Small Town Murder - #363 - The Psycho Samurai - Caribou, Maine

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

This week, in Caribou, Maine, what starts out as a seemingly minor crime, spins out of control, until an elaborate, and deadly murder plot is hatched. This plan has many moving parts, and people involved, but results in a horrific scene complete with a savage beating, and a not too often used murder weapon... a samurai sword, with a 36 inch blade. The result is finger pointing, and several stories about who the "real killer" actually was, but anyone with eyes could see what unfolded!!Along the way, we find out that Maine takes their snowmen seriously, small things can turn into deadly things, and he who has the sword, probably did the murdering!!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 Caribou, Maine, a small and simple criminal act somehow ends up with a most brutal killing complete with

swords and a hastily dug grave. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another crazy edition of Small Town Murder. This one, it's crazy. There's swords involved.

How often do you see that? How often do you see ceremonial Japanese swords involved in our cases? Not usually. It's happened a couple of times, but not usually. So we'll get to all that very quickly, though, at the top of the show. You definitely want to head over to shut up and give me murder.com get your tickets for live shows oh not only in-person live shows but the virtual live show coming on 4 20 april 20th and we are going to make it a 4 20 spectacular celebration i am going to

get jimmy stoned and make him giggle till his head turns the shade of a cherry. It's going to be amazing. You got to see that. It's going to be so much fun. And also get your tickets to regular live shows. We have Seattle and Portland coming up. Two shows in Seattle, two shows in Portland, and then also Pittsburgh, Detroit. And the rest of the year is going on sale. When is it?

March 13th. March 13th. The entire rest of the year is going on sale. What is it? March 13th. March 13th. The entire rest of the year is going on sale. You get your tickets. Chicago. I don't know. People have been clamoring for those and all the whole rest of the year. And new dates announced as well.

We are going to be in New York. We're going to be in Boston in November. Do you want to give them the other one? Dallas! Dallas is going to be down there. We're going to be in Dallas as well. And there's going to be a few cities we are not going to be able to get to this year just because of the way scheduling worked out. There was a lot of people still rescheduling things. It was very difficult.

So Milwaukee, we're going to miss you this year. Phoenix, we apologize. I mean, Jimmy really wanted to do Phoenix because it's a – It would be terrific. Yeah, you do a show without getting on a plane. That's amazing. I pass the place when I go to the airport. Absolutely.

So shutupandgivememurder.com is where you get the tickets, where you get all the info. That is right there. You also want to definitely be a part of Patreon. Patreon.com slash crimeandsports is where you get all the bonus stuff, whole back catalog of bonus stuff, including It's Deep, and then you're going to get that. And every other week, you're going to get two new episodes, one crime and sports, one small town murder.

You get access to it all. And for crime and sports this week, we're going to talk about And One, the company with the mixtapes and the sneakers that went from cool to coals in like 10 years. So we'll talk about them. It was an empire to embarrassment in 10 years. You betcha. And then for small town murder, we're going to talk about something real was an empire to embarrassment in 10 years and then for small town murder we're going to talk about something real gross sex in the people's temple meaning under jim jones which is jonestown and all of that what happens when one man controls

the sexual activity of a thousand others really really weird shit we'll get into that patreon.com slash crime and sports once again is where you get all that. And if you have not come out to a live show, come to a live show. It's not like a lecture. We don't sit there and go, well, here's a murder. It's a comedy show. We're comedians. So if a minute goes by and there's no laughter, we're both highly uncomfortable.

So there's a lot of laughter. It's a comedy show. Happens to be a crazy murder story with pictures and all of that as well. So you can't eat it. Anybody who went to Cleveland or St. Louis, they were incredible shows. Thank you all for coming to those shows. Thank you, honestly. Holy shit, how fun were those.

Those were amazing shows. Thank you, guys. St. Louis, huge crowd there. That was wild. Thank you so much for coming out for us. And Cleveland, too. Awesome stuff. Thank you so much.

So you do all of that. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports. Also, now the disclaimer. It's a comedy show. We're comedians. People die. We make jokes about it. Sorry. I don't know what to tell you. We do have standards. We go out of our way

not to make fun of the victim or the victim's family. Why, James? Because we're assholes. Yeah, but? But we're not scumbags. That's how that works. So if you think that sounds good to you, we're going to hear a wild show. If you think true crime and comedy never, ever go together, maybe we're not for you.

I don't know. We don't need to be friends with the whole world. You know what I'm saying? It's not for everybody. It's not for – hey, we're not for everybody. But we are for some people. So we might be for you. Stick around and find out.

But no matter what you do, I think it's time to sit back. Let's clear the lungs here. I want you – this is what I want you to do right now. I swear. Like your kid's soccer game right now? Yeah, yeah. I want you to run out to the middle of the field, shove an eight-year-old to the ground, throw your arms to the sky of the field, shove an eight-year-old to the ground, throw your arms to the sky, and shout,

Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy. Shall we? Okay. Let's go on a trip. Here we go. We are going all the way to Maine this week. Yeah.

Yeah, Maine. We like Maine up there. It's the last bastion of America untainted. It's so beautiful. It like Maine up there. It's the last bastion of America untainted. It's so beautiful. It's pretty up there. Well, there's not a lot of taint to – we were in North Dakota last week. That's pretty untainted as well. There's just nobody up there.

And they don't have an ocean. That's the thing. Maine is nice because there's an ocean. They have like shellfish and shit like that. It's different. We're going to Caribou, Maine. Never heard of it. Yeah, because it's up there, boy.

How far? Way up there. Its nearest neighbor is Canada and Moose. That's how it works. Or Vescocia. It's up there. It's about almost three hours to Bangor if you go down there. Really?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Bangor's mad north. It's like halfway up, Bangor, so that's a lot. And then four hours and 44 minutes to Portland, which is down the coast a little more. It's like the last big city, right? Yeah, if you want to call it that, I guess. And then five hours and 20 minutes to Sanford, which is our last episode, which was Satanic Stupidity. And that was the name of it, and it was very – there were a couple of morons there.

It was stupid and satanic. It was. There were a couple of morons there. It was stupid and satanic. It was. County, this is in Aroostook County. A-R-O-O-S-T-O-O-K. Aroostook.

Aroostook? Aroostook. I don't know. There's a lot of O's in that word. Area code 207. The motto here, and it's really just giving you a geographical fact, honestly. It's not really even a stretch. know, they're not a stretch. I like that they're not trying to say something they're not.

They're just telling you this is who we are. Quote, the most northeastern city in the United States. Oh. Geographically, I believe true. That checks out. It's that far up there. So I don't get it. A history of this town.

Not surprising. Lumbermen and trappers set up the first camps here because people surviving on the land yeah there's a lot of beavers and pelts pelts will be involved definitely there can't be are there beavers there's i guess there would be huh probably i assume there's trees and water and dams and there's caribou i was why else would you call it that the first settlers came came here in the 1820s. The lumbermen and trappers were here, 1810s. In about between 1838 and 1840, there was an undeclared war, the Aroostook War, it was called. And it was between the United States and Canada.

And the Battle of Caribou occurred in December of 1838. Did you know this? No. This is not a cheese murder situation where I'm making this up. This is true. Canada versus America fight. They fought each other at the Battle of Caribou, the Battle of this town. Clearly about property lines, right?

Maple syrup bombs going back and forth. If they get all over you, wait three minutes, you're stuck. You can't move. That's how it works. The battle happened. Loving Molotov log cabin tales. It was over

the international border and it delayed settlement of the area until after a treaty was signed and everything. It was originally not called Caribibou it was called linden for a while and um they changed it to caribou in 1869 and then call and then changed it back to linden again and then changed it back to caribou again so i don't know what happened here there's obviously a faction that wants it to be called linden a faction that wants it to be called Lyndon, a faction that wants it to be called Caribou. Whoever wins the mayoral race, they just switched it, I guess. And finally, it's probably the government finally said, no, what is your goddamn name?

What's your name, you beaver pelted asshole? Tell me what do you what do you what do you want to be called? We're tired of this. They're sending my mail to New Jersey. This Lyndon shit. No shit. do you want to be called we're tired of this they're sending my mail to new jersey this linden shit no shit in uh in 1984 uh this became a big shipping place by the way that makes sense and caribou became the largest potato shipping hub in the world what in the 1960s so the biggest potato shipping i both i think yeah it yeah shipping it's coming and going the

port potatoes all over potato over here uh who knew and i had no idea in september of 84 caribou was the liftoff location for the first successful solo balloon crossing of the atlantic ocean made by a lunatic named Colonel Joseph Kittinger. Or a genius, James, because you know why? It is the most northeast city in Latin America. Yeah, I don't know how genius you have to be to look at a map and go, that's the closest, there's the one. I'm going to start in fucking Tallahassee.

That's a crazy bastard. I'm going to start in fucking Tallahassee. That's a crazy bastard. I'm going to start in Cleveland and see where I go. So this flight is memorialized by the Rosie O'Grady Balloon of Peace Park, which is on Main Street. It's Rosie O'Grady that did it. She cut the rope probably. I don't know what happened there. The site includes a large replica of the balloon. So that's what they have going on here.

Reviews of this town, mostly pretty good. Mostly pretty good here. People like it here. To stay up in a place like this, because the weather's extreme and shit like that, you have to love it, you know? You've got to be passionate. Here's five stars.

I've lived here my entire life and love it dearly. Wow. It's a beautiful town with very kind people always willing to lend a helping hand, especially if you've known them your whole life. They'll probably be more willing to help you. And also, in the winter, you're probably going to need it. And then they'll lend a hand because guess what? They're probably going to need it. Everyone's going to need to be pulled out of the snow once in a while here, I have a feeling.

There is much opportunity to get out in nature and enjoy the world around you such as hiking swimming or taking a scenic drive oh that is a cold i was just gonna say that's a chilly chilly swim if you like to swim in 54 degree water this is a place for you in august out of your fucking mind wow that is some hearty people up here maybe swim maybe they're wearing enough beaver pelt to keep themselves warm i'm not sure you're gonna need a wetsuit that's for sure you're gonna beaver pelt to keep themselves warm. I'm not sure. You're going to need a wetsuit, that's for sure. You're going to need a pelt suit, something.

So four stars. Caribou is a good town. All right. That's good to know. It's a good start. They need educated peoples to embrace a new administration and provide jobs in the area. They're talking local politics. I have no idea what's going on on the town council in Caribou, Maine. So no fucking clue what this refers to.

Evidently somebody's stupid, though. Yeah. With our duly elect of 2017, so I know it's not any national election of any kind, we may just accomplish this goal. any national election of any kind. We may just accomplish this goal. There is much attention giving way to this, and all eyes are anxiously waiting to see the results of their choice. What the hell is this? This sounds like someone who learned English through like an internet program or like Babel

or something, and they've never spoken to someone who speaks English, and then they wrote this. I have no idea what's going on here. Our town is excited as anyone can observe in a canter about the city. Okay. Farmers mostly with a desire to see new things with online educations. Anything is possible and we can reach anyone with a desire to learn. New technologies in the coming years, too, will bring exciting changes not only with food, but also with us as well increasing the quality of life.

Thank you for this opportunity to write, Kurt, with a K. Kurt, I got to tell you, I don't know what you just said. I have no idea what you're talking about. I feel like you're happy with maybe the mayor possibly who got elected and you're hoping for good things. Other than that, I have no clue what the fuck you just said. Kurt's an optimist, James. It sounds like he's got an upbeat vision of the town. Three stars.

Okay. Caribou is a small town, which means there isn't much to do especially when you get older probably not a lot when you're younger either try being 17 yeah um as you're older i don't know as i get older sitting feels as becomes more of a you know a lot of most of the things i do is i go places and then i sit there yeah and if someone asks you what are you doing tonight you're excited sometimes to tell them sitting nothing that's exciting isn't it just sitting i mean yeah and they're like oh really like oh yeah it's gonna be great you're excited for that shit i'm gonna order food i go it's it's just to go somewhere else and sit.

Sit there a little while. If I go to a sporting event, I'm going there to sit. It's not like you're playing. Yeah. It's not like they're going to put you in right field and have you shag fly balls. Just going places to sit. But the emptiness can be a good thing. True.

It is often quiet and watching the sun set and rise can be so peaceful. I bet it has to be unbelievably gorgeous. You know what I mean? Oh, what a dream. I've seen the pictures. The place is pretty. Three stars. This area is beautiful, but there are not many things to do.

School sports are a huge thing, but if you're not involved in extracurricular activities, it's very hard to make a name for yourself. This is a kid. This is a high school student. I'm trying to make a name for yourself. This is a kid. This is a high school student. I'm trying to make a name for myself. In high school, kids in this town doing drugs was extremely common, but not everything about the town is bad. Welcome to high school, Doc. You just described high school. You're more popular if you do sports or if you're, like, you know, good looking or whatever the thing is, talented.

Or there's kids that do drugs they should have went on to say there's also kids who get really good grades and some kids do gymnastics and i know a kid who's here with eight siblings and that's weird because they're all in high school how's that work you know shit like that anyway there's another guy that doesn't speak the language here and he came here because the guy that does speak the language went to where he eats from. He floated over there in a fucking balloon. So what do you want? Population, 7,622. So not that many people for a kind of remote.

That's a pretty good size for that far out. It's spread out pretty good, though, too, here. It is more uh male than female which is odd there's more outdoor jobs too which tends to draw more of a male crowd median age is 46.7 which is older than normal a lot of older people everything over 35 all the demographics are high yeah under 35 they're all way way less than they should be there's there's twice as many 85 and older people here than normal it is like i'm gonna be one of them one day i'm me too that sounds great if you don't know someday if you want to find the two of us we're gonna be in

maine together we're gonna open like a little comedy club somewhere near water and we're just gonna sit in portland and we're gonna sit and eat shellfish while people bomb and we're gonna laugh and have a good time that's exactly what our life is gonna be when we're old men i can't wait either 10 more years baby i want to be 85 in maine at some point that's what i'm talking about uh family here let's see we have it's less married than normal because also we have like i said sometimes you sometimes single loggers will come up here. So 20% are single with children. So if you want to get out there and party a little bit, there's people that are in your boat.

That's good. 91% – or 91.5% white in this town, 3.6% black, which is way more than I expected, honestly. Is that right yeah maine is not a very diverse state but and way up in the upper goddamn corner up here i didn't expect any black people at all but there's some that's not why james and i want to go no no no no i want to go by the water i don't want to see anybody of any color that's what i'm saying i only want to see things with fins and yeah and shells i have no interest in human beings up there that's my point I also want to be on the water

not in the water and everywhere else is where people want to be in the water I don't want that no interest I want to look at the water with a hoodie on that's what I want to do wear a hoodie and go yeah those waves look nice that's what I'm trying to do fire burning yeah with a fire exactly with a bunch

of like oysters and shit in it. Some sort of, I don't know what we're doing. We're having a shellfish bake of some kind. Sounds fantastic. We're doing it, I'm telling you. We're doing it. It's going to be fantastic. 2% Hispanic here, and that's pretty much all.

There's 0.0% Asian. Religion, a little less religious, 46 percent religious here and the highest being Catholic, obviously, because as we know,ally last election, 39 percent of the people in Aroostook County voted Democratic, 59.1 percent voted Republican and 1.9 percent independent. And the unemployment rate here is about average. Median household income here is a little bit low. It's thirty five thousand seven hundred sixty four dollars a month, which is it's about fifty three thousand so almost fifty four that's low but the cost of living is also low 100 is regular par here it's 75 median home cost here one hundred nine thousand eight hundred dollars oh my god don't tell me more a lot of cabins and trailers though that's why that's you know that's the problem but uh if we've convinced you, damn it, that you are going to get as far to the northeast as humanly possible and still be in the United States, we have for you the Caribou, Maine real estate report.

Your average two-bedroom rental here goes for about $755 a month, which is well under the national average. Here is, this is a three-apartment unit. There's three-unit apartment building you're buying here. It looks like dog shit, but it's altogether seven-bedroom, three-bath. I don't know how it's broken up in the apartments. You can open all the doors and just enjoy it all yourself. That's what I mean. 1,608 square feet.

There's no pictures of the inside, which is frightening. That scares me. Yeah, that's not good. That's terrifying. There is plywood covering the attic window, so that's never a good sign. Animals are living in here. But $67,000. Unbelievable.

So you can afford to knock a few walls down and chase a possum or $67,000. Unbelievable. So you can afford to knock a few walls down and chase a possum or two out of there. Absolutely. Hitch yourself a broom and push them out. Let's go out, little buddy. Here's a three-bedroom, two-bath, 2,100-square-foot house. It's an old barn that they made into a house is what it looks like. It has to be. It has to be.

But it's pretty cool, actually. It's kind of a weird house. It's hard to describe, honestly, because picture a barn that was made into a house, and it doesn't look like a barn, but it's kind of a cool house. Sometimes New England, it feels like there's no codes. Yeah, and there might not be up here. You might be right. It might have just been kind of put together over time. No inspector came through when they did it. No, like where is it caribou oh jesus never mind that's i'm sure it's good you're good we approve 234 900 bucks for that so not bad and

here's a nice little house uh three bedroom three bath 2736 square feet T-bowl for every B-hole. Not bad. It's a nice house. It's really nice. There's some painting that could be fixed. The kids' room is lime green. They have a Bud Light-themed basement going on. Of course they do.

I'm sure they'll take all that memorabilia with them. That's helpful. But $300,000 for this this though which is wow a great price for that size house in the rest of the country that would be way more expensive is there acreage with it that's not you're not too much i don't think but it's okay though it's yeah there's you don't see a lot of houses around you because it's on a hill thing it's pretty really nice probably 40 acres it's pretty that's the other thing too it's probably 40 acres and like a lobster farm and everything else. Things to do here. There's a build a snowman contest.

Okay. Yeah. It's a whole thing that goes on. It's from February 17th to March 4th. And it includes. Oh, my God. Three weeks. A lot of time to build the snowman.

You never know when the snow is going to fall, Jimmy. Not only that, there's a bunch of other stuff that goes on over the course of this. And then at the end of that, we see who has the best snowman. It's a community-wide snowman contest. Compete to create your best snowman. Well, there you go. Great. There is business and homeowner class.

There's different categories. You can't have Wenscrafters competing with Tom and Joe down the tom and joe no no that's not going to work so you got to register and pick up your sign at the caribou rec center and then send your photos to the facebook page and then they'll be posted and winners will be announced later oh that's lazy as fuck they don't even go see it no send a couple of people that talk with a heavy main accent a couple of pepperidge fam remembers a couple of people that talk with a heavy Maine accent, a couple of Pepperidge Farm members, a couple of those people. Send them around with a clipboard to look at these with big coats on to see this.

Send us a photo. A photo. Jesus Christ. There's a historic tour and meal. Join us for a guided tour led by Brian's Ride ride at the famer famous former loring air force base along with a hot dog roast and chicken stew ew what chicken isn't a stew meat by the way no it's not there's a snow cross race at the spud speedway potato reference there we go snow cross racing up for two days holy shit uh yeah this is with

snow machines county groomer rodeo that doesn't sound good um yeah it's at the spud speedway join us to see local snowmobile club groomers compete in an obstacle course for the area title that doesn't sound great at all i don't know how do you snowmobile i don't know how you do that hey buddy how you doing snow. Hey, buddy. How you doing, snowmobile? Get the youngest snowmobile you can find. Hey, snowmobile, you want to go out for some ice cream? How else would you?

I don't know. Gummy bears in its tank. I guess. Monster truck moose mania. Main-ia. Moose mania. Okay. Main, yeah.

Yeah. Enjoy free monster truck rides during the Snowcross race event. Oh, boy. The sled-abration. Obviously, you're going to. They got to stop. They got to stop. It's a lot.

That's a stretch. Yeah. The sled-abration. I'll give you moose-mania. I'll give you mania. You're not getting sled-abration with mania. You can have one or the other. I'm advising you pick mania. I'll give you mania. You're not getting sled abrasion with mania. You can have one or the other. I'm advising you pick mania.

Yeah, mania is the given. It's right there. It's better. Sled abrasion doesn't make any sense. There's a Rave X stunt show. Check out the snowmobile backflips and high-flying action. Snowmobile backflips. That soundsames it's so dangerous yes those

things weigh a ton if that falls on you your organs are going to shoot out into the audience that sounds terrifying people die on those every year i bet uh snow cross race there's all sorts of shit like that also a crown of maine balloon fest that has balloon racing and i don't know if you have to go all the way across the atlantic or not but whatever crime rate in this town what we're interested in here uh property crime about one-third under the national average so okay pretty it's cold what are you gonna steal you're shivering although you are wearing a big coat to hide things in so i lost toes i can't tell if somebody stole them but i'm not positive i'm missing them um violent crime though murder rape robbery and of course assault the mount rushmore of crime is about half the national average so yeah i mean it's it's too chilly

it's just too cold up there to do that you're if you just swam in 55 degree water you are not going to be violent you're going to be very docile for a while probably yeah um that said let's talk about a murder what do you say let's do that let's do it let's do it boy because you know it's going to be odd you know i mean anywhere go ahead no you please please This area of the country, all bets are off because you have the fringe people. Then you have the people that just want to be out of the city. It's just such a hodgepodge mix of real fucking instability. Anything can happen. It's an extreme geographical location. So anywhere we have an extreme geographic location in the United States, you have oddities.

And that's what it is. Absolutely. Like we said, like the western states, people would go there to escape. Well, people would come here to escape too. And some people grew up here and they haven't really been other places. And then some people just moved here because it's beautiful. And, you know, it is a hodgepodge. And you're going to get weird every time.

That's the only way to put it. I don't know how to phrase it other than it's going to be a little weird up there. So it's kind of like Upper Michigan when it comes to that. You go, oh, it's going to be strange if it's happening in the UP. So, you know, you know it's going to be weird. You just know it. These are people that escaped Wisconsin to be over here. Yeah.

Now there's no damn people. You're like no it's colder too so spring of 1978 let's go to oh spring of 1978 oh my goodness imagine this the haircuts jesus christ the polyester is everywhere it's everywhere seven winter is thawing out by 78 polyester is the is the fabric of the land it's everything so right this is a lot going on right now um but uh we're going to talk about a couple of people joel smith let's talk about joel here he's 25 years old yeah which i want you to take note of that. And remember, this man is 25 years old. OK, just so you know, because when I tell you things about him, you're going to go. So he's 16 years old. You're going to know he's 25 years old because everything else in the story would tell you he's not a day 19 tops and not a day older, but 25. So at this point, in spring of 1978, he is an unemployed welder. In the wintertime,

you have your normal seasonal jobs go away in winter. And welding is a lot of outdoor shit. So I can see it being unemployed. But how far into spring are we? I was going to say, I don't think we're waiting for a job to pop up in the summer no no he's not like you know oh boy when the when it gets cranking up

again the crew's getting back together he's just a guy who knows how to weld and doesn't have a job that's what he is it's a different classification just a unemployed guy who knows how to weld. Different, different things. So his father is his father's had the same job since he was a child here. His father is the deputy warden at the Maine State Prison at Thomaston. So, yeah, deputy warden back in the 70s here where he had worked for 18 years. He got that job in 1960. So he's been there forever. What's his boy's problem?

Jesus. Well, he didn't germinate the seed, we'll say, the two of them. He's adopted. Joel's an adopted kid. Oh, okay. And adopted at age 27 months. So that's over two years old. He's seen some things.

He's had some experiences yes and that's his father says quote the boy's real parents abused him considerably oh my god so you know we're happy somebody adopted him that's good you know because he was abused um his father said that for some time after they you know adopted him he said that for some time after they adopted him, he said that the child would only talk in a whisper. Only would whisper. Was very afraid. That's a frightened kid. Was afraid, quote, most of the time of everything.

Oh, my. And was just constantly, that's how the kid must have been terrorized up to that point. He's seen some shit. Yeah, that's a bad start. It's not good. It's not great. Now, I don't know if that leads you to be a 25 year old unemployed welder in the spring of 1978, but it doesn't help. I'll tell you that much.

In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again. Leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those

close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor.

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

Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. He basically sells weed and stuff like that to get by. Weed, a little bit of acid here and there. You know, he's a guy who knows how to weld and lives in a trailer with his girlfriend and, you know, has weed and hangs out with teenagers is the other problem. This is the thing in spring of 78 i don't know that uh mental health and the track that your body is put on when you deal with that kind of traumatic experience that you don't even remember yeah you don't even realize what you're doing or why you're doing it i'm sure that's not talked about very

very much in his house i don't think it is at all probably back then it was probably like well you know things are good now let's just uh make sure you're not in that so what the fuck let's make sure he has fruit loops in the morning and he'll probably be happy you know what i mean that's that's all we can do for him yeah you know that vitamin a and d and he'll be fine he'll be all right you know be nice to him we'll give him a hug once in a while and not diddle him and stuff like that and i'm sure he'll be back. Once they got him to speak in a normal voice, they were probably like, yeah, there we go. Flush it right out of him. Whole milk did it. All fixed.

Yeah. Told you not that 2%. You got to get the whole milk for the boy. I know you like the 2%, but the boy needs whole milk. Chill it. So he's selling weed. He's doing stuff like that that just kind of getting by he is at least five years older than anyone else in the story besides his father by the way he's

at the minimum of five years older that's what i mean he's definitely stalled in his yeah in his maturity because sure if you're 25 you just don't hang out with kids that aren't even 21, you know what I mean, unless there's something wrong. There's got to be a safety and innocence there that he's trying to hold on to. Yeah. There's got to be something psychological there. Or I think he likes being the 25-year-old, kind of the older. He kind of tells people what to do. He can sell them weed and he can, you know.

He's looked up to. Exactly. Expect in there. Because we all know that guy. Sure. Remember the 25-year-old guy you bought weed from when you were 17? That's not a great guy. He was a loser.

Remember him? Yeah. Yeah. It was a 24-year-old dude that was dating our 17 year old friend oh you had one of those too yeah you had one of those yeah in my say his name i don't want i don't say his name yeah i know my guy's name too i can remember his name absolutely he's a kind of and today james guess what he does what what's that same shit there you go i remember i mean not dating young girls but he's a scumbag that sells weed that's it we had a guy who's 23 he knew all of like my friends hung out with a couple of

them and went out with a girl who was in the grade below me and was 15 at the time and her parents were fine with it and like i'm like he's 20 am i the only one who says he's 23 people's parents are fine with it she'd be they were they were an open fine couple and i'm like she's 15 fucking years old and it was like well he had problems when he was younger and i don't care that's his problem she's a child apartment because he got thrown out of his house no no no he lived in his parents he had a studio apartment at this time but he would stay with at her house he would spend the night at her house her parents would allow him to sleep in her bed same place to live that he paid for because he had a fucking day job while we were all in school he'd buy booze for people so yeah that's why he was like kind of

allowed to hang out in the group was like well like, well, he has a purpose anyway. I suppose. That 30-pack is here because of him. I mean, yeah. So I guess we're sacrificing our friend here for that. I guess that was the logic that people had. I don't know. Sacrificing Warren's fucking safety for this.

But we were kids. Like, it wasn't our fault. I think her parents probably should have intervened there. And we figured if everyone's parents are okay with it i don't know it's i think it's not good but i guess it's fine you know there was also an element of we felt like because she was our age we could make the decision to date somebody anybody we want and this is just the decision she's made yeah that's the other thing and now looking back on it i'm'm like, oh, no. This is terrible. I should have said something. I should have. Well, we did. We used to make fun of her for it all the time.

Yeah, we did. Yeah. We made fun of him. And him. But we knew he wasn't going to stop because he's a loser. But we would make fun of her and be like, your boyfriend's the biggest loser in the world. Do you know how? Because he's your boyfriend.

That's why. He can drink beer in a bar right now. We're sitting in a backyard because we can't. We're in a basement. Do you understand that? Hiding. Meanwhile, he's with us for some reason. We're sitting in a backyard surrounding a 50 gallon drum with a fire in it.

Oh, my God. Fuck, man. What a disgrace. So his girlfriend at the time right now, Joel Smith's girlfriend, is Brenda Younk. Y-O-U-N-K. Oh. Younk, Younk, Younk. It's got to be Younk, right?

Younk, I would think so. Like Yount, like Robin. Yeah, exactly. She's 20 years old. Obviously, she can't be his age, but that's fine. 20 and 25, that's okay. As long as they haven't been together since she was 13 i'm okay with it as long as it started and i know that it didn't start when she was a child because

she is divorced and has a two-year-old son so someone got there yeah that was he wasn't he wasn't uh robbing that cradle possibly someone else was at some other point probably so that's fine so there you go uh she's a divorced 20 yearyear-old lady with a 2-year-old son who goes out with Joel, who is an unemployed welder who sells weed out of his trailer. There we go. Jesus. It's really, it's all going swimmingly for everyone here.

Could have gone better, but this is where we are. This is what dreams are made of here. Yeah. When Neil Diamond, back in the 77 or 76, probably bicentennial, when he was singing, they're coming to America. This is what they were dreaming about, Jimmy. Everywhere around the world, they're selling weed out of trailers. You know they were.

American dream. This is the american dream um she her ex-husband talk about this she's from michigan and her ex-husband met her in maine or met her in michigan and they moved to maine because he was stationed at the now shuttered loring air force base now they have festivals there where you do weird shit flip your fucking skidoo yeah that's crazy he also uh he says that he knows of her past brenda has been the victim of uh physical and sexual abuse also yeah and she's also pretty good at art as well she's a decent artist So that's the couple we have here. They both have some damage in their past, and they're trying to get by it together, I suppose, here.

Now, to introduce the next player here, his name is Gary Nadeau, or Nadeau, N-A-D-E-A-U. Is that Nadeau? Nadeau? Maybe Nadeau? Nadeau, yeah. Yeah, Gary. Yeah, Gary. Gary. Gare.

Gare Bear. Gare. Gare is 16 years old, so he shouldn't even be in this story, honestly. We shouldn't know him. Unless he's somebody's little brother or something, we shouldn't know anything about him. We shouldn't Nadeau anything about him. We shouldn't Nade about him we shouldn't know anything about him shouldn't know it at all and when you add in the fact that this will make him even younger he's not he's not even like a mature 16 i don't think because he's in the eighth grade um i remember being 13 in the

eighth grade so yeah that is uh sophomore that's you should be a could be a junior. Yeah. I was a junior when I was 16, for Christ's sake. That's 16 to 17. Yeah. Yeah. I turned 17 at the end of my junior year. I turned 17. So I'm not judging anybody. But, you know, I don't know if there's a I don't know anything about this.

I don't know what kind of there's a delay if he had developmental problem or whatever. But he seems like. But if you can if you can drive to middle school, there's certainly a, that is fucking weird. Yeah. That's, that's,

that's strange. There's certainly an issue, but Gary seems to be like socially adjusted, has friends, does things. So he's not, there's nothing wrong with him or anything like that. He's just,

um, 16 and in the eighth grade, he's also like a stoner and shit like that. He might just be a slacker. That's kind of playing out the string until he can drop out which is what i know a lot of kids that did that who are you know still in the night in the ninth grade when they were 16 and just were you know till they could legally drop out fucking off till they can take a ged test and go home that's it so um now he in uh the spring

here or i'm sorry late summer he's arrested gary sorry, late summer, he's arrested, Gary, the 16-year-old. Yeah. He's arrested and jailed on a charge of possessing weed. Okay. Talk about this. Now, the problem is, is somehow the whole thing gets brought back to Joel, who sold him the weed. Huh. This is a half ounce of weed, by the way.

This isn't like five. It is. It's a half ounce. There's no bricks involved. This isn't five pounds. There's no kilos. This is literally a sandwich bag with some brick weed, some shit Mexican brick weed in the bag.

Yeah. Not bad. Yeah. This isn't a huge transaction that we need to really- It's probably three fingers. It's not even four. Yeah. action that we need to really probably it's probably three fingers it's not even four yeah a 25 year old sells weed to a 16 year old so he can fuck him on five four five or six grams on a half that's why he does it's a light half yeah a 25 year old would call him on that a 16 year old's

like well at least i got it you know what i mean yep you know you've been there yeah yeah it sucks but at least i got it. That's incredibly light. So when you're 16, don't buy weed from 20-year-olds or 25-year-olds. That's not good. Why is this bag like this? Has it been on the treadmill? Yeah. Why is it losing weight? Lost some weight.

Lost some weight here. Been slimming down. My weed bag's trying to get its summer bod on. What is it, 78? The inflation's affecting bags of weed, too, I i see it's really inflation's making my weed lighter i don't know that worked is this its goal sandwich bag what's happening damn you're going with the smaller sandwich bags now okay you remember those oh yeah the halfies yeah they're just for kids goldfish that's all they're for cheerios goldfish fuck out of here drug dealers or exactly i mean otherwise

they have no other purpose except goldfish goldfish and drugs why'd you make these there's no way these were built for toddler snacks you did this because it's much easier for us no bread is that size and it's a sandwich bag. So you're telling me right away you're eliminating your purpose. And yellow and blue make what? Green? Come on. You bet.

See? Hey, man, there you go. Thanks, Ziploc, for making this possible for us. When it's sealed tight, the weed and the seal are the same color. Exactly. for us when it's sealed tight the weed and the seal are the same exactly so this all gets brought back to joel smith who is then arrested for selling gary weed oh god damn it gary shut the fuck up seems like a lot of police work for a half ounce of weed doesn't it we're arresting one kid we're tracing it back to another guy oh we're, everybody. We're arresting two people. We arrest another 65 people.

We're going to get to the supplier. I'll tell you what. We're going up that chain pretty far. 65 people will be in Columbia in no time. Next, we'll get to the guy who sells ounces and then on up from there. So that's what they're doing here. He is set to, they're going gonna go to trial for his selling weed for joel of selling weed stop it trial and they're making gary testify against him so

that's what i mean this is really serious this is this is some serious shit in 1978 maine they're not fucking around when i go to maine oh that's legal there now oh yeah they have dispensaries there now it's terrific it's terrific yeah we'll have a good time we think do you think one of the place i want to end up in is not going to have any weed in it so if they're taking me to jail because i did a podcast with a guy that had a joint i'm gonna have a problem with this yeah we're probably not going to last long up there i'm gonna be raiding our comedy club constantly. Yeah, they're arresting your dog because he sat in the room while you smoked it. Little Oscar being taken away.

His little paws. Paw cops. He won't say shit, though. He's down. He's a down motherfucker. Yeah, he won't testify. He won't even lick's a down motherfucker yeah he's he's gonna he won't testify like you are inconveniencing me and james not doing this is bullshit not doing it would dog would dog cuffs be like a a thumb trap like a finger trap they put them together like that maybe maybe no i just picture him at the wrist just together

those little paws coming out, you know. Right by the dewclaw. Yeah, and he's standing up walking that way. You know how he likes to do that anyway. He likes to stand on his leg. They're walking him with his, holding his little paws as he walks. I want to see him do a perp walk now. Yeah, me too.

He's the most innocent looking dog in the world. Now I got to see him looking, doing the perp walk. I need to be a hardened criminal. Bulletproof vest on over him as they're taking him from the car to the court yeah yeah yeah like he did a school shooting one of those oh jesus so he's gonna testify yes he bought indeed i bought a half ounce of weed i bought a half ounce of the devil's lettuce from this man. And it's really going to be bad for everyone here. So he's out of jail.

Joel is awaiting trial on this charge. So he and Brenda decide during this, hey, he's really the only way they know I had sold anybody weed is this guy testifying. So maybe we can get him to not testify maybe we can get him to like go out of town for the you know for the trial maybe we can uh say hey here's a you know a grand go on a vacation or you know okay for something hey disappear kid you know some shit like that just not or just not to show up whatever it is so um he said he told his friend that he's going to try to get rid of him. Try to get rid of this.

Joel said, I'm going to try to get rid of Gary here. So as we head into September, September 20th is the trial date. And that's when Gary's scheduled to testify against Joel. scheduled to testify against Joel. So on September 15th, 1978, they decide to, okay, we got to put this into action to get him to not testify or else we're really fucked here. You know what I mean? Now- They're really going to put us all away for six weeks.

Put us all away for this fucking little Ziploc bag full of weed, a half ounce. So now you can buy that in half the states in America all the time on a daily basis. High five a guy across a counter over it. And pick out a few different kinds, too. Make it four different eighths. Who cares? Mix it up a bit. Get some concentrates in there.

So let's mix in some new people into this uh into this whole mix it's a great mix already we have brenda we have gary we have joel now let's get glenn in the mix here glenn tetral tetro tetralt t-e-t-r-e-a-u-l-t wow tetro or yeah or tetral or tetralt either one might be t-tral T-Tralt, depending on how redneck they are. How cultured, how redneck. Yeah, we're not sure. The T's are going to be more pronounced the more redneck they are. So 18 he is, Glenn.

Obviously he's not 25 like Joel because why would Joel hang out with anyone his own age? His buddy also is Paul Robert Ankerson. Paul Ankerson. And he is 18 years old. And the only guy without an uh in his name in the entire fucking story. This is a little easy. Yeah. So Ankerson's also 18 years old.

Glenn and Paul are kind of buddies. They're always hanging out. And they know Joel. They hang out with Joel. They hang out with Brenda. They all know Gary. Everyone's a big. Paul's 18 too?. They hang out with Brenda. They all know Gary. Paul's 18 too?

Yeah, Paul's 18 also. Again, two more people who don't see it weird that they're hanging out with an eighth grader and they're adults. They don't see that as a strange thing to do. Or that they're hanging out with a 25-year-old. Well, I guess him being married to a 20-year-old puts them – that makes this okay. They're just boyfriend-girlfriend at the time. Yeah, but still. But they're together and They're just boyfriend-girlfriend at the time. Yeah. But still. But they're together and they may just know her and now they know him.

She bridges the gap between them. Yeah. Yeah. That's possible. Yeah. Between a 15-year-old and a 25-year-old is going to be a 20-year-old. So yeah. She's bridging the gap.

And by the way, this whole day is based around a party. Yeah. Now you're thinking a party. It's a 25-year-old. It's a party and there's going to be beer and it's going to be a party with a bunch of adults. Some party. Yeah. Now, you're thinking a party. It's a 25-year-old. It's a party, and there's going to be beer, and it's going to be a party with a bunch of adults. Some music, yeah. Actually, it's based around the birthday party of a 15-year-old.

A 15th birthday party because- Yesterday, they were 14. Yeah, yesterday, they were 14, in other words. And that's who Gary hangs out with because, you know, Gary's 16 and in the eighth grade. So these are his friends. These are people he knows, people turning 15. His name is Carl Bishop, the 15 year old at the birthday parties going on.

Now, Joel Smith thinks, OK, I'd like to what I'll do is I'd like to get him, Gary, out kind of in the middle of nowhere where I can, you know, he'll be a little bit scared of me because he's 16 and I'm 25. And, you know, he thinks I'm a big, dangerous drug dealer. So I'd like to kind of scare him, tell him how it's like dangerous and, you know, all this type of shit, discourage him from testifying. Then I'll pay him. Then I'll give him some money. So when he's scared and he's ready to not testify anyway, then I'm going to be like, tell you what, here's a thousand bucks. Get the fuck out of here. Twelve hundred bucks, he says he was thinking

about giving him and saying, why don't you take a hike for a while? That way I can get off on this charge. So that's the initial plan allegedly. So Joel says that Gary knows not to meet up with him though he's not going to

come if he calls him out you know you're testifying you know against me in about five days when do you meet me in a really desolate spot in the middle of the woods yeah he's probably not that stupid you know I mean your words can change the way my life runs for the next little bit

yeah why don't just you and me go talk i think he's in the eighth grade not the fifth grade he's probably going to know better than that so yeah i shouldn't even be in that great it'd be much exactly so he um the plan is okay glenn and paul glenn to trault and pa Paul Akerson. They are going to, you know, Gary, trust them. So you guys get him from this party and then take him out to where I am and then I'll talk to him. So, you know, help me out with this. All right.

Oh, boy. That's that. That's the plan. Now, Langley Road is the decided upon spot here, I guess, where they're going to meet off of this road out in the woods. So Akerson is supposed to go to the roller rink. Yeah, 25. He's saying you go to the roller rink. Fuck, man.

Tetralt was to get ready for the birthday party for Carl Bishop at Joel Smith's apartment. the birthday party for Carl Bishop at Joel Smith's apartment. A 25-year-old is hosting a 15-year-old's birthday party in his apartment. Oh, my. Not because it's his girlfriend's little brother or something like that. Because they're all pals. Because we know each other. They have similar interests. That's why.

Fuck, man. I don't like any of this at all. None of it. And I don't blame the kids because when I was 15 I hung out. There was a few 25-year-olds I knew and I know they're losers now. I know that. One of them's name was Satanic Bill, for Christ's sake. And he went to prison

multiple times and was a bad guy. And then another guy is, I know is still a loser. If you're hanging out with young people who aren't closely related to you, you're a fucking loser. There's just something about that. And you're not mentoring them because there are exceptions.

You're not paid to be around them. Then get the fuck out of there. Yeah, it's weird. Anyway, yeah, that's the whole thing is that he's having a birthday party there. And it is prearranged that after Glenn to Trout and Paul Akerson pick up Gary there to come to Joel Smith's apartment to get a couple of joints. Oh, Gary, you'll feel real comfortable. You know, hey, we're puffing some weed where everybody's no one who's going to do bad things to you gives you some joints to smoke first.

You know, that's just not even logical. where everybody's, no one who's going to do bad things to you gives you some joints to smoke first, you know? That's just not even logical. Especially not the guy that just sold you something and you got arrested. Yeah, and you're all going to be in court next week. The same shit. About this. So they were to ride around with Gary for about an hour and give him some beer while they're driving around. So come to my house, pick up a couple of joints, you know,

then go drive him around, smoke a couple joints, give him a couple beers while you're up in the mountains, get him real cozy and comfortable and feeling good and then take him to the spot on Langley Road. Okay? And that's what they did. So they, uh,

Smith, Joel, he hid out in the woods near where the car pulls up. So they had it that to that kind of a level of like, I'll be over here in a bush and then you drive up and park here type of shit. This is all to pay a man. Well, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's why I said allegedly to pay a man to quote a fascinating pretenses to pay a man like. Yeah. Yeah. If you're going to pay someone,. That's a fascinating pretense is to pay a man like that. Yeah, yeah. If you're going to pay someone, you don't have to hide.

You can just be there. And when he pulls up and be like, oh, shit, be like, no, no, it's cool. I'd have money in your hand. Yeah, this is not how I pay my credit card bill. No, I hide in the bushes. Wait for the, that'd be amazing. The bank teller to be brought out there blindfolded. Yeah, absolutely.

I have a guy that if it snows, he'll plow my driveway. This is how I pay him. I jump off the roof onto his back and shove the money in his front pocket. That's how I do it. It's real weird. Drink this. Now come out in the woods. Come out in the woods with me.

Here's some money. All right, now get lost. Get out of here. It's pretty cool. I think that's why I've gone through eight snowplow guys. I'm going to find one, the the right one one of these days one that this is his kink is gonna stick around he's gonna stick around and we're gonna be tight forever fast front he's gonna move to maine with us he's gonna plow the parking lot yep that's our comedy club parking lot that's his job give him like five percent of the take. So they're supposed to drive around, do all that shit. And he's hidden in a wooded area where Gary's going to be let out of the car.

driving to the middle of nowhere yeah their answer is yeah you have to get out right here because there's a six pack of beer hidden under a tree how important is beer to these people a six pack under a tree what like a leprechaun like a yeah scavenger hunt they sent him on is there a rainbow leading to the tree yeah how do i find it which tree is it so he gets out of the car saying you know what tree am i looking for the six-pack under and joel runs up to gary and immediately says why'd you give a written statement against me it's up with that yeah it's up dude that's fucked up man not cool right so gary didn't said at the time he goes i didn't know what i was signing they just told me i you know they got me in there they yelled at me i'm in the eighth grade i'm 16 in an eighth grade why do you

think i did it i don't know yeah they just he said they put it in front of me and i signed it and i you know and every 16 year old kid is dumb and every kid in the eighth grade is dumb no matter what their age. They're all dumb. Children are dumb. I was dumb. Jimmy was dumb. We were all dumb. We have no life experience.

This would be better for me. That's why. That's why. And they said, it's not better for me either. Sign, sign this and we won't charge you with that. And so I went, okay. And I signed it. Um, at this point, here comes Brenda.

Okay. Brenda Young, Joel's girlfriend, she pulls up in a car. Now, boom, she pulls up and he says that Joel at that point slaps Gary to, quote, prove I meant business. That'll learn him. So I think by this whole setup, he knows you mean business. Yeah. If I'm tricked into meeting someone in a remote location and they pop out of a bush and there's a bunch of people around me, I get it that this is probably not in my favor. This is nefarious.

I don't see a six-pack of beer anywhere, so I'm clearly a problem. This is what Joe Pesci's end in casino was. Exactly this. Oh, no. Casino, not in Goodfellas. Goodfellas, too. It was Goodfellas, yeah. Casino, they take him out in the cornfield. It's different. In Goodfellas, they take him,

he thinks he's getting made, he's all happy. This kid's the same way. He thinks he's getting a six-pack. He gets out. Oh, no. Boof. He's down. They even shot him in the face so his mother couldn't give him an open casket at the funeral. So, to prove he means business. So, Gary

is put into the car now, put into Joel's car or Brenda's. It's the car Brenda pulled up in. So, whatever. Their car. Are there babies in the backseat? No, no no they let the two-year-old stay i don't know but someone i'm sure who knows where the two-year-olds living in a tree i don't know they have it wrapped up in a beaver pelt i have no idea it's guarding the

six-pack it's guarding yeah they sit it on top of the six-pack just so the no no bears or anything get at it you know what i mean protect the six-pack, honey. So they stuff him into the car, and they drive to a road near, farther out there. It's, you know, even farther out. So Joel asked Gary, how much do you want to leave the state? What do you want? And Gary said, where am I? I'm 16. Where am I supposed to go i can't i can't even do anything like i can't even i can't buy things like no one will how much money or how

bad do you want to leave how much do you want to leave so much so much right now are we talking about now like just drive me to the border i'll'll climb across. So he said that Gary said, nothing will get me to stop from testifying because then I'll be in trouble. So I have to testify and I have nowhere to go. What am I going to go to Mexico and hide out for the rest of my life so I don't hang out? So I don't testify at your weed trial. That's ridiculous. So we're half an ounce. This isn't anything.

This is so stupid. Yeah, this is the whole thing is stupid. So at that point, Joel decides that he said later on, quote, I decided that he had to be done away with. This is over a half ounce of weed. This is unbelievable. This is over a half ounce of weed, man. This is not even over the weed. It's over the penalty for getting caught with it, which is so stupid. But he's 16.

This is your mistake. When you sell weed to children, you have to understand that if their mother finds it in their pocket, you could be going, you know, like that's why one of the one of the many litany fucking book thick thing of why you don't sell any kind of drugs to teenagers. Weed, mild. I don't care what it is. Anything. If you're an adult, don't sell shit to kids because this is the problem. Not only morally and everything else. To a child to be the dealer of them.

Right. Yeah. You sell it to a slightly older child than them who sells it to someone slightly younger than them until it eventually gets down to the age of where you're going. And then that kid is paying twice as more than he should. That's how the drug business works. And that's how you keep them from doing it because it's

fucking not financially feasible for them. If they're jumping right to a 25 year old, we can't have anything in this world. It's disorder. Children should buy drugs from children. it and i won't stand for anything less i will fight and fight until this country realizes that that's the only wow that's how it worked in the 90s why in maine in the 70s was it fucking backwards i don't know maybe there was less weed around probably only two people who had weed in this town I'm not sure so he's decided he's going to be um going to have to be done away with him so oh my god he turns his back to Gary and uh tells him

that if you won't take my money basically you're not going to take my money you're never going to see caribou or your mom again. Meaning the town of Caribou, not a Caribou. So it's like, oh, really? I see what it's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast. Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart.

And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky and part comedy. The stories we cover are well researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing.

This mother****er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal. Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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

Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. So you said you're never going to see your mom. Again, if you can threaten someone to not testify by something about they're not going to see their mom, it's a child. Think about what you're saying. You're a terrible person. Go get your stupid penalty and go to county jail for six months for selling this kid weed and then be more fucking careful next time. You're bad.

You're talking about, I don't know what the penalty for drugs in Maine is, but I cannot imagine it's fucking five to ten on this. This is ridiculous. It's fucking fourth down. You got a punt. Sorry. I cannot imagine it's fucking 5-10 on this. This is ridiculous. It's fucking fourth down, you got a punt. Sorry. I mean, that's on you. You shouldn't have ran it for the first and second down maybe. You knew your offensive line was weak. What's wrong with you?

You knew your quarterback's got a limp arm. He's not going to get it on third. He's got no strength behind it. So Joel then said that he, quote, took Gary, and this is Joel's words, quote, hit him with all my power on top of his head. On top of his head? On top of his head. Took Gary and hit him with all my power on top of his head. I took him by his hair and forced him off the road into the woods.

Okay. I took him by his hair and forced him off the road into the woods. He then continued to bludgeon him with his fists here, breaking his jaw, breaking his nose. This is holding him by the hair. He's doing all this, just punching him and then kicking him in the face when he gets tired of punching him while holding his hair, which you can't really get a great kick in while you're holding someone's hair. You can't really get any, you know, difficult. Enough to make the area sting or numb. It's not good, but I mean it's not as good as if you were going to go back and do a field goal kick, obviously, or something like that. But still, he's holding him so he can't get away and then continued to kick Gary until he was unconscious and then continued to kick Gary after he fell into unconsciousness as well.

So pummeling this child at this point. Then Joel goes back to the car and gets a shovel. That's a bad sign. If you're conscious, man. Yeah. Well, if you're also being dragged out here and then you've been beaten and you as you come to you see the guy who beat you now has a shovel and you're in the woods. Why'd you bring a shovel, man?

This isn't good. You were supposed to be paying me. So he digs a hole. Joel begins to dig a hole. While he's digging the hole, Gary comes to and sees what's going on. And, you know, he's not dumb. He puts two and two together and he starts to get up. Like, I better get the fuck out of here. here you know i'm about to go in a hole so then joel comes over and this is he just

rose to his feet gary so joel comes over with the shovel and smashes him in the left knee with the shovel knocking him back down to the ground then takes the shovel and wails him on top of the head with it. Oh, God. Like a comedy movie would be, except instead it's horrific because it's a child and it's real. He's beating a child. He's beating a child. At that point, Gary falls and he's unconscious and out,

and they don't know if he's alive or dead or what because he just got beat with a shovel. But Joel takes Gary and puts him in the hole that he had dug while Gary was unconscious. Then he covers him up with some dirt. Thinks he's good there. But he's not sure. He doesn't cover him up thick. It's not like two feet of dirt.

It's a very thin layer of soil on top of him. Eight inches or something. Yeah. Not even that. Just enough to where you kind of can't see him, sort of. Yeah. It's not a lot. Some wrinkles of his jacket are coming through.

Yeah. So he said, well, he stopped for a reason. That's not the full burial here. So he said he stopped and he went, well, I don't think he's dead yet, possibly. And he could just be unconscious. He goes, I got and he went, well, I don't think he's dead yet, possibly. And he could just be unconscious. He goes, I got something for this, though. Joel walks over to the car, his and Brenda's car, and pulls out a three-foot-long sword. Three foot.

A 36-inch blade, a three-foot-long fucking blade, and then with a big handle on it, too. It's a japanese like ceremonial samurai whatever the shit sword what the fuck man the type of sword that a douchebag who's 25 years old that sells weed to kids has in his fucking trailer that's that it's that sword he's that guy the sword that bruce willis saved ving rames life yes he just wishes someday to be that guy from boogie nights that throws firecrackers in his living room someday he's gonna get to that status and he'll he'll have guns instead of this sword but he's still gonna keep the sword for memory's sake yeah because it hangs on the wall nicely yeah sentimental you know looks cool on the wall

too plus it's the 70s and everybody's into into, like, kung fu shit and Bruce Lee and karate. Yeah. So these swords are popular. At least he didn't use nunchucks. That would have been a dumber way to do it. Just pounding the shit out of the dirt. Yeah, just pap, pap, pap. I can't get him.

So he takes this giant, insane sword. This crazy shit asshole walking through the woods with a samurai sword is just so out of place number one he sees gary in the hole gary isn't moving he's still unconscious takes the sword and as he puts it runs him through several times just plunged it into the dirt just oh my dabs him through the fucking soil Just starts stabbing him several times as far into him as he could get it, which is thrilling. Never heard of this before. How crazy is this shit?

What the fuck, man? It's the penalty for a half ounce of weed, and this is your plan? This is the plan. This is all. Just think about a half ounce of weed. Even if you don't smoke weed, you're not into weed. I'm not saying you have to be, but I know what a 12-pack of beer looks like. And I'm not a big drinker, but a half ounce of weed is not a lot of weed, if you don't know.

It's really not. It's like in Massachusetts, you can legally buy an ounce of weed a day. An ounce, which is twice as much as that. You know what I mean? It's a whole baggie. Yeah, it's a whole bag full. This is not a ton of weed. And you'd buy a half if you had like a bunch of your friends were going to go camping or something.

You'd buy a half for like a few people for a night. It's not like, oh, I'm going to – Or if you smoke every day and you're trying to make it last for two weeks and you're on a budget. You did a value deal. When you're 16, you can never buy in bulk. You can only buy a little bit at a time. Yeah, yeah if everyone pitched in and you're having a party you'd get a half you know because that way hey we'll all have a joint to ourselves isn't that going to be cool or we'll roll blunts to the head you know we'll roll one of those big ones that's crazy

and pass it around or stuff it yeah you can stuff a philly that was fun back then oh i used to love doing the big ones pretty it's that's a big flex you stuff a philly titan here that's 17 that is a flex oh it's fun it's fun to stuff a titan i gotta do that now that'd be fun except weed's more expensive now garcia vegan pack it fucking full oh man pack it the philly titans were great because they're huge like big giant old man cigars you pack one of things up, it lasts a good hour and a half, two hours. I'm convinced that cigar was made just for that because that is the grossest thing on the planet. They were just made for cheap cigar smokers back in the day, but lucky for them, it fishtailed right into the... Sure did.

Smoking cheap cigars was going out of fashion. Rolling cheap cigars with weed was coming into fashion, so it saved their business. Them, White Owl, Dutchmaster, all those fucking... Garciavagas were a little better quality. I loved them. They were like you were fancy if you had the Garciavagas.

They had veins in them and shit. And they were green, too. Yeah, there was a different deal. And the Optimos, too. The green Optimos. Phillies are good, though, because Phillies, you could do anything. They were tough. You could roll a shit out of a Philly.

It was a good street roll. If you were just walking around, you could roll that shit quick. And you didn't have to roll it full, either. It's got so much paper there, you could just put enough in there to get it closed, and then you could throw that wrap around a couple times that thing burns for fucking ever that's a good it's good for multiple people it's a yeah what we're saying is a half ounce isn't a lot of weed and not enough to run a child through with a sword over while they're covered in dirt and on an unconscious in a in a in a mad made grave in a very shallow in a newlymaid grave. Very shallow grave.

In a newly shallow dug grave. This is wild. So after that, geez, the sword, by the way, 36-inch blade, pearl handle, and it is the sword that he keeps in his apartment all the time. What a dick. Everybody sees it there all the time. Then Joel and Brenda return to their apartment for the party. Party's going on now. party time after a murder yeah we're gonna it's his 15th birthday we gotta have a party obviously yesterday this would have been real weird this one today normal not as weird and also

to be at a party is a good alibi i I don't know. They were at the party that night. Seemed fine. That's a good alibi, according to these idiots anyway. So, Jesus Christ. They return home. They both have mud and blood on their clothes. According to everyone that saw them, they look like they're a mess. They're not in their party gear. One friend overheard Joel say over the course of the party, quote, I got him. I got him good.

Oh, boy. Okay. friend overheard joel say over the course of the party quote i got him i got him good oh boy okay uh then he said quote he'll never speak or talk again oh boy never saying i killed him but i got him i got him good because people are asking you know what's up with that is he's gonna testify against you not now how come i got him got him good he'll never speak or talk again, as a matter of fact. Great party. Whoa. Another party goer. By the way, children. These are all children. Another party goer heard Joel say that he killed and disposed of Gary and had beaten him to death before burying him. So he's telling multiple people at the party about his murder of a witness, by the way, in a case against him, which makes it even more legally.

Oh, God, that's fucking death penalty shit. Not only a child, but a witness against you in a case. Not only is he telling many people, he's telling them so loud that other people are overhearing him. People have no idea what's going on. Yeah, they're like, whoa. hearing him people have no idea what's going on yeah they're like whoa um a third friend at the party heard joel uh what the friend called boasting that he'd taken care of gary by beating him burying him and stabbing him with that sword i keep up on the wall there you know that one that's usually up there that isn't now that one so wow um he said said that other people had heard him say to them before this took place that he was going to, quote, get rid of Gary and he was going to knock him, quote unquote. I guess that's like a whack him main style.

That's what the mob does up there. We're going to knock him. Going to knock him for going to court to testify against him. Carl Bishop, the birthday boy here. Right. This poor bastard. Not only is his 15th birthday party at a 25-year-old dirtbag's house, but the whole thing is just a cover ploy to kill another child who his friends none of this is about me it's my day no it's not your special day it's just not carl sorry you're taking it from me he said later that he overheard joel exclaim at the birthday party not

even say he heard him exclaim hered the latter part of the evening that, I got him good, he'll never speak again. So that's the line he keeps telling you. He must be repeating that everywhere. Another guy here, Tim Walker, who is from around here, was at the party. He said that Joel had, quote, explained to me that he had taken Gary out to a wooded area, beat him to death and buried him. It gets more specific as he goes to from.

He's taken care of. Don't you worry about it. I got him. He'll never talk again, too. I killed him, too. I took him out to this exact road on this address on a moonless night, and I stabbed him this many times and buried him at this exact, you know, these, this latitude longitude. Crazy. Um, Daniel St. James, his name will come up again. So remember that one, everybody, Daniel St. James, he said that Joel told him Gary was going to

testify against him. And he, this was before the party that, uh that joel had to figure out a way to stop him now on the porch at the birthday party for carl bishop that night daniel saint james said joel told him that he had quote taking care of gary and quote if anyone tells about it i'll do the same thing to them hey hey how about putting this on all of us how about stop telling everyone about it there's a good idea stop doing bad things with children involved yeah you already involved three other people in your plot two people to drop them off and your girlfriend so already you have fucked this royally up right royally these people aren't they're not in the

gambino family those two idiots who dropped them. They're not going to keep this to themselves or, you know, come on, man. This is crazy. The first time your girlfriend's mad at you, what do you think she's going to do? I know he killed a guy. I mean, it's, it's come on, man. Jesus Christ. So they, uh, he told another person to the same thing. That exact statement to someone. So many people. So many people at this party. Just the people who end up coming forward. At least six people heard him say this and he was talking to other people.

So who knows? The next day, Joel and I think it was Paul, but I'm not sure. Yeah, it's Paul Akerson. They are sanding his sword with sandpaper in order to remove blood stains from the blade. How fucking fast did this shit? Try it hard, right? The water should do it, right? I don't know.

I guess it's in there pretty good. I don't know if he had scratches. That guy got like, I don't know what it is, so they have to scratch him out. But the sword sounds like a piece of shit i'm gonna be real here it doesn't sound sand it yeah it doesn't sound like you could like you know throw it up throw an apple up in the air and split it in half you know what i'm saying yeah i don't feel like i could benihana shit with this sword no nothing nothing right uh he benihunted this kid, unfortunately. So, wow.

They talk about that, how other people saw this, not just his accomplices here. And also that Joel was telling whoever would listen that he expressed concern about stains on his clothes and what to do with them. Burn your clothes, moron. There you go. The sandpaper's not getting these stains out of my hands problem solved yeah my levi's won't this won't come out so that day as well uh joel got the shovel and his sword and he washed them down sanded everything he had to to remove the blood stains and put them out on the porch. Yeah. Let me put this very distinctive murder weapon out on the porch just in case anything comes up. It'll be right there for everyone to see.

It's a solar sword. I got to recharge it. It's charging, yeah, that and the shovel. It digs its own holes. So he then tells Paul Akerson that he's going to give Paul money for what he did for him, dropping Gary off. He then gave the sword and the shovel to the other guy, to Glenn Tertralt here, and said, get rid of these. You ditch these.

He never ditched them, obviously. Because that looks suspicious as fuck. Yeah, and nobody's good at this here. Nobody's good at this. And I don't think he realizes he's an accomplice to murder either at this point. And it's in his best interest to either turn everybody in or make sure everybody gets away with this one or the other because he is involved in this. He set the guy up. Yeah, but why is there a shovel and a sword in the Wendy's trash can?

Yeah, that's another problem you're going to have probably. In the restaurant. But, man, you can go to a bay and just toss in the wendy's trash can yeah that's another problem you're gonna have probably in the restaurant but man you can go to a bay and just toss it you know like yeah figure it out man these idiots will take it and throw it in the harkins theater trash can yeah inside the theater just carry start carrying it around i always thought the sword was cool in the theater the little one for like paper scraps and shit. So a few days later, four or five days later, Gary's mother, Ruth here, Ruth contacts the Caribou Police Department to report her son missing. I don't know why. It took a few days.

I don't know if this could be like a normal thing for him. He disappears for a few days at a time or whatever it is. 16 in eighth grade, probably a little unpredictable. Definitely. Yeah. So they end up launching an investigation into where he is. Oh, God. Okay.

So that's October 18th, 19th. And then obviously he's not there to testify at court, so they're interested in where he is as well. So there's a lot of people looking for old Gare Bear here, trying to find out where he's at. And the prosecution side-eyeing somebody right now. Sir, where is he? What's going on here? Now, October 7, 1978, so a couple weeks later,

Joel, shocker, is in the county jail. Not for this at all. No? Not for weed either. Other shit. Other shit, yeah. is in the county jail not for this at all no not for weed either other shit other shit yeah it's not surprising that he's gonna end up in the county jail at some point here he is detained on a charge of this arch criminal operating a motor vehicle without a license to driving with no license not even dui not even just sober which most of the time like if you watch like live pd they don't even arrest people for that 95 of the time, like if you watch like live PD, they don't even arrest people for that.

Ninety five percent of the time. They're just like, get your shit fixed up. I don't know. This is ninety five percent of the time. The people they pull over don't have a license. I can't believe no one ever has a license in this country. It's insane how few people have licenses. It's almost everybody.

No one has a license or they they either never got one or it's suspended and been suspended and haven't taken care of that things that from that ticket i had when i was 17 it's wild sir yeah you're fine you have gray hair and no driver's license is what you have this is crazy i got a ticket in 72 i'm sorry jesus man got a ticket in my gto in high school and now my hyundai i can't drive it that's the problem i haven't talked to you guys since then so i figured it'd be cool you're buying cars without even test driving them then you have to give a copy of your license and all that shit so right i guess you're buying them private for the rest of your life i suppose so fooling people so he's at the jail joel uh

no license there his father comes and visits him the deputy warden not of the jail, Joel, no license there. His father comes and visits him, the deputy warden. Oh, boy. Not of the jail, of a prison, but he comes to visit him in jail and talks to him for a little while. And after a little bit of speaking to his dad, Joel asks to speak with Deputy Sheriff Cleary. Says, can I talk to that guy? All right. Deputy Sheriff Cleary says, can I talk to that guy? All right.

Now, he said the father, Joel's father, said that when he arrived following the arrest, he did what he could to tell to get his son to tell the truth in regards to whatever criminal activities he was involved in. He said, including thing. And let's let's pay the time and get this over with. Including if you had anything to do with the disappearance of that kid who was supposed to testify against you, you should probably say something about it. Just a few minutes. Up to and including that. He said you should probably talk and say whatever's going on here.

Come to my prison and I'll see you every day. And because of his dad, yeah, we'll hang out all the time, son, finally. We'll be together then. Start singing Cat Stevens, Adam. Cat's in the cradle of silver spoon. The cat's in the prison getting shanked by a spoon. Getting cut with a spoon making prison wine in his toilet like boons what the fuck

alright so he says fine and Joel says he would like to speak to Cleary, Cleary. Cleary gives him Miranda warnings. And then Joel starts to describe to both Cleary and his father, the events leading up to what happened. Oh boy.

Um, now describes where they took him and we'll talk about the site where they found him. Um, but when they do, the wounds here are terrible um it's it's awful so he uh he's describing it the sword sliced into gary's chest and from uh all the way from his lungs to his kidneys wow inside and sliced through it yeah

drug it through. Yeah. He's like seen samurai movies and thought that's the way you do things. Through the soil. He like stirred the cauldron. It's disgusting. Not only that, they said his cause of death is lacerations of the scalp, fractures of the skull, subdural hemorrhage, stab wounds of the chest, contusions of the trunk and extremities. In other words, just completely savage to death here.

Yeah. He said one of the stab wounds found on the body had penetrated the right lung and left lobe of the liver, and it was said it was approximately 10 inches deep. Jesus. Fuck. That is, you gotta. That's so, that's why I said he ran him through. That's probably what he was talking about.

Autopsy also reveals fractured nose, two fractured ribs, fractured skull, numerous lacerations and contusions. He beat the shit out of this kid. He beat him senseless and then did this to him. It's horrible. And fractured a skull with a shovel. You're going to jail anyway, you dummy. It's horrible, man man so he tells the story exactly like i just told it to you that's what he says he goes i went there i got i told him i hid

in the trees came out kicked him punched him beat him with the shovel threw him in ran him through with the sword okay that's what happened so in his next story because that's not the end of it, later on that night he goes, I'd like to clarify some things here. He then says, Brenda was involved a lot too in everything, which is stupid. I thought you didn't like snitches, you asshole. Not only that, either way, he's going to jail for murder period so whether she had any participation in it or not or if she didn't and he's just trying to get some company right this is terrible thing to do here if she did i mean i don't know if he's trying to be have a decent con maybe his dad helped him clear his conscience i don't know but um possibly the judge or the people are like is

there is anybody else involved give us that and we'll take some shit off the table we might be able to help you out a little bit because that's what they'll say a lot. You know, maybe we can help you out. I mean, I can't all the time. I can't promise you anything, but I will say I see a million interrogations. I will tell you that the judges, the juries, the prosecutors, they tend to look at things a little bit different if you, you know, come out and say what you did. Tell me everything. Yeah, which is absolutely not true at all.

Get it in writing. If you, you know, come out and say what you did, which is absolutely not true at all. Get it in writing. Yeah. They will still run a run needle right in your arm. Oh, yeah. They'll run you through. Don't worry. So they he said that now Joel tells him that Brenda had kicked Gary in the groin, kicked him in the balls and then grabbed him by the hair and took him into the woods and, quote,

thumped him severely, is what the cop said that he told him. So now, somehow, Brenda has turned into Joe Pesci in Casino, just grabbing people by the hair and beating them senseless and kicking them in the, you motherfucker, you, you motherfucker, you, Charlie fucking M, you had me pop out your fucking eyeball for that piece of shit charlie fucking m and he's squeezing him in a vice is that what's going on here did brenda turn into joe pesci out of nowhere and i didn't fucking know about it i'm gonna go out on a limb here and say no but hey we'll listen to it anyway. Not only that, said that Brenda emerged from the woods and Joel said, what are you doing to him? So she just dragged him in there and he was like, whoa, I don't want to get in the middle of that.

She's really calm down. Jesus. Hey, when she gets like this, man, you know, you just stay back. That's all it is. This is why she got a divorce. He didn't stay back. You know what her reply was according to joel what is that this little bitch won't die screams it from the woods

this little bitch won't die okay and then um he said that uh he tells the cops that joel told him there uh that there was joel said told the cops there was blood all over Brenda's hands. I mean, he was mad and it was going to be him going to jail. But boy, she just stepped in there and started, you know, getting ass whooping with the quickness. Wailing on this kid. He said that, you know, Brenda went high on marijuana and drinking all day as well. So, I mean, you know, you can't put it all on her. She gets a little loose when that happens. That's usually a real ag a little loose when that happens that's usually in a real it's a real

agitator those two together well it makes you go from a mild-mannered 20 year old mother of a two year old to just somebody who will fucking physically pummel a man and drag him into the woods by his hair it's very different ravingly psychically murder a 16 year old kid wow he said she became a different person a very violent person and decided herself that gary had to die she just is all on her she said nothing he said he didn't want to but she said that it had to be done quote to save us to say you'll have to go to the county jail for fucking 45 days probably Probably I have to save us. What are we going to do about trailer rent? No, my God, the trailer.

They're going to repossess it. And they can, too. They can just take it away. So he said then Joel tells the cops this time on his second story that he after this, he returned to the car stunned. He was just he just walked away. Oh, my God. I can't believe what's happening he said that brenda then came back to the car this is so ridiculous came back to the car while he was sitting there obviously in complete disbelief of what was going on around him just almost catatonic she just popped up next to him and said dig a hole i'll take a whole thing it's the

first time i dug a fucking hole i don't think the fucking hole okay you dig the hole she is a gangster man first fucking hole i ever dug that's what i mean she's not he makes her out to be joe pesci and it's definitely not um when she saw gary um or yeah at that point he was semi-conscious lying on his back and joel says that's when uh when uh that's when he kicked him in the in the kidney and twice in the head when he walked up and saw him lying because you know he went dig the hole and he didn't want brenda to think he was you know not gonna participate i gotta show her that i'm a man i was scared of her you know so after he finishes his account here um he uh then gets in the car and takes them out to the burial place actually with the father the father comes too so dad and the sheriff are gonna go out to the to the burial

place here they return him to the jail about 10 30 p.m. And now there's a state police officer there. Thankfully, we could. Yeah, let's get the Caribou Police Department not involved in this homicide as quickly as possible. I can't imagine they do a lot of this. They were real excited going to trial over a half ounce of weed. So I'm very worried about what the legal system's like up there for petty things. So for murder, let's get the state police involved. Maybe they have more experience is what I'm saying.

So they bring in a detective, Porter. Porter brings dinner in for Joel. He's trying to, you know, make some rapport with him here. He'd like the truth, so maybe food goes a long way. So he brings some dinner in and then says, would you like to talk? And he says, sure. So Joel invites him in. They're sitting there. They're eating.

They're talking. They talk until about 2 o'clock in the morning. Oh, boy. Then while they're talking or after they talk for a while, a couple hours, and then they get into what happened. This is just talking about bullshit and about life, you know, before that. Making small talk. Then Joel retells his account of the killing of Gary to write down.

Now it's going to be written down and it's going to be a sign before he just told it. Now he's going to write it down and sign it and do all that. So in the sign confession he states that after Joel and Brenda picked up Gary at the drop-off point stuffed him into the stuffed him into the car that he unsuccessfully attempted to bribe him

to leave maine and uh that's when he that's when uh he decided to kill so now he's off of brenda again he's saying he did it he decided to kill gary drag gary out of the car uh hit him a bunch of times in the head, then use his fists and a shovel to administer more of a beating, dug the shallow grave, and that he and not Brenda, because originally the end of his other story was Brenda ran him through with my samurai sword. All right. Now he says it was him and not Brenda who stabbed him.

Okay. And they said, well, why'd you choose there? Wait till I tell you where it is it's it's at uh sentimental it's it's in a remote area called quote township 14 range 5 that's the name of the place where they found him that's why we're doing it out of caribou where everyone's from not township 14 range 5, which would have been a weird title. That's literally the coordinates in a map book. Yep, that is exactly where just the Township 14 of the Range 5 over there in that area. There's however many townships there.

So stupid. So they said, well, why did you bury him there? And he said, well, I knew what was going on because i'm familiar with the wood cutting operations in that area knowing people that have worked on it and i knew that there wouldn't be any cutting in that area for three years yeah 14-5 is that's that's that's parceled for way down the road that's yeah that's they're gonna 14-5 isn't getting cut for three years at least we're on 8, three, right? Yeah. Way to go.

We're never getting there. God, when they need a welder out in those woods too, it's going to be a while for that. So they said, yeah, familiar with it. So he signs his confession at four 27 AM here on October 8th. And at one point as he's signing it and everything, they're getting it wrapped up. At one point, as he's signing it and everything, they're getting it wrapped up. He looks up at Sheriff Porter here, or whatever he is, Police Officer Porter, and says, quote, this will be murder one, won't it?

Premeditated all the way. Right? Probably. That's not up to me, but, you know. Hey, I don't do the charging. Sounds like it. This will be murder one, won't it? Premeditated all the way? You brought a kid to the woods and brought

a fucking samurai sword i mean you had other people bring him there like this was very planned this was as premeditated as it gets so um yeah he's arrested when he's arrested by the way there's a couple of statements he makes that are fucking phenomenal uh first off is uh he told the cop that he's very angry that he's the only one being charged with this because at the time he's the only one charged and he tells the porter the cop quote i'm not going down on this alone and then he says glenn paul and brender just as guilty as as i am quote sure i killed him but they all knew it was gonna happen he just wants company why is he so he's such an asshole such a chicken shit he's mad that a 16 year old was gonna was gonna rat him out and then he involved involves all these people in a murder

and then rats them all out that's what i mean this is an asshole. Don't trust a guy who's 25 and hangs out with and sells weed to 16-year-olds. Period. End of story. Book closed. This is going to go bad one way or another. That's it. Yeah. Somebody's losing butthole virginity or we're all going to jail.

Or everyone's going to jail. Hopefully the one who's taking butthole virginities against people's will in an underage fashion. So later that day, after he's been arrested and told all that, he says, can I see Porter again? He goes, OK. Porter comes back and he's got the extra to add. And he says, well, I just want to correct some lies that I made in my confession. Like, great. All right. We're listening. that I made in my confession. They're like, great. All right.

We're listening. I'm all ears, chief. What do you got? He said, well, during my second statement here, I'm going to tell you this. And then he tells him a whole other statement. And now Brenda actually stabbed him again. So first Brenda stabbed him. Then he stabbed him.

Now Brenda's back to the stabber. It sounds like he pawned it all off on her. Yeah. Then took the responsibility thinking I'll do the time. Because his dad made him feel bad. Yeah, I'll do the time, whatever. Now I don't want to do the time. Changed my mind.

Figured out jail sucks. Brenda's a bad lady. You don't want to mess with her, boy. She will take you out and go, Charlie fucking him. That's what's going on with Brenda. Well, now that I've taken all the responsibility, I feel bad because I've unleashed her on the public to be screaming Charlie fucking M in the Safeway parking lot. I'm terrified for society. I've really got to right this wrong.

I need to do it. So he. Wow. He does that. Then. Wow. Three days later is the official indictment so this is legal now official indictment two hours he sat in jail oh boy he gets all angry while he's being put back in jail porter still there he yells at porter and this is loud enough so many other people hear it not just porter and I don't know what this is in

regards to but he says quote I may be a murderer but I'm not a goddamn thief what I may be a murderer but I am not yells it indignantly like how someone accused him of stealing something I

guess and he said I may be a murderer but I'm not a goddamn thief he said this before his murder trial which isn't good generally maybe a child molester but god damn it i pay my bill but god damn it i close up the cereal bag and shut the box when i'm done with it so it doesn't get all goddamn stale understand me please don't isolate what jimmy said by the way and use it against him. I beg you. It's not going to be good for anybody. But I do pay my bills. What I do, he does.

But you can isolate that. I pay my bills. That's what it just says. That's it. That's true. So he says all of that like an idiot. Then on October 12th, while in the courthouse for his indictment, he spontaneously said to another deputy sheriff that, yeah, I hit Gary on the head with a shovel. And both me and Brenda covered it with body with dirt.

And then I was the one who ran the sword through him five or six times. He's just bored hanging out with the deputy, just chit- and like, what'd you do? What'd you do last weekend? Well, I'll tell you what. So Brenda gets arrested for, you know, she's some part in this. She gets arrested and she will say,

uh, when she's arrested, this is to Porter again, detective Porter quote, I guess I knew Gary was going to be killed, but it just didn't register. She's like, she, I guess I knew Gary was going to be killed but it just didn't register she's like she I guess he did say it but I didn't think it was actually going to happen 12 angry men sometimes you scream I'm going to kill you yeah and it's exactly and it's also of people especially

jackasses who you know talk a big game hang out with 16 year olds and have samurai swords on their wall of their trailer probably say i'm gonna kill that guy i'm gonna do this probably says a lot of dumb shit that you just don't even take stock of is what she's saying um she said that she uh she and joel drove uh him along a woods road had gary in the car. She said that she remained in her car while Joel walked into the woods with Gary. Yeah. So that's her story. I sat in the car.

He said, stay here. And I'm, I took him in the woods. She said that when Joel came back to the car, quote, I looked at Joel and he looked at me and I knew Gary was dead. Oh boy.

Wow. Later on, they questioned her later in the month as to whether or not she got out of the car in the woods and she said i don't want to know if i hurt the boy he was only a little boy that's what she said at that point so i don't know what that means but she's going to jail for something i think yeah sure so uh she seems to have a lot of remorse for any any role she had in it she definitely has some remorse for it uh whatever but she's not she's not willing to take a a ton of responsibility so um uh porter said that he didn't interrogate

really brenda while taking her statement He said that she just kind of, you know, she made a big statement and then he just asked her like, check the wording she wanted to use in there, you know, to make it more incriminating. I'm sure. Sure.

So now we enter, uh, Brenda Martin, another Brenda, everyone's named Brenda and Menda and main 7,000 people. 3,500 of them are named Brenda. Watch out. We've only had two women in this story.

They're both named Brenda. So just saying. Brenda Martin, not Brenda Younk, she said that Brenda had told her, Brenda Younk had told Brenda Martin, murderer Brenda told non-murderer Brenda that she'd been smoking pot that day and that she slapped Gary around and had used a 10-inch sword, a 10-inch sword, which it's not 10, but either way, a 10-inch sword on the victim because she felt she had buried him in an unconscious state and that he was not dead. Okay, so she said that she stabbed people now. Yeah. Now, but to me, Brenda Martin, this sounds like I'm just saying this sounds like she read the newspaper article and found that there was a 10 inch wound and then said that Brenda told her there's a 10 inch sword in the newspaper of the time.

I looked at all the newspaper archives and shit like that. And all of the articles have the same thing they all say 10 inch wound 10 inch wound 10 inch wound so it feels like brenda martin possibly read that and then said brenda yeah told me there was a 10 inch sword because there's a 10 inch wound and she didn't get the rest of you know what i'm saying yeah so that maybe that's why to me that sounds made up. Maybe she heard that from Brenda. I stabbed him. And then she saw the 10-inch thing in the newspaper. It could be both.

You know what I mean? It could be both. That's true too. Yeah, it could be one or the other or both. But I don't think – one thing is not true is that Brenda Younk didn't tell her that I stabbed him with a 10-inch sword because the sword's not 10 inches, and Brenda knew that. So half of what she's saying is not true at least. So there's that part. But we'll get more to more of Brenda Martin a little later.

So she said, though, Brenda Jank said, part of her statement said, When we had driven far enough, Joel told me to pull over, and he and Gary got out. I proceeded up the road far enough until I found a wide enough piece of road to turn my car around, and I went back. It's all hazy. I don't really remember much of anything from there on. I don't believe that at all. She said she will maintain that the next thing she remembered was not in the woods with a murder. She said the next thing she remembered was Bishop, you know, the birthday boy, Carl Bishop, lying across her lap to get his birthday spanking in the kitchen.

These are adults. Stop spanking children. Don't do this. I had a gym teacher that lost his job for doing that, for doing birthday spankings, and he deserved it. He was touching children's butts. Not okay. How long ago?

How far is it? This was like 1988. He was touching people, our butts. Oh, no. I was lucky my birthday was right after school ended. Sorry. Thank God I'm in the summertime. All right, June.

I win. You all lose. yay sweet my parents fucked in october awesome how far into uh how far from from the murder are we now how far the trial is how far after oh this is just this isn't like the next month these are just when they're getting witness already she's forgetting shit? I forgot. It's very hazy. I can't recall. All I remember is sexually assaulting a child. That's the last thing.

That's the last memory I have. Inappropriately touching a child. A sexual torture on his birthday. Don't isolate that either. See, we're both fucked now. don't isolate that either see we're both fuck now so um she said that uh that's what she remembered they were all in the kitchen um joel was there spanking a child glenn was there uh and all that kind of shit so um now other witnesses here are other people at the party. One is Timothy Walker.

There's Timothy Walker, Carl Bishop, and Daniel St. Jean or St. John or whatever. St. James. St. James, sorry. They all say that they were present at the party. They saw Joel and Brenda leave the party. This is important because their alibi was we were at the party. They saw them leave the party and come back later. They said the three of them, though, under cross-examination later on, will say they were drinking beer and smoking weed at the party.

And they couldn't – none of them could actually remember seeing them leave or return in a car. So were you outside watching them drive off down the road? No. I'm inside smoking weed and drinking. What are you talking about? They had their keys and they left. And so then they came back an hour and a half later and we figured they must have went somewhere. That's all.

I can't imagine they walked it. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family.

But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Yeah, absolutely. So over in May, no shit, man. So Daniel here, he says that they did all three of them identified the sword as the one that is always in the trailer so they they do know that they also say that um

he uh he met with uh walker who's timothy walker and um brenda by the way at the courthouse one week after he was reported missing they all met on the courthouse steps to have a little powwow so no one had been arrested yet so daniel said that brenda told them at the time to quote keep our things together because police don't have any proof so joe pesci she came in and said listen yeah keep it together holding a toothpick in her mouth talking with her yeah over her mouth flipping a nickel yeah old-timey going real old time so they can't read our lips he's doing that cupping it over his mouth i tell you what they're

onto us you know what i mean i could feel it i could feel it so uh somehow by the way even though they're both in county jail brenda and joel somehow they get married while they're both in there what i don't know how that works i don't know how it's possible but somehow they get married while they're both in there. What? I don't know how that works. I don't know how it's possible, but somehow they get legally married while awaiting murder trials. Um, that slays together. There you go.

Slays together. They're going to fuck together. So more than that, um, a matron at the jail on the women's side, she said that Brenda Lee, Brenda would communicate and with joel and joel communicate with brenda several times a day by exchanging audio tapes they tape big long

statements to each other and then hand them i don't know if they're letters or not but here you go i put i sang her some van halen on the end of that. She's going to like it, I think. The statements between Van Halen and some Bon Jovi. A statement between Van Halen lyrics and a man's wife cannot be intruded upon by the state. Now, that's a goddamn constitutional amendment. And I don't know if maybe that was the reason why they got married was, hey, if we're married, they can't make us, you know, tell on each other. You know how dumb people are. They just think of shit like that and do it. I think maybe that was probably what it was.

Who knows? Now, the matron of the jail here, Wendy Sabatis, she said that Brenda was very emotional and very much in love with Joel Smith and at times extremely depressed while in jail. Yeah. You're a 20-year-old with a 2-year-old kid awaiting a murder trial. I'd be depressed too. That's terrible. She became extremely depressed at one point. And then three days later, she made a taped confession.

She said she did everything. They delivered. The matron said she delivered this tape confession to joel and his cell and he cried before listening to the tape meaning that the matron led her to believe that he knew what was on the tape they had planned this and this was what he needed to get out and he was happy that she did it for him so he was psyched now um happy tears this matron also said that joel could quote almost control brenda and that she would do nearly anything he asked of her a friend of brenda's said that over a period of months brenda had given her several inconsistent versions of the killings and then

on one occasion brenda stated that joel asked her to confess and take all the blame. He is a super predator, man. He is a bad fucking guy, man. I mean, he learned early how to do that, how to be a terrible person. But still, it's in there and it's not good. Holy shit. And there's other people, too, that have heard that because he told other people that he was trying to get her to take the blame. And he never shuts the fuck up, too. He's a very yammering

son of a bitch wow everybody says that he exerts a lot of control over brenda and um you know all that shit so um also he it's an interesting thing though that that matron lady was like he seemed to know exactly what was on he like grabbed it and held it and cried when I gave it to him. Paul Ankerson, here he comes. He says now, now he has a new story, too, to help. This helps Joel a little bit. Or he's trying to help Joel. He says that, listen, remember that Daniel St. James guy? Yeah.

Well, here's what happened here with that guy. Well, here's what happened here with that guy. He said that that night at the party, before Joel went anywhere, I saw that Daniel St. James put a, quote, hit of tea in Smith's beer that night. And they describe a hit of tea as a hallucinatory drug. So slipped him some acid, slipped him a, I don't know, something like that in his beer. I don't know.

That's, again, some main slang. I don't know, 1978 main drug slang. Who the fuck knows? It's kind of like, I'm going to knock him, you know?

Could it be like shroom's tea? Some psychedelic shroom's tea? Maybe, but he'd taste that, I would assume, whereas like, you could put a tab of acid in somebody's shit and they wouldn't notice it whereas you'd notice for tab why is

there mushrooms floating in my yeah this is weird i don't like mushroom beer man these ipas are weird days pale as fuck man super strange so the uh um he he then said paul anchorson said that um he he watched this happen and that um the alleged murder happened the same or the murder happened the same evening they asked him well what is this what does t do and he said it quote makes you do a lot of weird stuff that you can't remember afterward. Very, you know, like if you were to murder someone, you'd never remember it and wouldn't be criminally responsible for it. Four, six inches deep and stab them. It's really strange, but it does it. Stabbing is a big part of it, too.

Paul also will say and testify to court that Joel had twelve1,200 with him the night of the murder. And that's what he was going to offer. That's what he was trying to offer. Gary was $1,200 and to start a new life. It was 16. That ain't stretching far at all. No, it was an aggravated trafficking charge, by the way, for a half ounce of weed. I think the aggravated is because he's a minor.

I think that's probably what that is so the court proceedings here the state police investigators said extra precautionary measures were taken during the arraignments because of indications harm might come to some of the three suspects the town has gotten angry about it yeah particularly gary's mom ruth is extremely angry and people she knows are very angry. Everybody entering the courtroom, including Mrs. Ruth Nadeau, were searched by police. So it's a big search. They didn't have metal detectors. They just had to pat everybody down.

So evidence against Joel. All right. Well, multiple confessions, number one. That's bad. His own words. It's awful. It's not great. Mud and blood on his clothes.

Yeah. Saying, quote, I got him. I got him good. He'll never speak or talk again to multiple people. Right. Saying I may be a murderer, but I'm not a goddamn thief to a cop. A cop, yeah. A cop, no less.

Boasting to several people that he had taken care of Nadeau by beating, burying, and stabbing him. Next day, he was concerned about blood on his clothing and told multiple people about that, asked somebody to help him sand down a murder weapon to get blood off of it, then asked a separate person to dispose of these murder weapons there, also made a spontaneous statement that it was he who had beaten him with a shovel and stabbed him with a sword and not Brenda several times. Now, Joel is going to – That's a mountain.

That's a lot of evidence. And multiple people – there's witnesses to the murder. People dropped it. It's not good, man. Right. So he is going to plead innocent by reason of mental defect or mental disease or mental defect is what it is. So he's a dumb shit. I don't think that falls under the purview there, but we'll see.

So that's what he pleads here. He's arraigned. He's arraigned like we talked about. And he also is going to be arraigned on being an accomplice to armed robbery and he's because i don't know if he stole something from him or what but that's why i said he's not a goddamn thief so he was mad at the charge okay maybe somebody took something out of his pocket and they're uh charging him with the robbery possible yeah i mean it's true so he is he's not charged with like a witness against him, though, which is interesting.

Yeah, that is a fascinating— I don't know if the laws were different for specific charges on that. It feels like that's pretty easy to prove. Absolutely. That's the whole goddamn point. The easiest part, I think. Yeah. So he's remanded to the county jail.

Brenda's also indicted. She pleads innocent by reason of mental defect as well. Everybody running that one. Yep. She's also indicted. She pleads innocent by reason of mental defect as well. Everybody running that one. Yep. She's also arraigned. She is also on charges, by the way, of unlawful furnishing of scheduled drugs and unlawful possession of stolen drugs. If they're drugs, any possession of them would be unlawful if they're illegal. So what difference would it make if it's stolen or not?

The theft of them makes it worse. I have never heard of that before. Oh, never mind. I know exactly why that is. Never mind. I know it is. You'll see. Hold on a minute here.

She entered. I forgot all about this here. That's right. I forgot about Larry Hazelwood. Here he comes. Other people are going to be indicted, like Paul Robert Akerson and, of course, Glenn Teralt there as well. Teralt is going to be indicted as well. Larry Hazelwood is indicted on charges of burglary. He's a 21-year-old. Burglary, theft of drugs, pleading innocent in his arraignment, and he pleads innocent to this.

theft of drugs, pleading innocent in his arraignment, and he pleads innocent to this. He, theft of drugs makes sense in this regard. He's been charged with breaking into the Caribou courthouse and stealing drugs they had held in there as evidence for fucking trials. That's awesome. He's robbing the cops of their evidence. Yeah. It's genius. That's where it's at. You're right. That's like robbing the cops of their evidence yeah it's genius that's where it's at you're right that's like the french connection yeah did you ever hear about that when they the guys that broke into uh what did they break into it yeah well no it was it's a giant heroin bust that

they made over the course of you know this giant thing of a huge thing hundreds of pounds and all this shit they people stole it yeah when they looked at it 10 years later, none of it was heroin anymore. It was like flour and Chinese newspapers shredded up. They were taking it and replacing it with that. Well, you couldn't just have a room with hundreds of pounds of heroin and then have nothing in there. So you had to put something in there. So they just put something else in there. But there was no heroin.

They had all been stolen back, which is millions of dollars to do all this investigation. And then if you pay the evidence guy $1,000, he doesn't care. Go do what you want. Go in and replace this with a store brand that says flower on the front of the bag. Yeah, just a big bag of it. Johnson's baby powder and shit in there. Just wrap it in tinfoil. It looks the same oh man

so they have a change of venue here because around these parts this is all anyone's talking about yeah it's all anyone's talking about so they moved to somerset county which is a different place joel wants his confession suppressed that's what he was looking for here suppress my shit he said that um he his whole thing was he told porter who was interviewing him in the middle of the night there, that he wanted to go to bed. And that Porter told him that it would be better to get everything out in the open right now, get it over with. And that he said because of that, he, quote, figured, Joel meaning, he figured that he wouldn't be allowed to go to bed and claims that his subsequent statement was influenced by lack of sleep come on bro come on bro I do shows on no sleep live and they come out great so I don't get the hell out of here you know what you're doing

so he also uh Porter said that he didn't say that he couldn't go to bed until he made a statement he was just trying to convince him to not go to bed. You can ask for a lawyer and you can stop and all that shit. But if you go, I think I'm getting tired. And he goes, well, let's just finish this up quick. That's fine. If he said, you'll go to bed when you give me every goddamn last word of this confession, not a second sooner. That's not okay.

Yeah, that's a problem. So Porter said that he, that the opposite, actually, that problem so porter said that he that the opposite actually that joel gave him the impression he wanted to talk to him and at no time did he attempt to leave or stop talking or say he wanted to go to sleep or any of that shit so we were just hanging out bullshit um so he said though it should be suppressed for two reasons first it was coerced it was coerced the statement was coerced um because his dad was in the room and all that kind of shit that wasn't okay to him and um so he says everything after that should be suppressed as well everything after i when i you know my dad was there that

should all be suppressed so they said no no that's all going to be in you're good on that the only thing that is not allowed in is the Brenda tape. Oh. Because they want to bring in the tape because Brenda made an audio tape fully confessing to give to him to try to get him off. Right. And they're not going to allow that in because they say just because she said this on a tape and it's not. She said it to him, right. Yeah.

So they said that it's ruling that it's corroborative evidence did not clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement so it's also just because it's her voice doesn't mean that it's her i've heard a lot of people uh do say things in uh all kinds of celebrities voices yes they can say awful dumb shit absolutely but either way legally it's the it's the uh uncorroborated testimony of a co-conspirator which is you can't do that doesn't not allowed in court usually they have to have some corroboration so um they made it they denied the motions to suppress the confessions but they do suppress the tape and everything like that and caribou is overrun with what about the

children i mean it's like there is a letter to the editor here talking about it's my fervent hope that this terrible murder will wake up people to the facts of the drug culture prevalent all over America today it's all around us our streets our schools our homes everyone's sweeping it under the rug

it's a sad state of affairs when society has come to accept drugs as a way of life and fails to be awakened to the deteriorating effects on our youth. Remember when Snoop Dogg used to be crazy badass because he's smoking weed and videos and stuff? My grandmother smokes it now. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's not. Now he smokes it with Martha Stewart, so we're not real.

Who's done more time in prison than Snoop Dogg. Yes. We're not real. Who's done more time in prison than Snoop Dogg. Yes. So they go on to say everyone protests against taxes, pollution, war and low wages. But where are the protesters against the most vicious threat to our most prized possessions? Our children. So now Gary's mother, mother ruth is stepping in now and by the way this lady's a sweet lady who

poor lady man just wants her son to be you know fucking here not dead you know 60 was 16 years old for christ's sake trying her best with this kid he's he's already given her fits it's not easy for her and she's gonna say a lot of stuff that makes a lot of sense in this episode, but not this part of it. They said, you know, well, how did Gary know? Because she said he didn't buy drugs from Joel. That's what she said. She denies her son bought, quote, drugs from Joel. So she says he didn't buy drugs from Joel.

She said a neighborhood youth that Gary knew stole some money. Okay. And her son, Gary was supposed, was approached with an offer of a reward. If he could find out who stole the money, he's saying that Joel offered him a reward saying someone stole my money. So he said Gary was with the boy who stole the money when that boy purchased that weed from Joel. Had nothing to do with Gary. He doesn't even know anything about weed. And then so the police learned about the purchase from Gary and then after a series of questioning among the youths

and Ruth said that's how Gary met Joel Smith, which is not, we know that's not true. Several people have said, and the reason they got- That's the story that Gary told mom so that mom would get off his back. Well, yeah, everybody would tell their mom that. And that's fine. That doesn't mean Gary's a bad kid. We're not trying to say that.

He's fucking bought weed. He's a 16 year old. He's fucking around. Who cares? Mom believes in her son and believes he'll do the right thing is all that is yeah and that's that's just a stretch i mean he he ended up on the road because he went out to smoke joints and drink beer in the car with these guys that was the point i mean which is what i would have done too when i was 16 so the trial starts it starts out as a joint trial brenda and joel together since they're married why not sit them next to each other so in the openings here the assistant uh attorney general ferdinand

la rochelle quite the handle or fernand i'm sorry fernand la rochelle he said that the state intends to prove that the smiths now since they're married, along with two other defendants, worked closely to create the chain of events that ultimately led to the murder of Gary Nadau. Joel became concerned that Nadau would testify against him in superior court. This all came to a head on Friday, September 15th.

Evidence shows that Nadau was to be at a party. Paul Akerson and Glenn Chetralt were to pick up Nadau and take him to a spot where Joel and Brenda would pick him up. And exactly what happened. He said after that, the four returned to Smith's apartment at Caribou shortly after six o'clock. Tetralt and Akerson left to get Nadeau while Joel and Brenda went to the spot. And he describes what happened, exactly what happened there. And then they just went back and went to the birthday party.

Next thing you know, they're spanking a child. So, wow. We murdered a kid, then we spanked some kids. That's just what we do. Where's the charge for that? I think my gym teacher was up on charges for that. He definitely got fired. He definitely got fired.

So, the defense in his opening statement, this is a lot to defend man i don't know where the fuck you start here he said that he this guy said quote we have co-defendants in this case it will like it will be like two separate trials though evidence that may apply to one might not apply to the other. The acts of one are not necessarily the acts of the other. It is possible two different verdicts might be returned, he's saying. So, you know, temper yourself here. It's not all the same. The defense attorney also said, I'm sure you will come to the conclusion that there are some real doubts about what happened out there. I guess so. Was State's first witness here, a police inspector, he's the guy who first put the missing person report out when Ruth reported Gary missing.

He said that the jurors, he told the jurors that he, quote, knew that Gary was scheduled to testify against Joel in Superior Court in the fall. They, quote, knew that Gary was scheduled to testify against Joel in superior court in the fall. And they said so. Joel's attorney said, was there any case pending against Brent or Brenda's attorney? Was there any case pending against her? No. So they're like, see, why would she kill him?

There you go. Case closed. Let Brenda go. So they've repeatedly asked for a severance of these trials, by the way. The defense, both defendants want a severance of these trials especially brenda's attorneys because i want out of this she's the lesser yeah i'm gonna get lumped with this fucking guy here on the first day of trial they renewed requests that the case be severed citing several problems involving the defendant's statements that are inculpating brenda and her statements both exculpating her and inculpating

this one and you know the whole deal they deny it though so at the start of testimony Brenda made another motion to fucking excise herself from the situation and uh they won't let her so finally though the judge uh saying that two witnesses into the, he's now aware of the statement's role in the case and ordered Brenda severed from Joel and then explained to the jury, quote, I have taken it upon myself to sever this trial. You, the jurors, will draw no conclusions. I'm not indicating indicating that Brenda is free. Her trial will come up later. So, yeah, we didn't just say, oh, she's fine. Let's let her go.

And by the way, during all of this, Joel never requested a continuance or move for a mistrial. So it's not like they were denied anything there. Only two witnesses had testified. And those witnesses only testified to the location and condition of Gary's body. It wasn't any of their friends testifying to what they said or anything like that. So the defense counsel wanted to put the blame on Brenda in the beginning but couldn't do that because they were together. Couldn't do that because they were together. That's why they're.

So later on, his people are going to say we were hampered by the fact that we couldn't put it on Brenda in the beginning, even though they were allowed to in their closing argument. So witnesses come forward here, obviously. Donald Campbell never heard his name before. Right. Another guy who said Joel told him he was going to get rid of Gary Nadeau and that he was going to knock him. Another one of those. Joel, shut your fucking mouth. Jesus Christ.

Everybody testified, Carl Bishop, Tim Walker, Daniel St. James, all testified that they heard what he said. Now, Brenda Martin, okay? Back to Brenda Martin, not Brenda Young. We're not so sure, yeah, what she said. What her deal is. Now, she is one of the defense witnesses at Joel's trial and one of the prosecution witnesses at Brenda's trial. Huh. Oh, because she's saying that she did it.

So, yeah. All right. She had gone to the Aroostook County Jail on May 19th to visit her boyfriend and had also talked to Brenda in the visiting room. During their conversation, Brenda Martin said that Brenda Younk had described slapping Gary around and stabbing him with a sword. Oh, boy. So you're just hanging out in the visiting room waiting for your guest, and instead you talk to someone else's guest who you don't know and decide to confess to the murder that you're in there for in the five minutes you're talking to. You're in there just to visit at this point because you're not even in jail at the time. Yeah. Wow. Under cross-examination here, though, Brenda Martin did acknowledge that the police had threatened to charge her with an involvement in the crime if she refused to testify.

What? They said, we're going to charge you as an accessory or say you're obstructing justice in a murder case or something like that if you don't testify. She did insist, though, that despite the pressure from police, quote, I say what I want to say and not what others want me to say. Okay. Closing argument, the prosecutor says that the jurors have heard two different versions, quote, one indicates that Joel had personal involvement, the other says he was an innocent bystander. And they said, we think our evidence shows that we're correct and he actually did this shit and all of that. He says in none of the versions that go on so far is he an innocent bystander other than what he said now.

But in any of the versions that he's ever said before, he's at least very involved in it. So they said that no one was out there. We just know the results. This is the defense. Two people were out there. Uh, what happened to Gary who participated in it? And what part did Joel Smith play? These are the most difficult things you're going to have to decide.

The prosecutor though, comes back and asked the jury on rebuttal quote, what was the sword and shovel doing in the car? Yeah. He said, sure, I'll give you this. It is possible that the sword was just there to scare him. You know, people bring weapons to scare people into something. But, quote, he needed the shovel to bury him. Right.

You don't bring a shovel to scare someone. You bring a sword. So, yeah. And worse off, his internals were all mixed up with it. So what's it matter what it was there for? He used it for that. And fractured his skull with it skull with it too with the shovel and then dug a hole they um he could the judge then told them they could return with either guilty of murder guilty of manslaughter or not guilty those are their three options here verdict comes in seven women five men on the jury they

come back not too long it's pretty pretty goddamn quick. And he is guilty of murder, not of anything else here. During his sentencing now that comes up, he tells the court, quote, this is Joel speaking, I am sorry for what has happened, but that doesn't undo what has been done. Right. And then he blamed his involvement with drugs and alcohol as a contributing factor to the murder. But he never really said like, I killed Gary and it's a terrible thing to do. For what has happened, a lot of minimizing language in that. Sorry, but I can't bring him back.

Also, I shouldn't have smoked weed. Also, yeah. Also, it's not really my fault because I was all fucked up. That was what he was getting at. So his attorney then asks for leniency, noting that he had been Joel had been subjected to severe child abuse before the age of two, saying he was adopted by Joseph and Arlene Smith at age two and his adopted father's a deputy warden at the main state prison. So, you know, come on, cut him some slack. at the main state prison, so, you know, come on, cut him some slack. So the judge looking at him said that he, quote, found it difficult to consider a lesser sentence given the particularly vicious type of killing in this case

and instead tells him, you, sir, may fuck off life in prison. Hey. So he lifed him out pretty good. So he is sentenced to life in prison. Hey. So he lifed him out pretty good. So he is sentenced to life in prison, but he's going to be immediately transferred to an out-of-state prison here because it's going to be in New Hampshire. They have a prisoner exchange thing because his dad is a deputy warden in a prison, making him a high-value kidnapping target for other prisoners to get things and also it's just it just doesn't it looks badly he'll get special treatment also it's just better to get him out of there so they do they ship him off to new hampshire so now brenda goes to trial oh boy and um so they're uh the brenda martin testifies against her about the conversation she heard in the jail and all that kind of shit.

So the same thing we told you at the first one. She testifies. Now it's against her. Later on also she'll be interviewed, the Miss Martin here, Brenda Martin, by a governor's blue ribbon commission on corrections. And they discuss the case uh they call it an academic viewpoint they're discussing it with just to kind of see how this happened this whole thing later on so this will there'll be like hearings and shit just because of brenda martin's testimony which is very interesting but she says she maintains 20 years later that she told the

truth in court, though. Now, like we said, I don't know what they she does say she was threatened, but we have no idea. Now, the prosecution had a bunch of other witnesses, too, besides Brenda Martin. So it's not just her, the jail matron who testified that she heard Brenda make incriminating statements. And in her also in her confession to the police she said she was driving gary to the death scene and she said i guess i knew gary was going to be killed but it just didn't register it just doesn't seem real and it still doesn't seem real so there's all that shit defense witnesses they had one witness one one person to defend her alta Alta Clark. I'm going to read this right from a newspaper at the time. Ms. Yank's defense attorneys called only one witness, Alta Clark of Presque Isle, who must have made a striking figure on the stand since she is described in court records as being six feet two inches tall with red hair and no teeth.

That's a fascinating woman that is a fascinating person that i want to watch testify awesome um she miss clark uh also who was also visiting the county jail on the same day that brenda martin overheard this said that she was seated close enough to overhear the conversations between the brendas uh-huh martin and yank and uh and she said that the two women did not discuss gary's death oh shit so she said that lady's brenda brenda the other brenda's making it up it's a liar but but uh ms clark was present in the visiting room in the afternoon and there was uh confusion at the trial whether the incriminating conversation took place in the morning or the afternoon.

So she might not have heard the right conversation. In the end, the verdict comes up, and it is eight men and four women this time, and it is a verdict of guilty of murder for Brenda. Not just accomplice, murder. Like she did it anyway. Yeah, which is interesting here. Now the judge comes back,

and he said that there has been some testimony on the sentencing here that she had been an active participant. In my evaluation of the case, I felt the strongest evidence against you was the evidence of your being an accomplice so the judge says i actually disagree with the jury's verdict i can't do that yeah but so i'm not going to give you life in prison but he says you ma'am yeah may fuck off

25 years that's the that's the mandatory minimum so that's the least he could do because he said i don't even think you deserve that probably so um the others now jesus christ um yeah because they're all part of this shit too oh there's all sorts of people in here um there's other people here edward trombley is a witness saying that um he talks about the events before the murder he said that uh he picked he picked akerson up at his sister's house that day in Caribou and later went to Joel's house on two separate occasions during that day on each occasion Akerson and

Joel held a conference in the bedroom both times he said so they were planning this all day we'll find out later on that they did dry runs as well is that right? yeah plans and dry runs and I'll hide here and you pull up and can I see you and all that shit.

Very planned. That's allegedly. I don't know. So they said that Akerson Trombley said Akerson told him he was looking for Gary and that the two saw the boy on the side of the road and stopped their car to talk to him. This is Akerson and Trombley. Trombley said Akerson mentioned going to a party to Gary and he said that, quote, he mentioned something about looking for Gary Nadeau to set him up for Joel. He was supposed to testify in some drug case about Joel.

Also, the detective, Caribou police detective here, said the guy who interrogated Akerson, quote, Akerson said he knew Joel Smith was going to kill Gary Nadeau when he stopped on the road and spoke to him. So they also said that Akerson cried during the interrogation. And so Glenn and Paul are both found guilty here, but we'll talk about the legalities of this. They're found guilty of murder, but they're found guilty of felony murder, which is a lesser offense than murder and carries a maximum sentence of up to 25 years. So, yeah, it's a little bit different, the deal here.

I'll give you this. They are, they receive seven years. The charge of felony murder was established by the legislature to deal with cases of persons involved as accomplices in certain crimes in which a murder occurs. So it basically means murder without your being the murderer. I don't know why they can't just say accomplice. So, right? They each receive, you sirs may fuck off, seven years apiece in prison. Each one.

Yeah, they each get seven. Glenn and Paul. Which, I mean, that makes sense. They did set the guy up. They definitely should go to prison for that. For sure, yeah. So everybody's in prison. Ruth, Gary's mom, files a lawsuit against the city.

Oh. Yes. The city, though, declares itself immune from the lawsuit under a main law in answer to the charges here. She said that she claims negligence on the part of the Caribou Police Department. Oh, they should have been protecting him? That they should have been protecting her son. She brings a $700,000 lawsuit against the city for that. The city based its affirmative defense on provisions of the Maine Tort Claims Act, though its attorneys, they have attorneys as well.

They said that in general, the statute states that when a municipal office or municipal employee exercises a conscientious, prudent judgment in a discriminatory manner while carrying out an official duty. The municipality or its employee are immune to charges brought against anything that might happen. So they said, you're not getting shit, lady, is what they said to her. Sorry about it. Go fuck yourself, lady. And they're like, yeah, you and your dead son. Yeah, you're not getting nothing. They should give her something. Christ.

Certainly. Yeah. So after that, the cops are here to talk about drugs. Yeah. There's a cop here who is a Caribou police lieutenant, Robert E. Long. And he said, drugs are here to stay. If Gary hadn't been involved in a drug situation, he probably wouldn't be dead today. Obviously.

So they said that now they have a drug education program underway in the schools here and um all of this shit so that'll help fix all this that'll fix it how it got me or got me to not touch the stuff right we are proof that that didn't work because they put this all shit in they put all this shit in the play now us, and none of it. We were like, what? Fuck you. So they also said that the thought of – this is very weird too. There's – oh, they said that the – sure, there will be a drug market, but not if there's no customers to support it. So stop doing drugs.

Okay. Now, 1988, by the way – or 1980, I'm sorry, 1980, Gary still doesn't have a headstone. Oh, is that right? He's just got a little marker there. So his mother comes out in the Banger Daily News on June 16th, 1980, and says, please, can we ask for help? She says, quote, because I can't afford a stone. People on the street say I deny he's my son. That's not so.

Because the big rumor is, oh, because he was on drugs, she didn't even put a headstone up because she's embarrassed. That's what people were saying. It's a fucking small town. So they said that people came to visit his grave from that heard that read about it. Just wanted to visit his grave, that heard that read about it just wanted to visit his grave pay their respects and uh ruth said that quote folks don't even know uh don't eat folks i don't even know visit his grave folks come from out of town and all over i had a lady come from tom thomaston connecticut asking for help in finding his grave and she asked me why there's no headstone i feel that if people could send me 50 cents or a dollar i I could collect enough to get him one.

Not anything fancy, but something decent. So that's fair. So she, by the way, she has seven children ranging from 20 to 11 years old. So Gary was on the upper end of that. I mean, he was right in the mix of that. How many does she have, seven? Seven from 11 to 20. She just like.

She really went on a streak of pumping them out here. Leave that lady alone. She said she lives in cramped quarters. One of her older sons is in the service, the 20-year-old. She gets aid to her children, but she said it's not enough. She said her kids have had no new clothes in two years and the city cut her food stamps ration from 186 to 154 and she was told she was not eligible for more stamps because her summer utilities bill was above the standard allowance

the lady's got seven kids man wow what the fuck What the fuck? And one of them's dead, so, you know. Yeah. Because, well, Jesus. Anyway, she ran out of fuel last winter. You know, you can't run out of fuel in the winter up there. It's not like, well, I'll be a little chilly. You'll just die. That's how it works.

She had no fuel at Christmastime, and they were without fuel for a month. Oh, my God. One of her younger daughters had to be hospitalized as a result of exposure to the cold in their house. Because it's fucking negative 12 degrees inside. Jesus. She said there's no food in the house and there won't be any more money until June 16th, which is when this article came out anyway. She said she has not seen her husband for 12 years and she doesn't know where he is.

She said, quote, Social Security couldn't even find him. Oh, my God. seen her husband for 12 years and she doesn't know where he is she said quote social security couldn't even find him oh my god um they asked well why aren't you working and she said if i could get that old car in the dooryard to run i would be cutting potato seed they couldn't find transportation for me she has no car to get to her job. So there you go. They said, will there? She said, please let me help me get my son a fucking headstone. That is crazy. She said, though, that they didn't get away. They didn't get what they deserve. Talking about all the criminals.

She said, my son was butchered. And she denies that her son purchased drugs. She said, that's why people say I disowned him. But he never purchased drugs. And that's not so. She said, that's why people say I disowned him, but he never purchased drugs and that's not so. She said, how do you suppose your son ever came acquainted with Joel Smith? And that's

when she went around that whole thing about how. So finally, about two weeks later, Gary gets a stone. The Bedrock Granite Corporation of Bar Harbor contacted the Bangor Daily News cartoonist that he knew to see if, can you be the, you know, go-between offer her a stone. So they said that they're offering both a headstone and a footstone for the grave.

And Ruth said, oh, fantastic. I think it's really fantastic. She also said she received many letters and about $ 53 from people who had read the news story she expressed her thanks and said she was considering buying flowers for the grave with the money once the headstone's up jesus christ this is depressing just those are gonna die just put fuel in there yeah dude buy your kids some shoes stay warm for christ's sake yeah fuck man um so the um the stone was being shipped to Caribou as we speak, they said. So Joel appeals based on saying the presiding justice erred in his delay in severing the trial.

Basically, he didn't sever it soon enough. And I was, you know, I couldn't. When the judge was appalled, then you pulled it. Then he pulled it, yeah. He said he didn't have, have like he didn't get the uh the the antagonistic opening remarks that he would have liked to have had essentially so um but they affirm his conviction good fuck off joel he can eat dicks so life in prison for joel he gets no more chances really brenda's a whole other story yeah first of First of all, the Brenda Martin thing in 1986 becomes a big deal as they talk to her.

They're talking to her as part of a bigger thing, as part of an investigation into questions of possible perjury and police coercion just in general in cases. Brenda Martin? Yeah. Yeah. So she's part of a – it's not specifically for Brenda Young. It's just a – She's doing it on a larger scale. Yeah. She's part of a larger scale investigation. She's their professional witness that just testifies in all these cases. Yeah. So that's what they're. Yeah, they have to. So Brenda appeals, though, also appeals to the main Supreme Court on grounds that the prosecution should not have been allowed to introduce the sword into evidence and that the conviction went against the weight of the evidence. And the appeal is denied, though, on her. So that's denied. But now, Ruth also, Ruth said, good. She shouldn't be let out. She said if she served every minute of that 25 years,

that's not enough. She's still breathing. She's not dead. My boy is dead. My boy was killed for $10 worth of drugs and a $10 witness fee. She said, I don't know. I don't think she knows what weed costs. She bought a lid in like 67 and she doesn't know. Weeds probably gone up since then, but that's fine. That's fine.

That's fine. She's got nine, seven kids. She doesn't have time for weed you know she said that gary uh said he could testify gary said he could testify because joel smith would kill him they told uh gary that the only way he would be safe if joel smith was put behind bars gary told the cops you know i don't want to testify i'm scared of him and they said well he's if he's behind bars you'll be safe yeah for like what three months and then he'll be out and pissed off at you but for that you'll be real safe but it's aggravated trafficking there's no way they're gonna get him with that right with a hat no no they're gonna play that down in a second that's

ridiculous yeah that's that's very silly so um he said also she talked about paul akerson she's just pissed at everybody, which I don't blame her. She said Joel Smith and Brenda Young came out of the woods. She struck him in the head, breaking his nose and jaw, then kicked him in the groin. They put him in the backseat of the car talking about she said when Gary came to, they hit him across the knees and over the top of the head with the shovel, nearly decapitating him. They used the shovel to dig a shallow grave and put him in it. Then they returned to Caribou to attend a birthday party and establish an alibi. They had a three-foot Japanese sword. She stabbed him twice in the chest and racked the sword through his kidneys.

That's what killed him. So now she's blaming it on Brenda, the mother, which she doesn't know that. But still, she's angry. It's a mother's, I get it. The extent of her participation is only something we can surmise from the evidence. This is the prosecutor. She was out there clearly. Whether she did those things affirmatively, there is some dispute about that.

So her next try, Brenda's next try here, she has been serving at the women's correctional facility in South Wyndham. at the Women's Correctional Facility in South Wyndham. Now, she ends up this time. There's a governor's – there's like an executive clemency board here. Yeah. And they base this decision based on the Brenda Martin incident and what that investigation uncovered. They take – as like a prorate the sentence for you a little bit, they take two years off her sentence.

Sorry about that, lady. Well, we'll give you 23 years. Yeah. All right. 23 years. So, yeah, her case is still going on at that point. And her next time, two years later in 89, they want her. They want clemency for her.

Really? There's a lot of people that want clemency for her really there's a lot of people that want clemency in her including the prosecutor in this case really testifies on her behalf as well it's fucking crazy uh we'll talk a little bit about it they urge that the primary issue is that quote brenda smith is not the same person she was at 19 um yeah they say that she was tried and convicted as an accomplice, and she's undergone a radical change. An accomplice, not an accomplish. She's undergone a radical change in that she has reached a point where she can make a contribution to the community. They said the board could decide in favor of commutation based solely on testimony that Brenda Smith has changed. The chairman of the five panel member panels makes recommendations to the governor on requests for this and all that kind of shit.

They said, though, they're going to delay this and all this. Even more people here come. Number of witnesses testify, including the they're now divorced, by the way, Joel and Brenda. Joel's warden father and mother so her this lady's ex-in-laws came and testified on her behalf the father said that he'd never spoken on behalf of any other inmate oh um an entertainer named benny real R-E-E-H-L. Do you know who that is? Never heard of it. I don't know if that's like a local Maine guy.

He plays the beaver pelt. Yeah. Something. I don't know. We'll find out when we get up there. Maybe he'll play our club. Not sure. But he also testified on her behalf.

The director of the art program at the Correctional Center also um which is very interesting i would say um wow uh also her ex-husband michael yank father of their now yeah father of her now 10 year old son said that he and his wife linda traveled at their own expense from michigan Try getting that past your new wife. Hey, let's dig into our savings and let's travel. I know we only have three days of vacation the whole year, but we're going to use it to travel to Maine so we can testify in front

of a clemency board for my ex-wife who's in there for murder. What do you say? Wow. Good luck with that. You're going to testify for my ex-wife that's in for murder no we're not no we're not you know no we're gonna it's gonna cost us a lot too it's gonna be very expensive and time consuming and super inconvenient and you know let's go bad for all of us but we're doing it so um anyway they go through all of this, a number of all these witnesses, people from prison testified that she has considerable artistic ability, which she's been developing at the main correctional center.

Well, she'll have more time to develop it then. Yeah, that's positive. Twenty three years. Donald Hill, who heads the building trades program at the prison, described Brenda as, quote, head and shoulders above any other inmate that he's ever worked with. She is, he told the board, a talented woodworker and has made kitchen cabinets and stereo cabinets. Terrific. Another resident here, oh, that's Benny Real, who's co-founder of the New England New Vaudeville Review.

No, no one's ever heard of this band. Get the fuck out of here. He writes up Vaudeville? I do a form of art that hasn't been around for 50 goddamn years for good reason. Cool, huh? He doesn't even do it. He reviews it. Well, no, no.

Review is in U-E. Oh, okay. They do it. Yeah, he's part of it. But that's confusing. Thank you for correcting that. So, yeah, he participates. Oh, he says that she participates in an art program at the prison that he runs and explains to the board that he uses performing arts or storytelling and theater skills to help inmates build self-esteem.

And he said, quote, Brenda would not be a model. She would be the model for the kind of work I do. model for the kind of work I do. And the woodworking or the arts teacher there said that Brenda had the ability to take on a project and master it. In one of the projects, a linoleum cut of a

horse's head was used on the cover of a brochure for the Artist in Residence program sponsored by the Maine Commission on the Arts and Humanities. And it was her work, her work. They also learned that she received extremely high scores on the GED test, which so did I,

that means nothing. I'm a moron and I have a literally a high honors GED, which is the funniest fucking oxymoron of words that's ever been put together. So, um, and they said she's even taking college courses in prison. Even the prosecutor, Laura Shell, said that law students working at the Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic believe that she has been successfully rehabilitated and petitioned his office to take a position in favor of commutation. Four years. She's not a murderer anymore. She's fine. She's good

now. It's been ten years. Either way, though, they said, La Rochelle said, a law school student came to my office with documents indicating there was progress with her rehabilitation. I met with Brenda. It was evident that she's made a great deal of progress. The person I saw did not appear to be

the same person from the 1979 trial. He said he doesn't support a clemency petition for him. But given the nature of the crime, which was pretty horrible, I could not affirmably support a commutation petition. But I agreed not to oppose any request for a reduced sentence to not have the prosecutor there saying, fuck, that is a huge part of this shit. So Ruth said, how can this happen how can anyone get rewards for the murder of a child this is the mother obviously talking about burying her son

she said every morning when i get up i remember how she beat my boy until every bone in his little body was broken beating him with the same shovel that she dug his grave with she had to return to the grave with a three-foot wartime sword to make sure he was dead. She went through the grave and driving the sword through his half dead body. She finally killed my child, but he did it though. It was, I get where she's coming from.

Um, totally. She said, I've been waiting to get my case in a courtroom, but I can't for eight years. I've been waiting to hear from the attorney general's office as to why I was removed from the courtroom and made to sit in the hall of the courthouse for five days during joseph smith's joel smith's trial probably because she was a witness at one point but um she was acting crazy in there i don't i don't know and why i was treated like a criminal when they uh when they had their murderers in custody so um

yeah i mean i don't know. It makes sense. She said, why then should I care for either of them? I want them both to go through the hell like we had to go through. Hate? Yes, I hate them. I also hate the system called justice and what it stands for when it can protect the guilty and not the innocent. That's Ruth. So, yeah, she also said that she hasn't been getting all of the notifications for when

she's up brenda's up on board shit for clemency and all that she said she wasn't at one of the hearings because she didn't get the notification so she's out and free. 1990. Uh huh. Okay. Glenn to trault. Yeah. He's out. Obviously.

Seven years. Um, his house burns down. Oh no. Yeah. Well, I mean, oh well,

whatever. But the problem is it's his parents house, I guess. Oh, it's, it's his in-laws house. The Rickards is, are the, the Rickards are there as in-laws and,laws and their house burns down and now he's homeless.

So that's not terrific. 1994 is when Brenda wanted more time off her sentence and they said she was released in late 1995. So she did end up doing 17 years. That's a long time so ruth on the other hand she is now not wanting to let for anyone to get out she wears a shirt that says justice for gary on it to everywhere she goes all the hearings and everything like that um she said though the state has showed little consideration for his memory and for the psychological impact his death has wreaked on their family. Sure.

That's what she said. She held up a picture of her dead son during a hearing and said she recently had a stroke, but her memory of the murder and her unending pain is not going away. She said, there's not a night that has been passed since Gary's death that I put my head before on the pillow and I think about the way he died and I think of the ones that murdered him. It will stay with me forever. She said, what about my rights? These people are in prison, but I, me and my family got a life sentence with no parole when my son died. 2000. Glenn again.

Glenn to Trault. He got a place again? No, not quite. Well, he got a place, but it's jail. Guilleford man charged with growing marijuana. And it's him. Yep, it's so stupid. He was making an initial trip to court here. They found, acting on a tip, officers in the sheriff's department searched his property and found five plants growing in a wooded area near his home i already planted them in the wood

yeah fucking break jesus christ um near his home and they also found some like weed in a bag they found a ziploc baggie of some dried weed and some paraphernalia. So he had a bowl and some weed and he's growing five plants in the woods that are going to die anyway. He didn't hinder the search and they said that the sheriff's department

has aggressively began its summer marijuana eradication efforts. Apparently they go around and do all this. That's in 2000. In the woods? Yeah. Now they let it grow free.

But they did all of that for glenn gets you sir they fuck off a 400 fine so man hours and all this shit 400 he should have just bought weed it's cheaper yeah so stupid so that everybody is caribou maine. He's still there, huh? Oh, yeah. He's life. He's done. He's there. So a bunch of fucking wild shit going on there. Swords and weed and bullshit stories. Bunch of people that shouldn't have known each other.

Nope. None of them should have known each other. No reason to be around each other. He should have known none of these people, Joel. He should go to work and come home and go, what are those kids doing out there? Get off my fucking, get off my lawn. I'm tired. I'm 25.

I have other shit to do. I'm 25. I have a 20-year-old girlfriend with a baby. Get the fuck out of here. Get out of my house. This is crazy. So, wow. If you like that show, tell the world about it.

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You can get your tickets for the virtual live show for 20 April the 20th. It will be available for seven days after that as well. We're going to do a whole week again. People seem to really like that. So we're going to do the whole week again. And it's going to be a crazy murder story. Lots of fun. I'm getting Jimmy Stone and making his head explode like a blood vessel because it's going to pop.

Perhaps this is what would have happened if it was legal in 1978. Exactly. We're going to do this, and it's going to be so much fun. Not only that, you want to get tickets to the rest of the live shows, the live live shows in the theaters. If you've never seen us live, it's a damn comedy show. You will leave with your sides hurting. We're comedians,

so we don't just sit up there and talk about murder and give dry facts because as a comic, 30 seconds without a laugh is uncomfortable and we're not going to let that shit happen.

So we're going to definitely make you laugh a lot. So come out there. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. Two shows in Seattle on March 23rd and 24th. And then two shows, one show each night. And then two

shows in Portland on March 25th. And then we skip April. That's the virtual live show. And then May, we're in Detroit and Pittsburgh. And then finally, in a couple of weeks here, the rest of the year is going on sale. We cannot wait. March 13th. And head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com to get all that information and your tickets today or March 13th or whenever.

But do it right now and get over there. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports is where you want to be. You sign up for that. You're going to get the whole back catalog, tons of bonus material, and you're going to get new episodes each and every other week. One Crime and Sports, one small town murder. You get it all this week, which you're going to get for the low, low price of only $5 per month. In addition to all of that, we're going to talk about the and one documentary on crime

and sports. Not only the documentary, just kind of the whole culture of the thing and see how you go from empire to embarrassment in 10 years. How do you go from cool to coals? How does it happen, damn it? It's fleeting. We will find out how that happens. And then for small town murder, a very crazy subject.

We're going to talk about sex in the people's temple under Jim Jones in Jonestown and before they even went to Guyana. What happens when one man controls the sex lives of a thousand people? Weird, disgusting, gross shit. So we'll talk all about that. Patreon.com slash crime and sports. And you get a shout out as well. And when do those shout outs happen, Jimmy? Right goddamn now.

Hit me with the names of the people who would never run a sword through us a few times. Hit me with them right now. This week's executive producers are Corporal Carl Kirshner and his birthday bride Christy. They're celebrating their anniversary and her birthday. Happy anniversary. Thank you. Happy birthday. Also Moto Fab

Susan and John McQuilkin. They came to our St. Louis show and thanked us. Thank you so much. Jordan Bennett, Midnight Wombat. She brought me a cigar in a fucking humidor tube. It's very, very thoughtful. Gorgeous. Maddie Lynch brought me, she's a talented baker.

She brought us cookies with our faces on them. Oh, yeah. They're very nice. Morgan and Leah in Pittsburgh. Nicole Anderson and Kelly Ray. Jennifer Krimmel, Ayla, Krista, Dylan, Liz, Gary, Derek, and Ash. Remember Derek from Stand Up Live? He was there also. Absolutely. My man. and kelly ray on jennifer crimmel ala krista dylan liz gary derrick and ash remember derrick from stand-up live he was there also uh jacob waltrip and his five-month girlfriend who bowled with me in st louis thank you guys so much for everything you do you're fantastic other producers

this week are esteban uh aka circ i guess that's a nickname i don don't know. Sure. I don't know what you do, Esteban, but the search sounds frightening. Sounds badass. Don and Jess Voss. Lisa Noble's sister, Robin. Happy birthday. Jim Ignatowski, I think that is. Hell yeah, Reverend Jim. There it is.

WWWF great Steve King. Oh, my. I don't know. Old school there. Fucking old school is what that is. That's scary. He brings them hard. Peyton Meadows. Jimmy Dixie. Jimmy's Dixie-norm what that is. That's Gary. He brings them hard. Peyton Meadows, Jimmy's Dixie Normus.

No, it's not. Don't spread that rumor. It's horrifically small. Horrifically medium. Alan Hunkin, Tiffany Gonzalez says, eat your checkers, James. Eat your checkers. Eat your checkers. I love that.

Darcy Standifer, Jane Melkinoff. Melkinoff. Janice Hill. Overboard. Hatred checkers. Yes, yeah, yeah. I thought you meant Janice Melkinoff. No.

Jane Melkinoff. All right. Stephen Lynch, but not that one probably. Carolyn Bonkoski. Bonkoski. Bonkoski. I don't know. Oh, Michelle.

Michelle Mixel. Mixel, maybe. Jennifer Stevens. Brandy Huntley. Brendan Ables. My, my. Hey. Gibson.

Brendan. What's up, buddy? Make. Yay, buddy. Little buddy. We love Brendan. We've seen him so many times. He's a good kid.

Fuck yeah, man. What a good guy. Great kid. Make. My yicky. My yicky. My yicky Gibson. I don't know.

My yicky. I like. It. I don't know. Mike. It's two A's and an I. M-A-A-I-K-E. That's Mike. Mike. Yeah, I like that. That's good. Griffin Monaghan, Monaghanon.

Elizabeth Knowles, Maile Strangfeld, Vitter, Viter, Viter, Viter Ferreira. I think it's Viter. Jacey, Maybe Jace. I don't know. Janice? Horsey? Hersey. Janice Hersey.

F-E-A? Lauren with no last name. Matthew Baker? Lady Magenta 100. Sassa with no last name. Hither El Hodiri. Hither? All right.

Nikki Beam? Come hither. Christy Conchary. Conchary. I don't know. Nicole Armston Nicole Armstrong. Jackie with no last name. Michael Kalish II.

Amanda Engler. Duncan Geldert. Misty Lake. Yep. Kaylee Church. Scott with no last name. Matt Kimmel. Christopher Hamilton.

Kathy Riley. Kurt Genovesh. What? Genovesh? Rosie, 16. John Dewey. Franny, and Lancaster. James Lane. Amber Elliott, Kim Gutierrez, Scarlett Jendro.

Anthony Burnett, I think. Jake Henson. Mike Espe, Rascal the Asshole. That feels like an instruction. Sarah Holland, Luzlino Reyes. Heaven Instead. Gabriela Novak, Tadia with no last name, A. Witts, Ted Perron, Chance Bosquet, Christina Wilson, Tracy Rambo Harris is even cooler,. Veranazan. That feels like a drug. Mickey Calley. Anthony Simmons in the UK. Elizabeth Wedock.

Wettick. Ronald Murphy. Alyssa Rubio. Paul Mitchell. Not the hair guy. Wow. He has enough money from his hair supplies. Paul Mitchell and VO5. Michael Mertens. John Brophy. Victoria Hines. Maybe Hins. Laura Marker. James Wiggers. Alyssa Allison. five uh michael mertens john brophy victoria hines maybe hens uh laura marker james wiggers

alice allison allison hawking uh ren keegan lauren gazin yassine uh bl duff fishing zane carl heather washburn patty butters tracy barber tricia ogle uh cody srebar Trisha Ogle. Cody Cerber. Cerber? Ceruber. Ceruber. Cerber, Cerber, Cerber. Cerberadob. Lazing Saddles guy. God damn it. I'm so concerned.

Tara Snyder. Kristen Henson. Senseless Slevin. Brian with no last name. Dave Clarion. Aaron Snyder. Gina with no last name. Russell Johnson.

Casey Heinrich. Colin King, Heidi B., Stina Nilsen, Mark Chappas, Trish with no last name, Mark Brown, Regina Ebner, Josh James Foster, Katie Phillips, Renee Lupfer, Greg Bradshaw, Beatrice, Queen B., Krakow. Happy Valentine's Day. Krakow. krakow happy valentine's day uh butch how krakow butch hall jenny dorsenville dorsainville dorsenville uh sydney portis katherine mazer sarah slattery uh slattery elizabeth pigot pigot pogo carrie keener melissa gray amy mac ellie with no last name christy brinkerhoff kat Kat McGowan, Tommy Dugan, Duggan maybe, Liz Lawson. I saw Jim's brother. Likely. Tommy and John, Jim, Jim.

It was Jim. Yeah, exactly. SM, Lake Elliott, Whitney with no last name, AC Brown. Erica Rangel. Adam Stokes. Courtney Kleppinger. Andre Hance. April Warner. Lexi McClellan. Wes Rager. Merk Haynes.

Caitlin Buchanan. Silas Pritchard. Taken, taken, taken. Oh, Barozo. What? Taken, taken, taken. Taken, taken, taken. Taken, taken, taken. Taken, taken, taken. Taken, taken, taken. Taken, taken, taken. Taken, taken, taken. Taken, taken, taken. Taken, taken, taken. Taken, taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. Taken, taken. What? Tacano Baruti. Tacano Baruti.

Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what it is, Bob. Somebody just mashed the keyboard. That's not real, right? It's an Italian name, Jimmy. It's literally T-A-K-I-N-O-B-O-R-U-D-E-S-U. No, that's not an Italian. No, I don't think it is. Tacano Baruti.

I like it, though. I want that to be a first name. Just because it broke your head, I like it. Just because it ruins me. I hope somebody has to say that every day. James Jeck-and-cube? Jeck-and-cubic. Je-cubic.

Chris Wait-sh-a-dow-its. Wada-chow-its. Brian Richard. That'sdle Chowits. Brian Richard. That's what it sounded like. Taylor Munson, Daniel Kelly, Logan Ringit, Ringit, oh, Rinden Slackbacker. Yeah. Rindels. Rinden Slackbacker.

Rindels Slackbacker. I feel like the coach. Zach Nabbitt, no car starting struggle is going to tell me otherwise. The coach from Rookie of the Year calling him Riggenspruger. Paul Joggerst. Grant with no last name. Asha with no last name. Anthony Gutierrez.

Daniel Maldonado. Maldonado? Maldonado. Maldonado. Maldonado? Is that what it was? Thank you, Daniel. Abby Lee.

Rachel Bonnet. Donald Martin, Raymond Kramer, Don Jackson, Josh with no last name, Brady with no last name, Leon Potter, Pellcraft, Pellicraft maybe, Kevin Coffey, Austin Rohrer, Samantha Anderson, Kaylin Cain, John Feiner, Jennifer Wilkening, Matthew and Misty Sib, Daytona Fort Ference, Talia Tassar, Shane Baker, Liz Mary, Liz Mary, Santiago, Bauer, New Burger, Rachel Donaldson, Jen and Sean, Tip Toe, TJ Strader, Chawla Hamilton, Chawla, Chawla, Paul Peterson, Robert Levitt, Peyton Davis, and James. Also all of our other patrons. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much.

Thank you, everybody, from the bottom of our hearts for all that you do for us. We hope you're enjoying it thank you for everyone in cleveland and in st louis who came out to those shows you guys were terrific crowds as the best that was the best way you could think to open up a tour that weekend was with two amazing crowds like that thank you for being there for us fucking cleveland man you showed up and you're a badass maybe a lot lot of people from Buffalo, but I'm giving you the credit. It's fine. Those Pittsburghers, they have spirit. They came over.

But it's still Cleveland. But do that. Follow us on social media individually. Just head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com and you will find links to that and each and everything else that we are ever talking about on here. But keep doing it. Keep coming back and seeing us. And until next week, everybody, it has been our pleasure.

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