gun shit. So he's in there. He invites her in. They're sitting in a shitty trailer. And he's looking at the rifle.

Winchester slide action 22. Apparently it's been in her family for a while it belonged to somebody that's I mean it was from the depression era comes apart pretty easy you know looking at it sees there's a carving in it it's her grandfather's gun

is what it was so he said nice gun but you know without the original stock he said it's probably worth like 35 bucks yeah which is probably about what somebody bought it new. It's probably about worth the same. He said, sorry. And she said, oh, that's all right. So they talked, though.

He's like, well, now that you're here, let's chitchat. I'm looking for chicks here in my trailer. There's 230 people in this town. Let's get it on. I don't know that much about them. I could teach you. So she's a single mom. She moved in this town. Let's get it on. They're into guns and don't know that much about them. I could teach you. So she's a single mom. She moved back to town.

She's got two young sons. She's got an ex-husband who is not paying her child support. She's got a series of minimum wage jobs, that type of thing. Not enough money. All this type of shit. So she's trying to sell a rifle, get a few bucks and help herself a little bit. So she said, winter's coming. It's tough.

And he said, man, he felt sorry for her. Winter was coming. She seemed like she's got these kids and she's broke and she's stressed out. And he's like, man, he thought about making an offer for the gun himself just to help her out. But instead, he said, do you want to hang out? How about some dick? Will that make you feel better? Help her out. Help her out. But instead, he said, do you want to hang out? How about some dick? Will that make you feel better?

He decided for stress and money problems and kids and ex-husbands, penis will be a good. Let's take you for a test ride. Maybe you should move in. Yeah, you could maybe do that. So he offered to help her with some chores. gerald's helping her around the house a little you know it's like the chores outside stuff that she didn't want to do she lives near like a one what was a coal camp back in the day oh yeah her house and helps her yeah helps her out at her house um you know that's it's a town called hudson and it was a coal camp and apparently there's not

a real a real reason for it to be there now it's it used to be a coal camp. And apparently there's not a real, not a real reason for it to be there now. It's, it used to be a coal camp and now it's just some people left. So, um, he drove out there and, um, it's about 12 miles from his house. She rented a little house on a street. They actually had a couple of paved streets in this town. She lived on one of them. That's a luxury there. there um it was an old house and uh she had two young sons as well so she's got two young sons richard and reagan are their names uh they're four and six at the time and uh dad's not around mom's having a hard time keeping it all together and they're both hyperactive as shit so it's tough and uh gerald sees this that

there is just a lot going on in this house you walk in it's a mess the kids are running around they're shit flying they're screaming she's trying to calm them down they're not listening it's one of those households where you're just like oh boy you know she's like sit down there's cheerios in the couch i don't know you'll find them in there like on family guy with quagmire sitting there there's cheerios in the couch cushion if you get hungry so um he said like when she got around the kids he she just changed and got very you know full of anxiety and tense and gerald said all he could think while looking over this scene was they need a man in their life is what they need. Kids need a father.

She needs a husband. That's what needs. That's what's going on here. So needs. That's right. Damn it. So she had been at a bunch of quick jobs here and there. She was reselling stuff that she picked up at garage sales at this point in time trying to make a living here. Yeah. reselling stuff that she picked up at garage sales at this point in time trying to make a living here yeah she moved around a lot so she doesn't have a lot of stuff because she leaves a lot of stuff behind um no spare cash her mom claire runs the local laundromat so they're not a not a wealthy

group of people but you know she's trying she got pregnant when she was 20. She was married for six months. Oh, yeah. And then he kicked her out there after she called one of his kids from a previous marriage. She called him a little son of a bitch. He had enough, huh? Yeah. I guess it was a young kid, still like under five, called him a son of a bitch, and he kicked her the fuck out. Take your kid with you take your two kids that i just put in you and leave because you were mean to my other kid take these two sons of bitches with you good god so uh yeah her son was born a

couple months she wasn't even didn't even have her kid yeah she was pregnant he kicked a pregnant woman out and uh she was supposed to he was supposed to pay 75 a month in child support and um the other thing is then the next kid came two years later with some other guy who she wasn't married to just some other guy um a bartender from jackson hole oh those bartenders in those resort towns are crafty lot yeah i'm sure she's not the only one he left pregnant. That's what I'm saying. There's a lot of little curly-headed, quote, curly-headed bartenders from Jackson Hole.

There's a lot of little curly-headed kids all over the place, probably. So here's another quote from the book talking about their relationship, and I like this. First came sex, then came fishing. Oh. Sex and fishing, sex and fishing sex and fishing that's how it goes right yeah that's how sinatra sang it i think pretty solid day sex and fishing virginia was an outdoors she liked being outdoors too so gerald liked that he can't he didn't want to be with someone who didn't like the outdoors at all um you know she'd have her antique gun too she never did sell it so she'd you shoot that and he'd shoot his stuff they'd bring the boys along

too sure and uh he said they seemed to do better in the outdoors when they had some room to roam around and it wasn't you know confines Confines of fucking drywall. Yeah, exactly. Well, trailer wall probably, but, you know. You know. So Claire, who is Claire Martin, is Virginia's mother. And he's introduced to Claire. This is my mom here. She manages and owns the laundromat in Riverton there.

And Virginia's her only daughter. And she knowsia can be kind of high maintenance a little bit and um you know so she's like this is good that she found somebody he seems to like her kids which is another thing you know hard to find somebody who's willing to actually take an active part in your two young kids lives that's not have any for her to call a son of a bitch and get thrown out exactly he's got no son of a bitch and kids are laying around causing a ruckus uh claire claire's a tough lady she's a former pennsylvania factory worker uh you know she worked during world war two and factories and shit like that so yeah rosie rivet yeah exactly so um yeah she's a tough

independent lady and uh you know she's a tough, independent lady. And, you know, she's kind of a cool lady from what it sounds like. So Gerald and Virginia here, they were dating. But you could say it's dating. But they're, I mean, he's responsible for their kids. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's all that kind of shit here. So three months after they meet, he proposes.

Will you marry me? And she said, hell, yeah, you fuck yeah let's do it so a few days later they get married july 3rd 1974 so there they are getting married again and yep they moved in together gerald stowed his trailer behind virginia's house and there we are i'm going to bring my whole house to you. I'm going to put my house in the back of your house. Is that cool? It's kind of like we have two houses then. So Virginia here, out of nowhere, they're living together, and things seem to be going fine. And then Virginia says she needs to go to Philadelphia.

She's going to drive to Philadelphia to visit some relatives, and you can't come come I'm going by myself so that was weird very very strange there odd so he was like okay that's weird

I guess they went to Pennsylvania together and she said I'm going to drive to Philly you stay here with the kids. Yeah, that's a strange thing. Staying back in Wyoming. So we're going to. Yeah, this is weirder. Exactly.

So after a few days, they're supposed to go back to Wyoming. Virginia gives him a plane ticket and says, I'm staying here with the boys for a little while. So you go home and go do your thing. So open ended trip. Now he gets back there and, you know, it's like, okay, the kids are supposed to start school soon. So he's like, well, she's got to be back for the kids to start school. And then they don't come back. Ouch.

Yeah. He called her and they argue and he said, come home, god damn it. She said no. But then she came home eventually. But the relationship is totally different. She's a completely different person. Now she won't sleep in the bed anymore together with him. There's some stuff going on.

Yeah. She wouldn't talk to him. Yeah. She didn't understand it. The kids didn't call him dad anymore out of nowhere. It's like some very noticeable things are happening. Some red flags, Gerald. Yeah.

So you won't sleep with me and the kids are calling me jerry there's a problem there's a fucking problem i thought you school clothes motherfucker yeah it's just it's just we were just watching uh on patrol the live pd thing and they were they had there's this lady in Florida and she's like she got in an argument. The cops came because she was fighting with her stepdad. She's a 40 year old woman having a domestic dispute with her stepfather, which right away things aren't going well. Or it's awesome. He bit her. She bit him.

Apparently she had a huge bite mark on his bicep. She said he came up behind her and put her in a choke hold. So she bit him. Right. And they're going back and forth. And then they end up arresting her because he's like 68 years old. So they arrest her. And she's yelling at her mom.

She's like, mom, are you happy? Now you're happy with this? Getting you happy backing up his story? And mom just goes, well, you got Jer bleeding over here. Like you got Jer bleeding over here is the funniest thing ever so that just reminds me that poor jare so they get divorced here um after about a month uh she asked gerald for a divorce yeah so she files the paperwork citing intolerable indignities vegas shit ever intolerable indignities not irreconcilable differences adultery there's a lot of things intolerable indignities

he made me do butt stuff butt lot, like all the time. Irreconcilable differences is so much more broad. This is very, it sounds broad, but it's so specific. It's very, that's what I mean. It could be anything, but you know what it is. She's sad and has a sore butthole. He likes to do weird things to her so wow so um they they split up their shit they agree that he could keep his truck and his

and the motorcycle and their accumulated debt so he gets all three of those that's nice but she kept everything else and he promised to keep the boys on his health insurance at work for U.S. Steel and he pays $150 a month in child support. What?

For kids that aren't his. How did... She got a great lawyer. Holy shit. He agreed to this. He only makes eight dollars an hour from the mine. Holy shit. So this is a big chunk of his.

That's a big chunk of money. If you make eight dollars an hour, that's a lot. So, yeah, he would see his sons to not his sons. I guess adopted. You could call it her sons. And but he's given him one hundred fifty dollars. That's wow. Yeah.

He felt like a schmuck like that. So he have again got depressed. Here he is. them $150. Wow. Yeah, he felt like a schmuck like that. So he again got depressed. Here he is. He sits alone, unshaven in his trailer. That's what he was doing now after that, depressed that the woman left him. Now he's 0 for 3. And this one really cleaned his clock. Gave him all the debt and took everything away.

He was telling people that he felt like that was her plan, was to marry him and then divorce him so she could get some child support and some something. But, I mean, who knows what the hell who knows what was going on in that trailer and behind the house in that trailer. When there's a trailer

involved, all bets are off. Who knows? When there's a trailer behind the house specifically, that's when anything can can happen everything's zero there it's all a light-hearted nightmare on our podcast morbid we're your hosts i'm alina urquhart and i'm ash kelly and our show is part true crime part spooky and part comedy the stories we cover are well researched he claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people, with a touch of humor, I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity,

that is pretty great. a dash of sarcasm, and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This motherfucker 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. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery+, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced.

She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions,

and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So they get some new neighbors. Gerald gets some new neighbors moving into the lot next to his, where his trailer is. He said it's a double wide, too.

He was like, oh, look at these fucking. Aren't you fancy? Sons of bitches. Look at you with your double wide there. You rich motherfuckers. That's fine. That's fine. It's cool.

And then a couple days later, he gets a knock on the door. And it is a trailer. it's the trailer park manager and behind the trailer park manager is uh well i'll describe it from the give you the sentence from the book uh let's see quote uh was a big breasted comely woman with long dark hair dressed like a dollar store buckle bunny in a western pantsuit, cowboy boots, and dangling turquoise earrings. What is her number? Yeah, Gerald went, God damn. He was like, wow, where the fuck did you come from in a trailer next to me?

Women don't just move in next to you that look like that. This isn't a porn. What's happening? Come in, Daisy Mae. Holy shit. She has two kids also here. Yeah, she's got a daughter and a son. And they needed some help.

Then the trailer park manager here was asking him, because he knows how to do things, he knows how to fix things, will you help this lady because she needs some electrical work in the trailer? Whatever she needs, yeah. And he's like, I will fix anything on her. Literally, I will build her a house. Never mind this trailer.

I'll pour foundation tomorrow, I swear to God. So I guess there was some, there was some problems. Some of the plugs were 110, but there was some 220 stuff going on too. So whatever, Gerald knows what he's doing and he was trying to save the lady some problems some of the plugs were 110 but there was some 220 stuff going on too so whatever gerald knows what he's doing and um he was trying to save the lady a couple a couple of bucks

gerald fixed it over lunchtime sure he offered to buy burgers from the husky truck stop cafe for everyone i've got just enough for huskies just enough for huskies come on down and yeah he founds out finds out all about this lady. Her name's Alice Prunty at the time. And she said she's a widowed nurse, single mom, trying to do all of that. She's in her early 30s. She's four years older than Gerald. About three years older.

Almost four years older. Also a goddamn catch. Also, yeah, really attractive. And she'd been married twice before. She had five kids all together, three of whom were still school age. The other two were grown. She divorced her first husband. She's from Illinois.

Her first husband was a cop in Illinois, and she divorced him. Her second husband was not any better, really, there. Then she's had a lot of problems, basically. She got married at 16, had four kids right away, got divorced, got married again to an alcoholic who drug her to Wyoming to be a caretaker on his family's ranch. And then he died. Oh, no. Yeah, and they had a baby too, so that's why she's got a young daughter too named Erica. So she's got this daughter.

She's got a teenager. She's got these kids. It's a mess. She's got the ex-husband. She's got the dead husband. She's got all sorts of stuff happening. She said he died from alcoholism, leaving her a shitload of debt, an infant daughter, and basically screwed. You know, a very small pension from the Army because he was in the Army in Vietnam.

He was a helicopter door shooter guy. Holy. You know, in every single Vietnam movie, when the lead character is being taken somewhere on the helicopter and there's a psychopath at the door going, come on, get some, get some, get some while he shoots children. That's this guy. That's Ronnie here. So, not good

essentially, this guy. And I don't know if all those guys were nuts. I think that's the position you'd put the craziest guy probably. That's probably why they were all nuts. They're like, who's insane? Have him just shoot people as they go. I don't fucking know. It's the safest thing for him.

The rest of his life in pension on booze trying to forget this. Trying to forget all of this. So since then, she filed for bankruptcy. She'd been a bartender, a bus driver. She was a nurse in a psychiatric hospital here. By the way, that's how she met her husband, her dead husband. In the psych ward? He was in the psych ward of a small VA hospital, so that's not great.

And Gerald hears all this, and all he could think is, she has huge tits. That's all he thinks is, wow. And that's what he said. He was like, man, look at the tits on her. That's all he could think is she has huge tits. That's all he thinks is wow. And that's what he said. He was like, man, look at the tits on her. That's all he could think. He's been sitting in his trailer alone for a long time. So he's like, wow, I haven't seen boobs in years. When they're big, dude, it's so impressive.

They don't have to be big when they're anything. They're impressive. They're just great that they're there. But real big ones are so impressive. I mean, they're a showstopper. Don't get me wrong. You betcha they are. They get noticed.

They get noticed. But, you know. Yeah. You know, you can also appreciate. That's like the big giant boobs are fantastic. Don't get me wrong. Boy. But that's like a real fancy car with all sorts of bells and whistles and shit on it.

And sometimes. The 74 Eldorado. Sometimes there's a. Yeah. Yeah yeah with like flags coming off the front and like you know like a horn i was just gonna say a boss hog bull horn on the front and all that that's big giant tits but sometimes there's just a great car that's made awesome and handles those fucking curves too and that's great too i'm just saying that what i mean is boobs are wonderful as my point really are that's that's what we're getting at here so we like incredible what we're trying to say is we like boobs in case you were wondering so

they're fascinating god jesus so gerald thinks boobs are great. Do you like going fishing? Okay. She said, absolutely. Those will look nice on my boat. Yeah. And if you fall in, I think you can probably, you'll stay above water. So he said, let's do it. I got a place up in the Shoshone National Forest above the old mining camps there near a place called Atlantic City,

which is not a city and nowhere near the fucking Atlantic. So that's the worst place named in this entire country, possibly. That is unreal. So he takes her hiking and fishing and she loved it and he loved it. And oh, boy, were they were they having a good time? She has a job. He likes time. She has a job. He likes that. She has a trailer.

She has her kids. He gets there, looks around that. The trailer's clean. The kids are well-behaved. Oh, this is great. Alice is, like, in charge when the kids are out. She tells them what to do and they listen. And he's like, damn, I like her.

She knows how to fish. Fuck, yeah. This is all right. So after the fishing, she comes over with her daughter, Erica, who's three years old at the time. She has her own fishing rod. And Gerald's like, hell yeah, look at this. They both have their own rods already. This is hot shit.

Terrific, yeah. They go up and fish all day. And he was turned on. He was like, this rod's hot shit. Terrific, yeah. They go up and fish all day. And he was turned on. He was like, this broad's hot shit. So they start to really get into it, obviously. They get to fucking here, clearly. Okay. This trailer is a rockin', and it is.

So they're into it, and they're talking one time after they got done. You know, they're doing that. And she's talking about, she says, you know, I didn't tell you much about my third husband, the alcoholic one, the crazy guy, the helicopter gunner in Vietnam, that guy there. She didn't have a kid with that guy. She had a kid with the second husband.

That's where the Erica came from. So she said he got kicked out of the army for being too crazy. Too crazy to be a fucking door gunner in vietnam literally every movie yeah there's drool and foam coming from their mouths as they're like yeah get that kid get it yeah yeah screaming as they're shooting down grandmothers and children from a fucking helicopter they, he's too nuts for that. So that's something. Fuck yeah.

His name was Ronnie Holtz, by the way. H-O-L-T-Z. And she met him at the small town VA psych ward where she was a nurse. And they ran off together and got married. Must have been a real charmer. They rented a trailer in Cheyenne and he drove a cab. So that's what they did. Then he started beating her,

she said, and started threatening her and the baby. He would threaten her and the baby when the baby cried. If you don't stop the baby from crying, I'll beat the shit out of both of you. He would tell her that he killed babies in Nam and he'd kill hers too. Believe it. That's probably not far off.

I was going to say, I believe him. Do not doubt that man. So near Christmas time, a tree was up. We know that. We don't know exactly when it was. But he apparently, according to Alice, this is bedroom talk. She's laying on his chest here saying this, saying that he went nuts and was acting crazy. And she said, I had to do something about it,

so I shot him before he could harm the baby. Yeah, she said it was self-defense. She didn't have a choice, but she shot him and killed him. Didn't just shoot him and wing him. Shot him and killed him. So this is not he didn't die of alcoholism? She shot him? She shot him and killed him, yeah.

Oh, my God. So, you know, she can say self-defense, and they'll probably take him away and go him yeah oh my god so you know she can say self defense and they'll probably take him away and go yeah he's from the psych ward and he's a crazy guy and all that she didn't do any of that though she stuffed his body she tells him into a cardboard storage bat uh barrel then drove to put that in her ford pinto and drove to a remote abandoned mine shaft that she used to manage with another late husband who she knew about, the one that died before that, that actually died without being murdered. And she dumped him in there. Oh, my. Pushed the thing down a mine shaft.

See you in there. Then she went home, picked up all her shit and her kids and left town. It doesn't look suspicious. And he was a cab driver. Nobody even asked about him. Nobody noticed.

Nobody gave a fuck about this guy. It didn't even matter. Oh my God. Nobody cared. No one asked about him. Anything like that. A few months later,

she filed for divorce claiming that he abandoned her okay and it was granted when he failed to show up for court so he went on now you just met this hot girl that came to your trailer asking for electrical work with her huge tits and her kids and all this shit and yeah and you hung out with her you hung out with her kids you hung out with her kids, everything seems great. You just banged her and now she's like, oh, by the way, I murdered my last husband and threw him down a mine shaft, which is way worse. She's more honest after she comes than men. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Well, men want to lie to leave then. She's like, let me tell you everything I've ever done that's terrible. Stay close. i got a story to tell now that we've bonded somewhat i'm gonna really bond you to me by telling you now you know that feels like listen to this yeah so she she was crying and gerald was like whoa like holy shit yeah um he said you know she said that she wasn't sure i bet you you're not going to be able to love me now and he said no no i understand you're a gentle soul and i get what would happen and uh i'll never tell anybody i keep this take that to my grave darling so uh then he also said there's

some guys like that that need to die you know sometimes there's some crazy psycho out there wants to beat up children and hit women and all this shit, and maybe he needed to get shot. So that was that. They were together. You are saying everything I want to hear. I'm wet again. Yep, and that's how it goes. So I don't know why that was the time to tell, but whatever.

But he said, nope, we're going to stick together. So now that she's told him this she's kind of you know bonded to him yeah that's more than marriage right yeah oh absolutely well july 7th 1976 um they're uh that's when they met and three months later they uh he has his uh divorce from virginia finally final, and he can get married. So two weeks after his divorce is final, he marries Alice. And there we go. Jesus Christ.

This is his fourth marriage? Yep, fourth marriage here. They paid $1,000 for a 20-acre patch of undeveloped land on an unpaved county road out east of pavilion and um there they go they moved to alice 70s 76 prices haven't changed much since not no way not a lot no i probably included the trailer yeah so alice had the bigger trailer so they moved her trailer in there they drilled a water well which we about, and we know probably not a good idea at this point in time. So once they had a well, they said, hell yeah. The water,

by the way, had a lot of alkaline, high alkaline content, and made Alice shit herself constantly. Not shit herself, but shit all the time. So they also dug a septic tank. They got a propane tank there, and they're doing all this type of shit they're working it out so they invite all their friends for a chicken slaughter

oh boy oh yeah just just say a barbecue no no no it's an assembly line of slaughtering chickens it's not a barbecue eventually they'll cook some but gerald would cut the heads off alice would hit them with the water the kids would pick pick off the feathers and then the guests would take shit all after that. They would butcher them and freezer wrap them and all that kind of shit. This is a wow. That is wild. Horrifying. Horrifying.

It's a bad Saturday. It's every, it's a bad set, but they love it and everything's going great. And then here comes Virginia again. Virginia has been floating around. She went back east. She moved back out west. Gerald's been paying her child support. He's supposed to have unrestricted visitation rights, but Alice was uncomfortable when the kids were around.

They're not even his kids, so I get it. She's just taking this lady's kids. I understand, but it's a nice thing that he's doing here. But Alice didn't really like the whole thing. So Virginia was annoyed by her kids all the time, so she wants to say, will you take the kids sometimes and all that kind of shit. She's had a lot of problems. By June of 78, Virginia has a lot of cash. She borrowed money

from people. She went to Pennsylvania, bounced around a lot, moved to New Jersey, had nothing there. She had minimum wage jobs. Just a problem. So she ends up heading back to Wyoming later on. But for now, apparently Virginia started calling collect to Gerald's house and writing nasty letters to Gerald. Apparently there was an insurance snafu. I don't know if the boys were on the insurance anymore

and she wanted more child support. Okay, no. So Alice wrote her a letter and that letter is, here it is. Quote, Gerald and I, or Virginia, Gerald and I enjoyed your letter as we always do. So that's sarcastic. Yeah, we read it together. Oh, yeah.

It appears to me that you have the idea that I try to keep your messages, letters, and phone calls, in parentheses, from my husband. We keep no secrets from one another we have a lot of laughs at your expense wow it is girl oh it is very she's coming hard to the hole here it is very difficult for either one of us to understand how any human being can be as brainless as you are wow if you get the idea that I don't like you, you're very correct. So in case that being called brainless and saying I laugh at you, in case that wasn't a clear enough indication

of my feelings toward you, let me be direct. Okay. Is this. I have no use for any woman that does not have the mind, backbone, or guts to stand on her own two feet and take care of herself and her kids by herself without raping some poor man's pocket whoa any woman that can't

do that is a worthless piece of garbage good christ jesus fucking alice is freestyling off the dome uh i worked supported five children and also had to give my tax money to support leeches like you who are too lazy to go out and get a good enough job to take care of your own. You are worse than most of your kind. Wow. Everyone in the family knows how you hounded Gerald to adopt your kids so he could wind up supporting them since their father wouldn't. I guess he legally adopted them. She then said, you're quite a con artist. Most lazy trash are.

Gerald must have really tried to hold his marriage together by adopting your boys because he doesn't even like kids. He swallowed your line, hook, line, and sinker, and now he pays for it he was hoping the power plant and in parentheses three mile island nuclear plant then in crisis uh which was right near virginia's apartment would explode and take you with it it's really a shame that it didn't i love that she had a fishing reference back there that was awesome yeah yeah jesus christ um that's fucking wild um So then Virginia writes another letter that we don't know about. Then Alice writes one back. Fantastic. Virginia.

It's going to be good. My dearest Virginia, I'm afraid I owe you an apology. When I stated in my last letter that last spring Gerald didn't like children and did not want to be a father, I was mistaken. Gerald never told me that he did not like children and did not want to be a father. I was mistaken. Gerald never told me that he did not like children and did not want to be a father. I only assumed that since he didn't see his sons. I only assumed that since he didn't go to see his sons that he didn't like them. We discussed this recently and I found out the reason he stopped seeing them was because he thought I didn't want to see them. He knows now that this is not accurate and he does want to see them. Now for the part of your letter

that is directed at me. And then there's a colon. So this is like here's the list bitch. Each and every one of my children made their childhood mistakes because they were given proper parental guidance. They rose above their mistakes. And I guess there's a like a point

by point little picky shit with all the you said your kids did this blah blah blah blah then she says my opinion of you has changed unfortunately i gave you credit for a little more intelligence than you actually have not only are you now or have been in the past a parasite on the taxpayers you're a snoop that breaks federal laws jesus christ because apparently uh she threatened to report Virginia to federal postal investigators for opening insurance checks that were

made out to Gerald. One thing Gerald forgot to mention, your half of the boys' fare at present time is $572. That's to send the boys out there on the plane trip. You can either send it to us before their

return flight or you can pay it from your end their reservations for a return flight are made for april 13th i guess you aren't capable of reading a return address to see who a letter is from um so i will spell it out alice shit's from alice bitch alice is vicious uh so virginia said that um she didn't have 572 for this number one um and also there were actually no airline reservations made so she was just saying that to fucking to needle virginia like we made the reservations not that you can pay for them so virginia gets another letter here this is is unsigned and undated and five pages long. Oh, God, Jesus. This is, man, what a time before text.

Oh, man, yeah. You had to sit down and do it. You had to wait four days. Yeah. At least a phone wouldn't keep bling, bling. Fuck! You know, there's not that. This is the equivalent of like 34 texts in a book right here.

Oh, a lot. So this is in Gerald's handwriting, but it's 100% Alice's prose. It's little barbs, and it's the shots that she takes the way she takes them. Just in two letters, you know Alice's writing style right away. So, yeah, this is a very weird thing. This is the letter here. Quote, Virginia, our records show that we made the September payment. It seems to me that every time you move anywhere, you forget to leave a forwarding address.

I can't help it if mail gets lost because you want to hide. Okay. I guess it's time I have to say about the harassment we have received in the last three and a half years. Up till now, I've been easygoing and let things slide. Every time I turn around anymore, you're threatening to go to court for something. So I guess that's what I'm going to do also. I've never liked the idea of not seeing the boys or contacting them. This will change. This will change. Italicized. I have never been around a more selfish, domineering, scheming person than you. You never had any intention of wanting a father

for the boys. Your only interest is in the money. I'm not sure you're a good influence on the boys or mentally capable where they are concerned. You seem to have some pretty sick ideas about a father-son relationship. It may interest you to know that I've been seeing an attorney for some months now to see what we can do to straighten this mess out. I've been reluctant to start proceedings because of possible harm it could do to my sons. Since you insist on this course Wow. Christmas and Easter. Of course, while they are here, the support money would stop. My attorney feels a judge would be very interested in your dirty, underhanded dealing. Wow. I want the chance to be a dad to my boys that I was not allowed to be. Having the boys here will give me a chance to help them grow and become men instead of street bums or mama's boys tied to her apron strings. Richard and Reagan carry my name, I think, in parentheses, and I intend that they do so with honor.

He said, When a child reaches 14, he can choose to live with either parent. They're 10 and 11 at the time, the boys. And there isn't anything one can do, the other can do about it. Alice and I intend to do everything to show my sons that they would be much happier living with us. We have so much more to offer than you ever will. I intend to see my boys grow up and have some real fun in life. We are really looking forward to them coming to be with us and having time so that Alice can get to know her two new sons. We're taking your kids. Alice is really good with kids and I'm

sure that she will have them loving her in no time. There is nothing that will give me more pleasure than watching them grow up just like me, which is the worst thing you could say to your ex-wife. Wait till they see the tits on new mommy. Yeah. Big old titties. They're going to love it. There is one way you could stop all of this and that's to have the adoption set aside and declared null and void.

I don't think you'll do that. You worked and schemed too hard to give up now. You have no honor or self-respect. No one on welfare does. That's what he says. So this goes back and forth. They talk about they sent another one. Jesus Christ.

Asking Virginia, just wanted you to know we sent a money order in September. Since it was never returned to us, I will assume you received it and are trying to hold us up for more money. You'll have to furnish more proof that you didn't get it. I'm looking forward to meeting my new sons. This is Alice here. I know the three of us will get along just fine and will love one another in no time at all. With the experience I've had raising five children, three of them sons, I know just what boys need to make them happy. I don't like that at all.

Jesus, that sounds like a fucking Brazzers ad. Jesus, they will love their new mother. We are going to have our boys for part of every year and hopefully in the future on a permanent basis for as many years as Gerald is their legal father. This is the only way we can mold them to be like their father. We have to have some influence in their lives if they are ever to bring honor to Gerald's name. We know that you haven't the ability to do so.

Your past record shows that. If you were bluffing then and you are in for a big shock come Easter, the boys will come to Wyoming or you'll go to court on contempt charges. If you try to disappear to avoid all this, you'll lose all the support money. As Gerald says, happy new year. Holy balls.

So this goes back and forth, we'll just say here. They even argue about their kids on the phone. Like Richard was being bullied by kids at school so gerald said that he probably had it coming oh my god jerry's probably got it coming little bastard little sons of bitches so it's a fucking balls thing to say about a kid that you love no shit so virginia's fucked basically she can't she doesn know what to do, so she moves back to Wyoming. That way he could see the kids, and she'll still get support payments, and her mother lives there also.

She can help with the boys. It would be a little easier. So she gets back there. Gerald calls Virginia to say, hey, I'd like to have a sleepover. I'd like to have the boys at my house. Not you have a sleepover, but the boys. Send the boys, please. So Gerald came to pick the boys up, and Virginia said she wanted to meet Alice first. Okay.

So, you know, Gerald said, okay. But as they went out to the car, Alice ducked down in the seat. Alice? So Gerald said, no, no, never mind. That's not going to work. And Virginia said, but I want to meet her. And Gerald said, well, you know me. That's's enough and fucking took the kids that was that so alice was still hiding in the seat as they drove away man virginia just put down a 50 deposit on a really old shitty

trailer to live in and uh she doesn't have a lot going on here for her so they go on a fishing trip gerald and the kids on a boat and uh they're out there on this boat deep dark it's over 400 feet deep this lake yeah hugely deep lake and uh yeah they at one point they throw the boys into the water and richard tells them sink or swim oh my god these are children and uh so they jumped in the kids and tried to dog paddle toward the boat they dog paddled there gerald wouldn't let them in the boat he would motor away from them and he said this will make you better swimmers oh my god no it won't so the one kid freaked out and started crying yeah the other kid's trying to calm him down while doggy paddling and all the sign the father's freaked out and started crying. The other kid's trying to calm him down while doggy paddling.

And all of a sudden, the father's driving farther and farther away. Gerald's just going far away. Then they started screaming for help. So Alice told Gerald, go back and fucking rescue the goddamn kids, will you? So he went back. And let's not let the kids drown on the first visitation. First outing. We got dead kids.

Yeah. No shit. So September 11th, 1980, Gerald called Virginia at Claire's house, Virginia's mom's house, and said, hey, I got some good news for you. This guy who sold me hay, sells me hay all the time, he has a flatbed trailer that he'll loan you to get your shit from New Jersey back to Wyoming. Because he's got to take something back east, and then it's going to be empty coming back west. So you can borrow it if you want. And she said, shit, yeah.

She couldn't afford to get all of her stuff from New Jersey. So she said, that's cool. He said, well, tell you what. The next day, he's like, I'm off on this day. So you drop the boys off, and we'll go bird hunting and, you know, we'll talk about that shit too, the trailer and all that kind of thing. So they go to these roads. It's Tunnel and Williams Road at the corner. And it's about a half mile from Alice and Gerald's place, but, you know, over there.

So Alice still doesn't want Virginia on the property. So that's where they have to meet to drop off jesus christ so it's it's pretty fucking ridiculous so um she was happy and uh she told her mom virginia did hey oh my god gerald just offered to give me a trailer isn't that cool you know she said i can get my ship back from new jersey claire was like why would he be nice to you? He doesn't do you any favors. That's fucking crazy. And she said, I can't imagine Gerald doing me any favors, but if I can get a trailer that won't cost me anything, fuck it.

I need to. So she said she was planning on calling a lawyer the next morning to start paperwork for more money, but she's going to give him a little more time now because she wants this trailer. to start paperwork for more money, but she's going to give him a little more time now because she wants this trailer. So she told her mom that, you know, Virginia said, yeah, bring the boys along when we talk about it, and I'll take them bird hunting.

And Gerald had asked her to bring that old.22 rifle for the kids, right? So Claire said, you're shooting birds with a.22? Right. That's weird. Yeah, she said, that's strange strange but i guess if that's what you want to do she didn't want to piss virginia off who seemed to be in a good mood so claire went and bought a box of 22 shells for the rifle there and they go outside after lunch they see they see gerald they're shooting guns they're hanging out you know they're They're going to be excited for this.

So they do that. They get in the car. They go there. She's got a Country Squire station wagon, by the way, she's driving. Is that a Chrysler? What is that? It's a Country Squire. Country Squire?

I think a Plymouth maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. So Claire gives her $5 for gas and says, have a good one. This is September 12, 1980. Virginia pulls up with the boys. Gerald's already there.

His truck isn't there, though. He's just standing there, just standing on the side of the road. So Virginia pulls up. Gerald hops in the passenger seat, says hi to the boys. They're all excited. Gerald said he knows exactly where he wants to stop and shoot, so they go up. It's up around a big bend where there's an irrigation canal, passes under a bridge and all this

shit, so it's a natural bowl. No houses nearby. Good place for shooting. So it's like, this is going to be fun here. So they go out here. Gerald said, here, there it is. Virginia pulls off on the shoulder of the road here. And, you know, they start getting ready to go down and get set somewhere to go shoot.

And Richard and Reagan, the kids, they wanted to start shooting. They're arguing about who gets the first shot and all that kind of thing. But Gerald said, I still have to put the rifle together. It's a collapsible. And I'm going to test fire it first. And then you guys have it. So Gerald puts the rifle together. It's a collapsible. And I'm going to test fire it first, and then you guys have it. So Gerald puts the gun together and loads it. And the boys are all excited, you know, obviously.

Super, yay, you know, this is great. So Gerald fires a couple of shots into the salt sage there. And just shooting just to see if it wouldn't jam and all that kind of thing. So Virginia's standing there. She's looking off into the distance across the road and uh gerald turns around puts the gun to the back of her head and shoots her oh my god right in front of the two kids back of her head pow 22 rifle to the back of the head and they watched it she dropped right there she wasn't even expecting it. Pow. Richard, who's 11, has some bullets sitting on the tailgate, fucking around with the bullets, not paying any attention because they were shooting. So shots going off, doesn't even look.

So Gerald comes over and shoots him behind the left ear. Oh, my God. Yeah, he shot the kid, shot an 11-year-old who fell over. Reagan ran away. He saw over. Reagan ran away. He saw this and he ran away. He ran toward the canal screaming. He fell over into the water. Gerald walked behind him,

shot him right behind the ear. Jeez. Just stalked him. Like he was a fucking horror movie character. Yeah. Like Jason Voorhees. Yeah. And just fucking executed the kid right behind the ear oh my god shoots him so he shot all three of them so this is insane um so gerald now has you know

his two adopted sons and his ex-wife and their bodies here so he takes them puts them in the back of the station wagon and um he um, he said that, um, he didn't notice that when he put Virginia in her, the wound in her head was really pouring out a lot of blood here. He just threw her in and wanted to get them home before somebody came by. So he's trying to think, did I leave any clues? There's a blood stain on the side of the road. What do I do there? Is it going to rain soon? So that'll go away.

He didn't know what to do here. Um, so he's like, okay, the road what do i do there is it gonna rain soon so that'll go away he didn't know what to do here um so he's like okay uh what do i do by the way there was never any trailer to borrow there was never any of that shit none of it none of it the whole plan whole thing was a setup so um he said that he was also happy he had a 45 that is belong to his dad in his uh belt but he didn't have to use that. He didn't want to have to use that. He wanted to use their gun. Because that was a family heirloom, hit the.45. He didn't want to have to throw it away. So, yeah, he didn't want to have to destroy that.

He was also happy he didn't even get any blood on his jeans. He was wearing his good jeans. It's my clean wranglers. so um it's my clean wranglers he then calculated that he just saved himself just under fourteen thousand dollars that it would have cost him in child support before the youngest was an adult he added it up murder he's just doing math he's doing math which is like my joke that i have my stand-up joke he's doing math it's the exact joke saved money on on life joke yeah wow he did he did my joke but then instead of like leaving as the the point to it he killed everybody he did the math it's crazy justified it by savings wow yeah so he drove them back to his house alice was at

her parents trailer playing cards uh because she's in on the whole thing. This is just in case her parents got suspicious or anything. She wanted to keep them at bay so they didn't come to the house. So Gerald comes with the station wagon and parks it on the other side of where his in-laws are there. So he then takes the boys, picks them up, their bodies, puts them in the pickup bed, then takes Virginia and pulls her out, takes her to the truck's tailgate. And he said, oh, my God, there's blood all over the car, all over.

It's all staining the cargo mat, the floorboards, the back of the seat. He was like, holy shit. So he tried to hose it out of the car, but it made it worse. Yeah spreads man so he just said ah fuck it who cares he gets some empty feed sacks from the barn puts the bodies in the feed sacks weighs them down with rocks and shit and puts them in the back of the truck oh Oh, God. Okay. Holy shit. This is fucking crazy. So he hides the station wagon behind the pig barn. And he went to get a Weatherby hunting rifle and a shotgun, which he would, you know, always have on the rack there.

He wanted to have them. He stopped at his in-laws trailer on the way to the property and said he was going sage chicken hunting to give himself an alibi. He grabbed the guns. I was like, yeah, I got these guns. I'm going sage chicken hunting. And they were like, whatever. Cool. So they didn't care.

So by 2.30, he's taken off. This is broad daylight afternoon. He goes to the back roads. So nobody sees in the back of his truck, obviously. He wants to top off his tank, get some gas because he doesn't want to run out of gas with dead people. So he didn't know what to do. So he went to – he was trying to find a station that was self-serve. So nobody would – a fucking guy wouldn't come up. Leaning at the truck bed for too long.

Yeah, just chatting with you. So nice weather we're having. You got a lot of feed in the back of your truck. What are you feeding them? Jesus Christ. So, the pump ended up being jammed at the place he found. So, he was going to go get back in the car and drive away, but the teenage kid who worked there came out. Yeah.

And he was like, shit. So, he was like, I guess since the the kid's here he didn't say anything yet he let the kid pump the gas while he stood there and um uh there's blood dripping out of the out of the bed of the truck onto the ground so the kid says hey you got a leak or something and he pointed under the bed there yeah so gerald said a transmission fluid i'm leaking transmission fluid red yeah so the kid fucking went in and got him a bottle of transmission fluid which just doesn't look like blood by the way and was like oh here you go gerald paid for it here you go yeah take that great sounds good meanwhile virginia's still bleeding from her head wound right and it's all over the place so it's

it's ugly man uh really really ugly here so he tops off his tank at another place and um all this shit so he hides it he goes to the hidden hand mine that's where he thinks he's gonna hide it it's a 1800s mine basically. It was all the way out here. So he thought about where to put them. He only decided to do this like a week before, so he hadn't really had the dismount planned yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was going to throw them in the waste dump at U.S. Steel because that just gets all burned up and shit. Yeah, but you work there yeah he said if

someone saw him dumping them that could be a problem so he said i could incinerate them at the mine in the 2200 degree blast furnace which i know how to operate but he said there's a human flesh smells a certain way so people are going to notice that that this isn't like you know industrial waste so he said i could burn i could dump them in a burning underground coal seam out by the village of hudson there's an underground coal fire burning so he's like i could do that he said but if something went wrong there was no way to go down there and fix it i couldn't go get them and move them or anything so he then said i can cut them up and feed them to my hogs little by little do it deadwood style he said but then he would have to butcher them on the kitchen table

he'd have to collect the teeth and all this type of shit and destroy them too because then he'd be searching he said he'd be searching around his hog pen for teeth and what if he lost one and it's a lot so he said what if i barbecued them oh god a lot. So he said, what if I barbecued them? Oh, God. Then he said, no, he didn't want to eat them. So he didn't know what to do with that. He said he could like barbecue them like regular meat scraps and do it like that. But he found the hidden hand mine.

And he said, nobody's around. You could see five miles in every direction. Not a goddamn soul around. So he backs up. He drags the three bodies out of the bed and throws them into a deep, dark hole in the mine. He then climbed down into the bottom of the mine, which is about 20 feet down, and dragged them to another area there. Away from line of sight?. From line of sight. Away from line of sight.

Yeah. He wanted to kind of, cause in case deer hunters or somebody came by. So he did all of this and stuffed them in a little area. Nobody could see. And he said, okay. Also he had to go back where he killed them to do a scope and see what he

left behind. Richard, his glasses fell off. So he had to grab Richard's glasses, put them in his pocket. He went back to them, threw them in the mine too. Um,

so he climbs out of the mine, does all of this shit. Um, he's worried about, he thinks he, maybe he'll steal some dynamite and collapse the mine. He's like, I can steal some dynamite from work and collapse this mine.

He said, but then they might actually, someone might come and pick through it. He's like, I can steal some dynamite from work and collapse this mine. He said, but then someone might come and pick through it if I do that. Somebody might hear that. You're drawing attention to this shit. So he goes, that feels like overkill. It's probably best to just leave them there and hope nothing happens. So he just walks away. Wow. That's it.

He's two hours away from home. you know so he goes to with the main roads there he doesn't care if the back of the truck is bloody he's a hunter who cares so he's uh got to cover it up he's got to do all this shit now um now claire martin is like well where's virginia she didn't come home yet nine o'clock at night comes around she's an adult and everything obviously but she's like where the fuck does she have to go and where are the boys yeah she said i mean maybe she took them out to the boys to get grab a burger and maybe to a movie or something or maybe she's talking to one of her friends or some shit like that but she calls up gerald to say have you where's virginia and he said what do you mean i don't know um what are you talking about she said he said, what do you mean? I don't know. What are you talking about? She said, he

said she never came. And Claire said, well, you were going to bring the boys back, weren't you? And he said, I haven't seen them. They never got here. So Claire says, what are you talking about? He said, they're supposed to meet me at two, but they never showed up. I haven't seen them all day. He said, I waited for them a long time at the corner, just like I said, and nobody ever came. So the mother's like, how long did you wait? Maybe she had a breakdown. He said, I waited for them a long time at the corner, just like I said, and nobody ever came. So the mother's like, how long did you wait? Maybe she had a breakdown. He said, I was there for at least an hour, maybe longer. So Claire says, are you sure they didn't show up, Gerald?

Are you sure? Nice job, Rosie Rivett. He said, I haven't seen anything of them at all. Nothing. She said, you didn't see the car or the neighborhood or anything? He said, nothing. He said, I don't know what would have happened. Gerald said, I don't know either. Maybe Virginia changed her plans. You know, she decided that she didn't see the car or the neighborhood or anything. He said nothing. He said, I don't know what would have happened. Gerald said, I don't know either.

Maybe Virginia changed her plans. You know, she decided that she didn't want to see me. I have no idea. Claire's not being it. Yeah, Claire said, I don't think so. She said, I'm going to close the laundry up. I think I'm going to get a friend to go out and look around with me. 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 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 add free by joining wondery plus and the wondery app or on apple podcasts so gerald said sure i'll help you too yeah i want to go out there and step on blood stains and yep he said why don't see you why don't i come to town and pick you up and we'll go looking for her together. Right. So, you know, she said, that's not really necessary.

I can do that. I'm sure she just changed her plans. And he said, no, I'm here. I'll go look for him. I don't care. I'll just go do that. And so then Claire said, you know, I guess I'll come with you. And he said, OK, I'll come in town and pick you up.

So she calls her friend Marie and asked Marie to drive around to help search for Virginia as well. You know, and all this type of shit. So Claire tells her friend about this phone call with Gerald and all this shit. And Marie says, that son of a bitch did something to them. Claire didn't think so.

Claire was like, no, my daughter's a flake, is what she thought. She literally was like, my daughter takes off sometimes. Like, I don't, you know, she can be flaky at times. So finally, around 11 o'clock, though, they definitely go out and search. Gerald never showed up, though.

Really? To help them search. So they go out on their own. They drive all around. They're looking for the car is all it is looking for the station wagon. And they went out, even went over to Gerald's house. drive all around they're looking for the car is all it is looking for the station wagon and um they went out even went over to gerald's house and he said um you know nope i i never saw him they never came don't know what you're talking about they went to the hospital not at the

hospital they went to the drive-in movie theater they're not there they found they called the uh both movie theaters in town nobody had seen them so there's only like five things to do in town so you can just call all of them to see if they were there that's the bummer of uh as a murderer in a town like that you can't it's hard to have a person disappear with that yeah a few people two movies a couple of restaurants a laundromat there's really nowhere he's seen her yeah you can call everywhere and find out where someone's in a hospital. She wasn't at the bar. They found out.

She looked at bars, too. Not at the bars. Never anything. It's really weird. So Gerald said that, yeah, he still says, I don't know. I haven't seen her. So there's a missing person report now. By the next day, mid-morning, she goes to the sheriff's office and there's a young deputy asking the normal questions, you know, height, weight, hair color, all that kind of shit.

Car was a – oh, it's a Ford Country Squire, by the way. 73 Ford, brown Country Squire. That's a station wagon, huh? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Station wagon, license plate, fucking 221331. So they fill it out. They said in additional information, it says that Virginia and her two sons were last seen going hunting with her ex-husband and had a.22 rifle in the car. Okay.

Which is, you know, that sounds suspicious right there. Sure does. So he said, well, I'll hold on to it until tomorrow. Then I'll come over and we'll go over it. Claire says, you're not going to search or anything? You're not going to help us search? And the deputy said, no, I'm going to file this. I don't know what you're talking about.

He said, instead of searching for your family, we'll try to first find the car. And Claire says, don't the people in the car matter? And the guy says, that's not the way we do it. We look for the car first because where the car is, that's probably where the people are. Right. People sometimes can get taken somewhere. But that car, it's harder to get rid of a car than a body. A country squire?

Fuck yeah. That thing weighs six tons. Are you kidding me? Yeah. That's a huge car. Get rid of that thing. It's a lot of steel. You're not burying

it so no she said well you don't know what happened to them at this point you have no idea how do you know that it's the car you could find the car empty son somewhere then what my family's still missing i don't fucking care about the car you can forget the car i don't give a shit don't even look for the car look for the people is what she's saying and she suggested places to search for the car but the deputy said well we'll just have to wait till we find the car and she said wait you can't look for the car until you find the car and he said well kind of think about that how frustrating that would be holy shit think about how frustrating that would be oh god i'd lose my fucking are you kidding me so say car one more time officer i swear to fuck

i'll fucking double dog dare you to say car one more motherfucking time turn into samuel jackson and shit so um she said well why don't you start out at Sand Draw? And Virginia and Gerald used to take the kids looking for rocks. The kids used to love it. Why don't you look out there? So they said, you know, maybe Virginia. Then she said, maybe it's a suicide. Maybe Virginia got into an argument with Alice and couldn't take it. And maybe she killed herself and the boys with a.22 rifle.

She could be dead out there right now. Anything's possible. Listen, we'll find the car. We'll find we'll find out he said look ma'am now number one when you go off on a big long thing and a deputy's answer is look ma'am you know they're not doing shit for you and they think you're an idiot yeah he said we have it all covered we'll look everywhere in other words you're a moron you don't know anything anything. She said, how about Dickinson Park Road? He said, why would we search all the way up there? Search everywhere.

There's two kids missing. What are we talking? And a woman. What are we doing here? She said, we used to picnic up there a lot. We didn't even know there was a road up that mountain until Gerald showed us. He used to take us there on picnics and take the boys through the woods, fishing and all that shit. So maybe there.

Maybe he killed her. Maybe she decided to kill herself. Maybe she killed herself and her kids are sitting in the middle of the woods somewhere. We have no idea. Let's figure it out. We're going on and on about death. Why don't you worry about that car? It's a pretty good car.

I mean, let's worry about that car. We'll get that car back. We'll make sure there's no trouble. Transmission, carburetor, everything works fine. And then if we can find the boys and your daughter, we'll work on that later. Doesn't the thing have a 302 in it? It's a decent car. I'm not going to lie to you, ma'am.

That's a good car. I used to have one. So she said, I'm not going to sit here waiting for you to do this. This is fucking ridiculous. And so she went home, put together posters with the pictures on it and put shit all over the town. She hung them in every shop in town. A few days later, the deputy stopped by at Gerald and Alice's place. They weren't home.

He just wandered around. Nothing looked unusual except maybe he wrote down some fresh concrete in the well house. But he didn't make even a report of it. Just nothing. He just said, that's all. Nothing here. So the next day, Gerald wakes up, or this day, Gerald wakes up and burns all of his clothes and blankets from Virginia's car and his trash barrel. He rummages through Virginia's purse, which has IDs and checkbook and all that kind of shit.

He burns everything except for $27 she had in her wallet, keeps that. Also takes Virginia's granddad's.22 rifle and takes that out and breaks that up and burns it too. He said he loved having it. He loved the gun, but he couldn't get busted with it. Just couldn't do it. So had to get rid of it too. He said he loved having it. He loved the gun, but he couldn't get busted with it. Just couldn't do it. So had to get rid of it there. He buried the stock out in a dry creek bed near his house. He went

to dig it up later, but he forgot where it was and couldn't find it. He threw the car keys out the window in the dark the day before. He left the glasses with the body. He washed the bloody mud out of his truck uh hid the station wagon and the license plates which we'll find out where they were and all that

and he got paid 27 bucks for doing it that's a lot of work for 27 but james that's his own i guarantee he found that 27 said this is mine this probably. I gave her this anyway. That's what I mean. He said that he just had to keep telling lies and he'd be okay. He just needed to keep Claire shut the fuck up was the main thing. Because without Claire, no one will care. So on September 20th, Claire's trailer, there's a delivery there from the mailman. And it says it's from v u martin which is an un that's virginia martin but virginia euden martin which she never that's not the way she addresses like puts things on her name or anything she doesn't do any of that so and it's addressed to c martin which is

mom here and it just says mom i'm sorry i've worried you. I am in trouble. The boys are okay. Cover for me. Say I'm in California. We'll write when possible. So Claire's like, whoa, okay. Well, it's good. She feels like everybody's alive now anyway. So that's good.

But, you know, it's still worrisome because there's different things that she doesn't think that they would talk like that. And real formal address and all that shit. Real formal. That same night about 1030 in Riverton, a citizen calls the cops and says there's an unshaven, dirty-looking guy smoking a cigarette in a red pickup truck parked a block west of the laundromat on Federal Boulevard. He said this guy is doing something. I see binoculars in there once in a while. Something's going on. So a cop comes up, and when the cop pulls up the street, he ducks down.

The driver ducks down in the seat. Cop then goes up to the car, and it's Gerald in the truck. Unshaving, smoking a cigarette. Unshaving, smoking. Cop pats him down and finds a lead weight attached to a short yellow rope in his coat pocket. Huh. And the cop said, what the fuck is this?

Yeah. And he said, it's for my protection. And the cop said, from what? And he said, I think my ex-wife is in the laundry. She ran up some gambling debts in the casinos in New Jersey and there's mafia people around looking for her. So I got a makeshift mace in my pocket. You'd have to owe a lot of money for people to come from New Jersey to Wyoming to look

for you. If you're down like 80 bucks on the slots, no one's making a trip out to the middle of nowhere for that shit. So, and you think a guy that's coming from Atlantic city that's connected is you're going to defend yourself with a, a lead weight on a yellow rope? On a yellow rope. So the cop is like, okay, I don't get this. I don't understand what's going on. He said, though, but it's against the law in Riverton to carry a concealed weapon of any kind.

That's a concealed weapon. And so Gerald is ticketed and released. He pays a $25 fine. Nobody puts anything together, though. It doesn't ring in the cop's head because it's a different department that he was sitting with a weapon a block away from his ex-mother-in-law's house who was breaking balls with the cops to try to get his wife found. He's the last one he saw. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't look good.

Two days later, a typed letter arrives in Claire's mailbox as well. And it said the postmark said it had been mailed from Riverton the day before, but there's no return address. And it says, Mom, I hope I haven't worried you too much. I'm in trouble. It's best if you don't know about it. I had to leave in a hurry. There wasn't time to tell you. Last Wednesday, I stopped at a drugstore in Illinois long enough to buy some things. I gave one of the clerks some money to send you a message. Hope you got it. I couldn't take time to do it myself. She says, we're with friends in Pennsylvania now. You don't know them. I think we'll be all right for a while. I have money for now. That's why I'm in trouble. I'm sending you this in a way that can't give away my location. They might be watching you.

It's safer for you. If you don't know exactly where we are right now, if anyone asks, tell them we're in California. I need to figure out how to get our things and money from our house in New Jersey and how to, uh, get support money.

When I do, I'll let you know we're safe, but I'll have to keep going, you know, blah, blah, blah. Then she signs at going. You know, blah, blah, blah. Then she signs it.

Virginia. Claire said she never signs anything to me with her full name. It's always Jen or Jenny, not Virginia. She's like, that's fucking strange. So she takes that to the cops and the cop go. Cops go. Well, that's pretty. Who cares what she wrote it by her signatures on it, though. She has her name, Virginia, that's pretty, who cares what she wrote it by. Her signature's on it, though.

She has her name, Virginia, then her signature under it. And he says, that's her signature, right? And Claire said, yeah, that's her signature. But she wouldn't have said that. They go, well, then she signed a letter. That doesn't make any sense. She signed the letter. It's from your daughter.

She's alive. Be happy. I don't know what to tell you. So there's that. So, yeah. happy i don't know what to tell you so there's that so um yeah um later that day claire gets a phone call from someone saying their name is joyce johnson from illinois saying that virginia had borrowed enough money from her to get to new jersey and made her promise to call claire uh and the cops to settle their fears nothing to worry about everybody's safe that doesn't sound suspicious at all that's all

yeah so at that point the uh there's the missing persons report it says fucking report canceled on it that's that case closed with that case closed um a couple days later another letter arrives this one from uh an address in Illinois, but no postmark. It was handwritten, so it didn't get mailed, just got dropped off. It was handwritten and not signed. And it contained two urgent letters here that Claire had sent to Virginia here. And it says, enclosed are two telegrams that have been sent to my address. There is one by the name of V.U. Martin at this address. A lady came in the place where I work and asked if I would send this telegrams that have been sent to my address. There is one by the name of VU Martin at this address.

A lady came in the place where I work and asked if I would send this telegram for her. She gave me the money and message and left. That was my only contact. I would appreciate no further messages be sent to this address. It is very annoying. Thank you. Because it was the Illinois return address. She had sent something back.

address she had sent something back. So she got somebody to go look at this house, but it's a vacant house in Illinois at the address that the letters were supposedly sent some. But the last tenant of the address was easy to track down. It was a woman named Thea Thomas. So the agents in Illinois Criminal Investigation, Division of Criminal Investigation, went and talked talked to Thea Thomas and they said, do you know V.U. Martin? And she said, no. They said, did you send a mailgram to Claire Martin? She said, yes.

She said, why? They said, why did you send it? And she said, because her mother had called and asked her to do it. Did she say why? Because she had and this woman says because she had a friend in trouble and needed to get a message to her in the form of a telegram. And they said she signed it VU Martin. That's all she knows. So she said she got some telegrams from Claire Martin. So she said, that's why she said, she sent the things to say, stop sending me shit. I just sent you a letter, which is interesting.

Very odd. So then she said she called her mom, this girl, Thea, said she called her mom mad that she'd been dragged into some weird sham thing about missing people she never met. Her mom promised to visit the sheriff and straighten everything out. Her mom is Alice, by the way. This is Alice's fucking daughter that sent this letter. Oh, no. This is not good.

So that same day, Gerald and Alice go to the sheriff's office in Fremont County of their own accord. Like, you're going to need us to explain some shit. We know that already. They confess to sending bogus telegrams and letters to Claire, but not to having anything to do with the disappearance of Virginia and the boys.

Uh, Alice denied being Joyce Johnson from Illinois, the caller, uh, there. Um, but she said that Alice was weeping at the police station. She said that she finagled a sham correspondence without Gerald or Thea's knowledge because she believed Claire was trying to frame them for a crime. She said, I just tried to get you to these people to stop framing me. Yeah. So, by the way, they Gerald and Alice had just bought a few acres of land in Oregon and they were hoping to move there soon. But they didn't tell the cops that so gerald said that he he told the cops that he said virginia never showed up for the hunting trip and claire uh he said i think claire's the one you should be worried looking at

because people usually kill their adult daughters that's normal um why aren't you concerned for these boys why are you not losing your fucking mind well yeah and she said he said quote she was the last person to see them alive what the cops are like don't like the way that was worded okay so a couple days after this um while this is all going on by the way her car is being seen repeatedly by people. Really? He put the station wagon by Trout Creek Canyon, and some woodcutter and his wife spotted it off the road. They walked around, but it was locked, had no license plates, no keys in the ignition, no people, no sign of people. So the husband of this couple tied a piece of fluorescent surveyor's tape on a branch to mark the spot so they could tell people.

When they got back to town, they called the sheriff's office to report an abandoned vehicle on Dickinson Park Road, which is one of the places that Claire said to go look. The dispatcher said thanks a lot, and they didn't even look at it. They did nothing. Appreciate it. A week later, a tribal cop on patrol stumbled upon the station wagon here. He saw an old grocery bag stuffed in the gas filler, like, you know, in the thing, partly burned. Like someone put it in there, tried to blow it up. Oh, yeah. Tried to make a Molotov cocktail.

He also saw a stain in the back. He called the reservation office, filed a report. Nobody followed up on it. These cops are amazing. They're doing great. They're doing great. Well, I don't know. Cars get lost sometimes.

You know how that is. Sounds like it might be a murder. I don't want to be involved in that. That sounds like a lot of paperwork, I'm telling you right now. I'm going to have to testify and shit. No, thank you. So October 4th, this is three weeks after the – more than three weeks after the murder here. A rancher and his 11-year-old son are looking for stray cows, and they saw something glistening in the sun there, glint off of glass, and they found the station wagon partly covered up with pine bows now um the father

opened one of the doors and the dome light lit up so they went back to the town and reported the car to the sheriff this time this is the third reported sighting here they finally went out there the sheriff told the rancher to look out when he drove in that area and take his dogs that's all he said could be dangerous so So, um, the sheriff sent a deputy and one of his sergeants up there. It's exactly where the rancher said it's stuck on a rock. He drove it up there until he got stuck. Basically,

uh, it was unlocked. The windows are rolled up with no keys. Um, that was locked before. Now it's unlocked. They said an old title in the glove box said it confirmed it was Claire Martin's car.

So they found it. So they searched the car and found no signs of violence, no blood, no clothing. They looked all around but didn't find anything except like busted taillight shards. So without any fingerprint printing, forensics, luminol, anything, they tow it and just drop it off next to Claire's house. They just drop it off. Remember how you wanted this car? We found it. Here you go.

Oh, yeah. So incriminating evidence that could be there. Fucked now. Yeah. Fucked. So unbelievable. They should have probably kept that car a crime scene. Claire opened up the tailgate, immediately saw a stray piece of raw wood in the spare tire box that hadn't been there before

so there's that also a roll of duct tape an unfamiliar cardboard box back there too otherwise she didn't notice anything she opened the front passenger door looked around there's some popsicle sticks around that's from the boys probably. Didn't see anything else. She pulled out an empty cardboard ammo box and she said, Jesus Christ, there's a fucking empty box of shells in a missing woman's car. And they didn't even look at that. So then she looked around in the backseat, didn't see much. Then looking real close up against the backseat, there's a faint brownish stain. Then she saw a few splatters of something dark on the backseat. Looks like blood, but she didn't know. She called the sheriff's office.

A couple of county detectives come out, and they say, show us what you saw. Jesus. She said she felt like it was a courtesy call, they're you know humoring her mind of these it's fine so she pointed out that looks like blood to me on the tailgate and they looked inside and didn't say anything then she opened the rear passenger door and said and here i'm sure this is blood here too and here pointing out everything once she points out three or four spots the detective said okay don't touch anything yeah let's do that here not coca-cola hold yeah fucking not good so under the cargo mat was a circular smear of something that looked like diluted old dry blood

that somebody tried to wipe away so they're like like, oh boy, what's going on? She unlatches the back seat, tips it forward so they could look underneath. Down in the crack where the seat, so she's leading a forensic examination. With no gloves, just- Ridiculous. Just folding shit up and opening gloves. And it's not her fault.

She's the only one doing anything. So fuck, it's the cops should be in there with gloves on doing this. So you could see the blood had dribbled down there as well finally they told her stand back don't touch anything stop it just fucking stop it they call the tow truck back to tow it now to the police station so now they're looking now they're looking at it forensically here and uh they found a shitload blood on the cargo area's tailgate, blood splashed on the seat back and passenger door, blood splattered inside a grocery box, biological material leaked down under the backseat, blood stains in the rear cargo mat that someone tried to wash out, blood under the mat, fingerprints that they could shitloads everywhere.

They didn't have Virginia's or the boy's prints for comparison. And since the car has been there, maybe a dozen or so people have touched it, including tribal cop, that cop, a rancher, a fucking woodcutter, a hunter. Fucking the Smurfs have been there touching it. Yeah. Some guy humped the gas cap. I don't know what's going on. So but there's a lot of the blood's human. It matches Virginia's type A. They don't have DNA yet, obviously. And they said it's a lot of the blood's human. It matches Virginia's type A. They don't have DNA yet, obviously.

And they said it's a lot of shit here. But where are they still? That doesn't help any. So November 5th, 1980, Gerald Nellis's fourth wedding anniversary. Nice, sweet. Gerald's got something else to do, though. He's worried that someone's going to find these bodies.

He said he needed to make sure they would never be found now that the car's been found. He hitched his boat to his pickup one morning, loaded a couple of old barrels, and an empty 55-gallon grease drum, and a 35-gallon galvanized

trash barrel, both with holes in them from target practice put them in the boat and drove to work after work uh which was past midnight he drove out to hidden hand climbed down in the mine with his flashlight crawled into the where the boys were and virginia and fucking found them this is eight weeks of warm weather. So they were obviously rotting and covered in maggots and all sorts of shit. Eyeballs pecked out. You name it. It's all there. So one by one, he put them in black plastic trash bags and stuck them and got them out

of the hole so he could put them with a rope connected to his truck bumper. He can put them in. He made like a pulley system to get them out. So then he crammed Virginia's remains into a 55-gallon drum and the two boys together in the smaller one and wired the lids shut. He fucking, my God, he strapped the barrels to his boat so they wouldn't tip over. Oh, man. About 3.30 in the morning, he went to Fremont Lake boat so they wouldn't tip over. Oh, man. About 3.30 in the morning, he went to Fremont Lake, which was where they went and pushed the kids out.

It's very, very deep. Like I said, 450-foot lake here. Fuck, man. This is crazy. gets a 450-foot sounding line with a 10-pound steel bar and nylon rope and transfers the barrels to his boat. He reaches his boat, goes out toward the center of the lake, and dumps them out. Drops them in. Drops them in.

Once they sunk, he came back, he got home, and Alice told him, you smell like death warmed over. Gross. Gross. So the sheriff now sent 75 deputies and volunteers up to Dickinson Park to search for any evidence near where the car was found, which doesn't help. I mean, Claire came. She brought shovels. She offered to pay for food or any equipment the searchers needed, but they just wanted her to go away. Just don't be yelling at us, basically.

And then a volunteer asked her to borrow a shovel, and she got pissed off, which is funny. So at one point, somebody showed a coat that they found to Claire, and she said, that's Virginia's coat. It has to be. It was the right size and color. It seemed all right. So like, okay, she was here that's Virginia's coat. It has to be. It was the right size and color. It seemed all right. Okay, she was here. We found her coat. On November

14th, they call in Alice and Gerald to the sheriff's office for interviews. Have a chat. Have a little chit-chat here. They read the Miranda rights. They ask Alice, did Virginia indicate that she wanted more child support money at any time? Alice said no. They said Alice, did Virginia indicate that she wanted more child support money at any time?

Alice said no. They said, why did you instruct your daughter to write bogus letters to Claire? She said, I thought Virginia and Claire were up to something, and I wanted to see what it was. They said, why do you want to move to Oregon all of a sudden? She said, it's not sudden. My mom doesn't like Wyoming and wants to live in Oregon, so we bought some land there. But my dad doesn't want to move to Oregon, so the idea is tabled for now. Someday maybe, but not now.

They said, what was Gerald doing outside the laundry when he was arrested with a weapon? And she said, Gerald's a different kind of guy. I don't know what he was doing. Who knows? Maybe ask him. He's my husband, but I don't know shit about him. So he said, tell me about the day Virginia and her boys disappeared. She says, Gerald drove out to the corner and waited, but she didn't show up.

So she said, so he came back in 20 or 30 minutes and started to work on our addition at the house. I went to town for groceries, and when I came back, it was still light out, but they hadn't shown up. So, yeah. She said that he was there for an hour. So that's a different story that's different they said would you be willing to take a polygraph test a lie detector she said no it's just a matter of principle maybe i would if it was the last resort but not right now and the cop said well when would it be the last resort then right there's missing children and women here um she

said they said well what do you think happened to virginia and her sons and she said i have no idea then she launched into a huge diatribe about what a piece of shit virginia was um she's a welfare queen conniving ex-wife detached mother horrible person you're terrible she's this she's that um but no she kept saying she wouldn't take a polygraph on principle. Wouldn't do it. So Matthews, this is the guy, the detective, he finally says, you know what I think? I think you didn't do anything, but you got caught up in the middle of things. You and Gerald knew you had to do something. So you took Virginia's body and stuffed it somewhere.

And you took her car up on the mountain and tried to conceal it there. And had Thea write that telegram to throw us off. Does that sound about right? Not bad for a guy that did shitty police work. Right? Not terrible. She said, I understand why you think like that. I know what you're saying, but, you know, I didn't do anything.

And now she's crying and all this type of shit. But four hours go by and she won't give up a fucking thing. Other than I just wanted, I thought they were up to something. So they bring in Gerald. Let's try Gerald. They say, Gerald, he's a yapper. Maybe he'll say something. So they said, Gerald, we brought you down here to talk about Virginia and the boys.

Obviously. He said, I already told you the truth. I've done nothing wrong. Okay. So he said, Gerald, I think you killed them all i think you hit hit him someplace dumped the car tried to cover the tracks with letters from fake people and they said that gerald hung his head and shuffled his feet he he kept cross that's a good damn good damn good analysis boys busted kept crossing and uncrossing his legs this is all not good

body language for this type of shit at one point he started shaking so badly he couldn't talk for a few minutes oh so um they poured him a cup of coffee said you know maybe that'll that'll calm your shakiness down so yeah he said that this is what he finally regains his composure and gerald said quote you don't really have a case because you don't have a body or a murder weapon he no body no crime to him he did he fucking did it you got a murder weapon you got a body i'll be going home yeah he said even if i did and i didn't you couldn't arrest me because you got no body he said even if i did fuck you which is not true as we found out not true at all he is stonewalling him though wow so the cop said well you could be indicted for murder or kidnapping

um but you're in it but if you're innocent like you say prove it to me yeah so gerald says how matthew says show me your innocence i just as soon prove you innocent as guilty i don't i'd rather eliminate you if you didn't do it so he said but we have to get to the bottom of this you got to tell me something prove you didn't do it take a polygraph and uh gerald said no polygraph it's not a matter of my guilt or innocence. It's a matter of principle. They went in. Yeah, they went in with that right away. We're not going to take a polygraph.

That's that. So Gerald said, I thought you said someone tried to burn it up, the car. And they said, yeah, it looked like that. Then Gerald said, that would have been a dumb thing to do. And the cop said, why is that, Gerald? Yeah. Then Gerald said, that would have been a dumb thing to do. The cop said, why is that, Gerald?

And he said, by looking at those pictures, you could see town below and people could have seen the fire. And then the cop looked at the photos and he said, Gerald, you can't see town in any of these pictures. Oh, shit. But from up there, you can see town, but not in the pictures. So Gerald looked again and he said, well, I heard it on the news. And I know where that's at and i know you can see town i've been up there before yeah we know you have yeah but matthews said nobody had ever told gerald exactly where the car was found like exactly so how would he know maybe he heard it on the street or whatever so gerald starts rambling he's talking about how one time he contemplated suicide and how maybe he'll do that now because this is a big pain in the ass.

He said, I don't like jails and I'm not going to be confined. He talked about how he tried to love Virginia, but she'd been shitty to him. He said how much he loved the boys. And he said Alice hated Virginia and vice versa. So he's just throwing a lot of conflicting things out there. Yeah. So they said, okay,

suppose you did kill Virginia and hid the body somewhere. Suppose you did that. You must know that there'll be found sometime and you can never have them and raise them. And he said, why can't I? That's what Gerald said. Why can't I?

So that's wild. And he said, well, you'd be tied to this mess because the boys would know if Virginia met you out there that day, which you say she didn't. And he said, not if they didn't tell anyone. I never thought of it that way. So he's like, I could have killed her in front of the boys and they wouldn't have told. I wouldn't have had to kill everybody.

And he's also fishing for what they know about if the boys are dead or not because he said, why can't I? Why can't I? Hour and a half later, the cop sees he's not getting anywhere with this. At the end of his notes, though, he writes, it's only my personal feeling, but I could see guilt all over him. I'm convinced he's guilty in covering it up. Now he's paranoid. bring it up now he's paranoid um he he drove he carries a 44 caliber pistol around with him just to drive in country roads yeah he thought somebody was following him so he'll like pull over and wait for the person to come up he's got his gun ready um very very fucking strange stuff here um he

gerald worried that claire had hired hired a local Indian to get revenge and kill him. She didn't, but she said she thought about it, actually, but she didn't. Really? Yeah. Yeah, I could take care of this real quick. So, over the next two years that go by, Wow.

None of the dots can be connected. Nothing happens. Gerald and Alice hired a lawyer. Lawyer advised them not to answer any questions, so they didn't. They have nothing else to go on. No further evidence. They can't find the bodies. It's just fucked, basically.

It's screwed. One thing, though, one day at the nurse's office in school, Erica, they found out from back then, her daughter, Alice's daughter, drew an image of a person standing on a box with her head in a noose and cocked up at like a dead angle. The cartoon bubble said, help me, help me. And this is when she was seven. And they said, why did you draw this picture in school? And she said that happened in the barn. Somebody hung themselves in the barn. So that's weird.

Another time, Erica told the nurse that she had a nightmare about two dead boys who were killed and the skin stripped from their bodies. And they were wrapped in blankets and buried in the desert. So Alice, rather than saying, wow, we got to help my daughter, she went to the school, got super angry and told the principal that no one is to speak to her daughter anymore outside of teaching lessons. Nobody. What are you teaching my daughter? They said, what if there's some kind of accident?

You don't want the school nurse to look at your daughter? She said, no. If she gets hit by a truck, call the ambulance. Don't let her talk to the nurse. So, wow. You're ruining her. to the nurse so wow ruining her um another time gerald showed up the sheriff's office with a letter an anonymous letter he'd received threatening him an angry citizen so he said this is wild he said you know you don't have anything till you find a body and you're not going to find one

okay that's what he said in the sheriff's office because people are so sure he did it. And he said, that's ridiculous. Another time, a local hospital administrator told the detective that Gerald had come in specifically to the medical center seeking medical records on Virginia, saying, quote, you know, just in case they find a decomposed body and need to identify her. This is fucking crazy so in June of 82 a maintenance man at the Riverton sewage plant found a lower denture trapped in a filter pipe he delivered it to Claire Martin not to the police he said maybe this is your daughter's

or yours I don't know whose it is Claire didn't take it to the police either she took it to the private investigator that she hired a local dentist matched the color and shade of the false it is. Claire didn't take it to the police either. She took it to the private investigator that she hired. A local dentist matched the color and shade of the false teeth that he made for Virginia, but he said it wasn't the same base.

But Virginia often complained about how they fit, so maybe she went to a different dentist for a different base. Everything's inconclusive. They decide, let's roll the dice and fucking indict these two so they take them to a grand jury gerald and alice um but there really isn't anything it's all circumstantial um there's a lot of probabilities there but those letters are fucking weird

they're weird um but the problem is and it's easy to get an indictment you don't need a lot here um but finally the prosecutor said we presented testimony so that you would know what it is we know about this case. I feel probably without some kind of confession at this point or discovering a body or finding an eyewitness that we're never going to get anywhere. So that's what they think. And Gerald and Alice take off. They take off. They move to Eunice, Missouri. Yikes. And, yeah, they do that. They take off. They move to Eunice, Missouri. Yikes.

And, yeah, they do that. They have a place there. Gerald, Jesus Christ, this is funny. Alice takes a nursing job. Gerald becomes a house husband taking care of Erica. Then he gets bored, and a neighbor told him about a truck driving school in florida to be a long-haul truck driver so he does that his cb handle is cowboy yeah cowboy the kid killer over here and started driving big rigs and by 87 alice quit her job and did the same thing so they could go

out together wow yep um gerald really, you know who he loves? Who's his favorite person? You'll be so surprised. Bob Ross. What? The opposite of Clint Eastwood. Bob Ross. Bob Ross beat the devil out of it?

He loves it. He took a class and he was pretty good at it. And one day, Bob Ross himself visited Gerald's class and posed for a picture with everybody. He was thrilled. Eventually, Gerald became a certified instructor in the wet-on-wet Bob Ross style. Get out. Yep. That is fucking amazing.

He became a Bob Ross painter and a trucker named Cowboy. Jesus. Very well-rounded. And he plays the guitar, too. All right. Jesus. Very well-rounded. And he plays the guitar, too. All right.

So in the 80s here, things are going by. 1985, the bank foreclosed on some vacant land that they had bought. Remember that land in Oregon? Yeah. And they went to look for it, but nothing there once it was foreclosed. Then Erica has some memories that she starts talking about here. This is very, very interesting here. She was a sophomore in high school.

Gerald hit her for talking back. Children's services takes her away then. Yeah. So she ends up in the Presbyterian Home for Children, which is an orphanage. And Gerald and Alice didn't even care. They took all of her clothes to Goodwill. And when the state of Missouri inquired about it, they didn't even care. They took all of her clothes to Goodwill. And when the state of Missouri inquired about – they didn't even like inquire about her.

And when the state inquired with them, they said, you want her, you got her. That's what they said. That's not how this works, you guys. So it's at this moment where the Wyoming police decide they would like to – they have two juvenile officers from Missouri interview Erica about, you know, back in the day there. She said she was eight when this all happened. She said it was weird because usually Richard and Reagan would come over and she would play with them. And she liked it.

And that day she got sent to somebody else's house and her mom said she didn't want her around them. So weird. She read the police report because she said she never heard much about the case. When she get to the part about the bogus letters to Claire. Yeah. She said she remembered her mom typing a letter and discussing with Gerald how to sign Virginia's name, which they knew about already, though. Yeah.

Virginia's name, which they knew about already, though. Then she remembered Gerald removing pictures of the boys from a scrapbook after their disappearance and putting them in a drawer. Oh, God. She remembered being hidden from the grand jury. She remembers finding some old Wyoming license plates in the spare tire compartment of her mother's red Pinto and wanting to keep them because they had the bucking horse that we said was so cool. She thought it was neat. Plates are so rad. That's why I was bringing that up. And then Alice snatched them away, and she said she never saw them again.

Okay. So, yeah, there's a lot of stuff. She said also she remembered after the disappearance, the day after, she went with her parents to a lake where Gerald went off by himself in a boat for a long time. 84, NBC rebroadcast the movie Adam, which is about Adam Walsh, America's Most Wanted kid that started all that. His father did. And at the end, they show photos and descriptions of several missing children, including Reagan and Richard Uden. So there was a few tips, but nothing came of it.

In 1986, she wrote to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, America's top military commanders, to inquire whether Richard, who would have been 18, had enlisted in the Army, Navy, or Air Force. Did he fill out his Selective Services card? Which makes sense, and he hadn't. She sent similar letters to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and to the Social Security Administration trying to find anything, nothing. No records of these boys at all. Nope.

1987, Virginia is declared officially dead. So there's a couple of life insurance policies, a few thousand dollars there, and Claire got that and spent it all looking for there. She's monitoring missing persons networks in the 80s, you know, by mail and phone and all that kind of shit. She'd see boys that look like they could be a projected older Richard or Reagan. She'd call the cops. Yeah, I I mean it's

it's a fucking nightmare she sought the help of a psychic she the psychic took deputies to several spots where she had a feeling something bad may have happened it's the west a lot of bad stuff happened so in 1989 Alice

sent an angry letter to her then 16 year old daughter Erica at the orphanage accusing her of colluding with the cops and also playing mind games by talking to them. Remember that part where you abandoned me? Well, I'm mad now. Jesus Christ. 1994, Alice's son, Todd, he's the older boy. Alice's son, Todd, he's the older boy. He said that he talks, he knows this cop guy, and he tells him, you know, my mother confessed to being involved in a murder one time.

Oh. And she said of her husband, Ronald Holtz. Oh, no. This comes up. And so the investigators did look into it, but they couldn't find anything. They couldn't find anything there. So 2005, Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation reopens the case.

On January 18th, a task force made a visit to Alice's home in Missouri. Gerald was on the road trucking. Alice's interview was fine and dandy until they brought up Ronald Holtz. At that point, they said she, quote quote fell out of her chair half fainting you thought we were just going to talk about this shit that you didn't do

we uh then alice said that the uh confession they're talking about to her son was actually a tale she told her son as a cautionary tale. That actually happened. She said, in fact, she said, I kicked him out and moved on. That was it. I didn't do anything. So they had really nothing to do, though. They didn't know what they had.

All they had was that. So unless she confessed, they really don't have anything. So it stands still again. Finally. So it stands still again. Finally, oh, by the way, April 4th, 2013, Claire Martin dies at 92 without ever finding out what happened to her daughter. But this might have helped, though, because a few months later something happens. A barrel with a human skeleton is recovered from the shaft that Todd had told the cops about. It's Ronald. The back of the skull

has a bullet hole. The discovery matches the story that Alice had told about getting rid of the body too and the remains are confirmed with DNA to be Ronald Holtz's. Uh oh. She shot him while he was sleeping. Really? Yes.

So 74 year old Alice Uden is arrested on September 26, 2013, just a few months after Claire Martin died. They show her all the incriminating evidence, the fucking he didn't leave, it dumped, your kid knows where it is, bullet hole, DNA. And then she said, okay, fine, I did shoot him, but only because he was threatening erica okay so they said terrific put your hands behind your back grandma hope you don't have any peanut butter cookies in the oven because they're gonna fucking burn because you're gonna be in jail for the rest of your life ruin everything yep um so um they had talk about now they got her doing that they go maybe she'll talk about Virginia and the kids. So they said, did you ever go up and help look for Virginia and the kids?

And she said, Gerald did. He contacted the people in New Jersey to find out whether she'd been cashing her checks. I remember that much. So she starts talking about Gerald, but she won't give it up. She won't give anything up. She says that, you know, She says that Virginia was mentally ill. I don't know what she would do. So he – wow.

They talk about when he was busted outside Claire's place and they said, do you know why he had the weapon in his pocket? And she said it wasn't a weapon. It was a fishing weight. That was hilarious. People look at things and come up with their own ideas um so it's she has an excuse for everything uh then they go do you watch any of those crime shows on tv they go dna is like yeah she said sometimes last one of them there's fucking everywhere and they said um you know it's getting easier and easier to find it and you can get it from stuff that was touched now. And a lot of that stuff collected in 1980, but it didn't mean as much then as it does now.

We've been here talking about this for a long time and we really just need the whole thing to be put to rest here. And she said, well, I don't know. I did everything I fucking. She said, I told you everything. So they talked to Gerald. They're going to talk to him. Alice said, I don't know. They told him, well, we found Gerald and arrested him.

And she said, quote, there goes that paycheck. Wow. The truck driving paycheck? The truck driving paycheck. Yeah, now he's arrested. So they talked to Gerald, like I said, and he's a little bit shifty at first, obviously. But Alice gave them really nothing. She didn't really give any story.

She said, I don't know about a lot of things and all that kind of shit. She didn't really give any story. She said, I don't know about a lot of things and all that kind of shit. Either way, Alice says that she had cancer and had chemo, and she has no memories. Chemo fucks up her memory. So they said, great. Can you remember that you're charged with first-degree murder now? Because you are.

You are in a lot of trouble for your husband. So they get Gerald in there here, and Gerald is a little bit freaked out, obviously. The FBI is there, so he doesn't like that. How do you play that? Do you tell him, look, we got your wife, and she told us everything. It's your turn. Well, he said he wrote a letter knowing that they were looking for him. He said, dear ones, if you are reading this, it means that it will be the last letter I will write.

It will also serve as goodbye and farewell. Alice and I have been arrested and charged with the murder of Virginia and the boys. Alice is innocent of any wrongdoing. However, sadly, I am not. I'm sorry for the lies and will pay the price probably with my life. I never had any idea growing up things would turn out this way. I don't think anyone does. I can make all kinds of excuses for this, but in the end, I knew it was wrong. I'm hoping after my death, I'll be cremated and my ashes scattered into the wind and no marker to show I was ever here. I do not want anyone to grieve or feel sorry for me. And

if anyone asks about me, say he died in prison. Always said he would come to a bad end. I don't have Linda's address or phone number. Last I knew she was back in Billings, Montana. Tried to call her oldest daughter Annie. No luck there either. So I suggest if family letter is to keep going, don't send to Linda unless sure of her address. Okay. Love Gerald and Alice. So he thought

Alice was arrested for Virginia's murder. Yeah. He didn't even know. So when they sat him down, that's what he thought. So he thought it was over because he heard Virginia confessed to murder. So he was like, well, I'm fucked. So he just sits down and gives it all up, gives it everything. They said, why did you do it? He said, I'm tired of paying $150 a month in child support.

He said, yep. He said, quote, I thought about this. My youngest daughter confronted me about this today she came right out and said dad did you kill all those people I looked at her and I said yes dear I did but I said your mother had nothing to do with it and I'm going to tell you that right now so the cops are like holy shit this is about that one but all right we didn't even ask so they were like okay so he said Alice had nothing to do with it. I don't know why they even arrested her.

I don't really understand that at all. I thought it was because they wanted me to come in, which all they had to do was ask. And they said, no, no, you're doing great. You drove all the way here. You're talking to us. Yeah, you're doing great. So Gerald said, now that you guys are here, I've got to assume that you've either found some bodies or something else. I got to tell you, if you found bodies, it's a miracle because I'm here to tell you right now.

He sounds like a wrestler. I'm going to tell you right now, brother. That's why I'm here. I'm here to tell you right now. Your title is coming with me. You're never going to find those bodies. I'll tell you right now. I'll tell you right now, brother.

There's a brother away from this being a wrestling promo. He says, because where I put those people would be just about as impossible for anyone to find as any place could possibly be. I'll say that up front right now. He said, as a matter of fact, if you took me out in that area, I could only point in a general direction and say they're out there

because they're not buried on land. So then he said this, I told my daughter today, I don't want and won't accept a lawyer. I'm going to plead guilty and I'm going to tell the judge that for a long, long time I felt that this was more about money than anything else. The court system and lawyers have

decided that Mr. Uden has got too much assets and we want some of it. You killed two children. What are you talking about? That's what they're doing? Hey, we want to get his trailer and his big rig. How can we do it?

Well, we can accuse him of murder. Okay. Is that what you think happens? Some of it's got 18 wheels. That's far too many for a casual citizen. That's ridiculous. Fox casual citizen. He said, sorry, boys, you ain't going to get none.

I'm going to plead guilty and I want my life in prison or a death sentence. You must understand I may be stupid, but I'm not crazy. Everyone wants to live, but nobody, including you boys, is going to live forever. I've made my peace with God. And if I'm sentenced to death, then I'm not afraid. People are going to say you're crazy. I'm 71 years old. I've lived 10 years longer than my father. I've got no complaints. That's just the way it's going to be. And they said, great. They said, well, can you tell us how it happened? And he said, yes, sir, I can and I will.

So, yeah, that's wild. So then they were like, wow. He said, Virginia Uden. They gave her a name name they call her a predator by that i mean she went around to men and got them to do things then he told her how she had tricked him with an old gun and the whole relationship he accounts he goes one thing led to another and i'm in bed with this gal and not too long after that i'm getting married talks about the whole thing and he said you know then she's calling me and getting under my skin.

And Alice is there. And he said, I'm trying to juggle two women and that ain't flying. So I finally just went off and I said, I'm going to solve this problem. And I did. I'm a fan of mafia books. And one of the things is that you never let the victim know you're coming. True. So then they said, well, what were you doing outside of the laundromat with Claire that time?

And he said, it's a hell of a thing to admit, but I probably would have killed Claire too. Oh dear Lord. He said, but it just so happened that she had a friend named Marie and Marie had a baby and they were all there at the laundromat. And I just lost my stomach. I didn't have enough, uh, killing for one. I'd had enough killing for one goddamn week. Claire lucked out. Um, they said that Claire

ended up with a cut telephone line and he said that wasn't me I had ideas of taking her out at that point I think I was a little crazy or he said that was me so he cut her phone line he was going to kill her that way but he didn't then he said but it stopped the child support and that was going to come to about 16,000 so you could say

that was a motive that's what he said so they said you know the name ron holtz and he said no he doesn't even know that guy's name he never knew he never knew um she's he he said that name's not familiar she said they had put him in a gold mine out there on that ranch but i don't know about the name you should know his name because he's the one that just got you arrested. Fuck yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's a good point.

Then he said, I didn't get any pleasure out of doing it. None, he said. But it did stop the child support. So that's what he said. Saved $16,000. $16,000 over the course of eight years. Who cares? What a cheap fuck.

Yeah, for kids. Who gives a shit? So November 1st 2013 gerald pleads guilty to murdering virginia richard and reagan you sir may fuck off three life sentences with no parole for all richard there so he's pretty four weeks yeah he's he's in there so 2014 alice goes to trial that sounds like a movie. Alice goes to trial. Testimony from her son tries to establish that Ronnie was laying in bed when he was shot in the back of the head. And the defense team said they were acting in self-defense. She is convicted of second-degree murder on Ronnie and nothing on Virginia, not even after the nap.

That's second-degree murder, not premeditated. She is sentenced to, you, ma'am, may fuck off. Life in prison. Still got life. Just no death penalty up there. June 12, 2019, Alice dies in jail. That was fast. That was fast, yeah.

On my birthday, too. Thanks, Alice. Two days after Alice dies Gerald writes a letter from his cell saying that I'm quote dear Ron just a note you will be pleased to know that the murderous Alice Uden has passed on to the next life I was never allowed to see her and in some ways it's just as

well it was kind of like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders I'm free now to seek total exoneration which which I intend to do, and I don't have to feel guilty about it. I don't know if the courts will hear my case since there was a plea agreement, but if I don't, I will end up dying here. He ends up trying to pin it all on her. Yeah, he recants his confession and puts it all on Alice. He's like, well, she did it all. The court rejects his attempt to withdraw the guilty recants his confession and puts it all on Alice. He's like, well, she did it all. You poor bad dog.

The court rejects his attempt to withdraw the guilty plea. Fuck off. He's still in jail in his 80s now. What an idiot. The book is Alice and Gerald by Ron Francel, F-R-A-N-S-C-E-L-L. It's a very good, very well-written true crime book. Good stuff there. Wild fucking case. There you go. So he's in jail. She's dead. It's a very good, very well-written true crime book. Good stuff there. Wild fucking case.

There you go. So he's in jail. She's dead. That's some shit. Wow. They got away with it for so long. For 40, 30 years. Unbelievable.

Over 40 years. 40 years they got away from it. That's insane. Our whole lives they got away with that. They had murder on them. He's been a murderer since before I was born. Yes, both of us. And barely went to jail for it.

That's fucking crazy. Unbelievable. And he's spending these last few shit years anyway. Who cares? Christ, now he'll get medical care that he would have cost him a fortune on the inside. Oh, if you're an old man, I mean, because it's that end of life shit. Knock off pills, though. He's going to die in there in the next two years.

So there you go, everybody. There's Wyoming. Wyoming people always, why aren't you doing Wyoming? Because you're crazy up there. That's why. That's a crazy fucking story. If you like that story, tell the world about it. Go to whatever app you're listening on and give a review if you can.

You can counter some of the asshole people that get mad at us for making fun of a town or mispronouncing some fucking obscure place in Wisconsin. So they give us one star and yell at us for making fun of a town or mispronouncing some fucking obscure place in Wisconsin. So they give us one star and yell at us. Help us out there. Do that. Pronounce Automatoma Chabotcock.

Fuck. God. And literally one star. How dare they? What are you talking about? So do that. Help us out there. Head over to shut up and give me murder dot com.

Get your tickets. Cleveland, February 10th. Get your asses in the fucking seats. We're there, baby. Get your tickets. Cleveland, February 10th. Get your asses in the fucking seats. We're there, baby.

Not only that, extra shows in Seattle and Portland and, of course, Detroit and Pittsburgh are lined up, too. Get your tickets now for all of those. We're very excited. Cleveland in February. The NFL won't even come there. No. Hell no. Never.

Never. So, yeah, do that. Head over to follow us on social media at Small Town Murder on Instagram on instagram at murdersmall on twitter at smalltownpod on facebook also patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get the bonus material five dollars or above anybody in that range is going to get all the bonus episodes huge back catalog two new ones every week crime and sports and small town murder and you get it all this week for crime and, we're going to talk about Tencent Beer Night. Oh, boy. That sounds like a bad idea, right?

It is. By the end of it, shit's on fire and players are punching fans. It's crazy. Bars won't even do it. No, it's insane. So check that out. And then for Small Town Murder, we're going to talk about small town scams. People thinking they're going to paradise,

and instead they've been fooled by someone who has a big scam set up at a rocky shithole where nothing will grow. It's happened throughout the years forever, and it's really funny. So that's patreon.com slash crime and sports. And you'll get a shout-out. And when will that shout-out come, Jimmy? Right now. Right fucking now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the people who would never shoot us while we were sleeping and dump us out of Mineshaft.

Let's do it. This week's executive producers are Clay Thorson, Jordan Bennett, Amy Datchy, I think, Datchy. Some of our favorites in there. Dan Furiegel. Jesus, Dan. Whoa. What is that? I don't think he got that right.

Shane, the Colts and Michigan fan, I believe. And Tina, oh boy. This is an Italian name, Dan. Whoa. What is that? I don't think he got that right. Shane, the Colts and Michigan fan, I believe. And Tina, oh boy. This is an Italian name, James. And it looks like, holy shit, it looks like an Italian word for vagina. Cianci? Bukiak? What are we talking about? Well, that would be.

Cianci? Cianci? Cianci? What is it? Cianci? That might be it. Yeah, it's probably Cianci on that. It looks like it.

Like the Providence guy, Buddy Cianci, like that it's spelled? C-I-A-N-C-I? Yeah, Cianci. That's what that is. Looks like a dirty word. It does. Other producers are Arnold Ziffel, the president for Substitutes for Pork Foundation, the limo driver looking for the plate of the truck that hit Rocky, Thomas Smith taking care of his nana, Peyton Meadows, Monty Montalegre, I believe, Lisa Savage, maybe Savage, maybe Savage, Andrew fucking Youngberg. Savageo.

go so so sella sella sella smith reed mcguire janice hill cody lever sees new bride delaney happy birthday delaney she turned 25 holy look at you i don't know i really like that kid cody's just been such a nice kid yeah very nice to us yeah good listener in detroit i'm sure top-notch listener good dude uh brandy huntley uh samantha jennosky, Justin Adkins, Cassidy with no last name, Sam Lyons, Jacqueline Duran, Justin Palmer, Maria Foy, Dave with no last name, Cameron West, Jenny with no last name, Drew Bittner, David Caudell, Miranda Degagne, what? Degagne. Degagne?

Degagne. Yeah, let's go with that. Let's go with that let's go with that sorry about it brooklyn dashley uh jamie and bobby lane sean peg oh boy terry clark probably not the country singer emily grape juice yes that's it oh boy scott i've miss misspelled this i used a character not a letter that's not a name scott is is not greater than older it's probably molder probably are you okay you know that less than it's right there yeah yeah i got you okay luke sanderson sarah oler oler oler and shaw good boy leslie harrington nicole strickland devin morgan emma emma owens michelle groves jonathan olevo kent hollingsworth katherine bartlett john Hey. Got it.

John Coburn. Yep. Cameron. Nope. Catherine. Mayo. Tabitha Angleton. Sarah with no last name.

J.W. Lisa Gibson. Melissa DeLapp. Ryan Yunt. Katie Kolo. Kolo., Katie Calo, Calo, Calg- Calg- Calcagno? Take another run at it, Jimmy. Calcagno. Stop, run back, really get a head start, and then head into it.

Calcagno. That's not it. Corey with no last name. Don with no last name. Brooke Norgrove. Catherine with no last name. John Floyd no last name. Brooke Norgrove. Catherine with no last name. John Floyd. Nathan MC.

Lena Morales. Donna Fairburn. Diana. Diana Robin Gonzalez. Brian Leach. Stephen Wilkie. Shannon Cooper. Marcy Trippy Whalen.

Wallen. Maybe. I don't know. Christian Gavey. Aaron. Oh, boy. Ella Fritz. Eli Fritz.

Is there a J in that? No. I don't know what that is. Kennedy Parker, Lisa Schultz, Lindsey Holcomb, Zach Kraken, Cranon, Cranon Donk, Cranon Donk. Boy, oh boy. Brooke Burns, Ryan Douglas Mason, Andrew Sagata, Jacob Freiberger, Hunter Brown, Luke Sloan, Sequoia Salazar, Jeff Kemp, Rachel Elsie, Steve Younger, Steve Younger,

yeah, Michael, Michelle, Michelle Autry, Mike Rogers, Chris Christ, Chris, Cursed, Cursed Wooley, Adam Andy, Andy Raymond, Ian Foster, Stephanie Marquette, Chaz, Chase, hmm, Chaz Williams,

I don't know, Ben Glissman, Rory with no last name. Michelle Portsen, Bailey Patton, Eileen Sullivan, Barbara Wilson, Jessica Page. Stimpy with no last name. Christopher Askaraga. Ask who? Ask who? Ask who? Ask who?

Ask who? Ask who? Ask who? Ask who? Ask who? Ask who? Ask who? Who are we asking?

Haraga? Christopher. Kimberly Gavin, Ashley Ferguson, Katie Robel. Robel. Robel. asking haraga christopher kimberly gavin ashley ferguson uh katie roble robble yep uh that car not starting shit yeah my engine just stopped car noise is your last name evan kelly cody young justin atchison mikaika Haley, Adam Anderson, Audra Dre, Ben Daines, Donna Price, Bethanna, Yadamek, Dale Fry, Manuel Castillo, Lauren Hughes, Brianna, Rachel Hall, Eric Roberts, Alex Perry, Julia, Julia Hightower, David Brookshire, Connor with no last name, Heather King, Christopher Hughes, Larissa Crawley, Amy, Amy, Amy Hostetler, Mark Olson, Joey MF in Lepley, Amy Graham, Marie, Marie Scar, Scara, Scaramuzzo. Marie Scaramuzzo. Those last names are crazy. Julie Nellis.

Riley Smokeamy. Smokeamy Wood. Leslie Abraham. Demon Pop Tart. Daniel Singer. Jennifer Richards. Kevin with no last name. Jason McKemmy.

Amanda Dixon. Okay, what? That can't be right. Andy dunlap uh all of that for andy dunlap how'd you get no amanda dixon somebody's fucking with me right andy dunlap jimmy shields andrew scanlon samantha would know last name nordy would know last name sydney would know last name lydia walker cecilia to me devin hauser lydia sour walker tay z m e zeme zami uh tase him oh tase me james you get it oh i see it you son of a bitch cindy would know last name addison duncan regnita renita renita kruger from boca raton boca boca raton graham kelly uh enjoy your iguanas down there in Boca Raton.

What is it? Enjoy your iguanas down there in Boca. Grab yourself a yard iguana. Eat it like a candy bar. Erica Terini. Terigni. Tour. Okay.

Marsha Dumpit. I just pictured Snickers commercials, but with iguanas. You're so crazy when you're hungry. Just eat an iguana. Just eat an iguana. Just bite its head off. Whoo, I feel better now as you're holding a headless iguana. It's doing it.

Slam into an iguana. Yeah. Like a Slim Jim. Like a Slim Jim. Charles Chase. Justin with no last name. Mia Jackson. Ashley Percival.

Percival. Martin Ferrand. Autumn Griffin. Emily Hurst. Devin. Oh,, Emily Hurst, David Matthews, Jake Olet, Chris Funk, and all of our patrons. You guys are fantastic. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, so much for all that you do for us.

Thank you for everything. We appreciate it. We'll keep putting out the stuff, and we'll keep giving you do for us. Thank you for everything. We appreciate it. We'll keep putting out the stuff, and we'll keep giving the stuff if you keep snorting it. You know what I mean? You take the stuff. We'll give the stuff. That's right. We'll give it.

So there you go. You want to follow us on social media, shut up and give me murder.com. It has all the links right there to everything you could want from us and for us. You bet. That said, thank you so much for joining us. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

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