Small Town Murder - #389 - The Legend Of Curly's Cheese - Mount Horeb, Wisconsin

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

This week, in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, a terribly bloody, and awful murder scene is found in a home's finished basement. A very inefficient murder weapon is found, under the body, and detectiv...es believe everyone was home when it happened. We find out that this has been a troubled household for a long time, and detectives try to decide whether a blood thirsty drug dealer, a random hook up, or the cheese making husband did this horrific crime. The trial is surprising, and then it gets even weirder!!Along the way, we find out that this town is obsessed with trolls, that it's normal to be upset that your spouse is cheating, but it's not normal to stab someone 50 times, and nearly cut their head off!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: crimeinsports@gmail.comGo 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.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, a bloody basement scene turns into a real mystery when detectives can't figure out if the killer was a drugged up stranger or a mild-mannered
Starting point is 00:00:38 cheesemaker. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another insane edition of Small Town Murder once again.
Starting point is 00:01:15 Always, always crazy. Always crazy. No different today, especially in Wisconsin. Wisconsin's one of our fun states as well. It's a crazy one. We'll get to it. But before we get to that, very quickly, just want to say thanks for everything you do. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com is where you get tickets for live shows. We are not going to do the larger venue in Salt Lake City.
Starting point is 00:01:34 No, we're not. We found out the tickets didn't, like, you wouldn't end up sitting in the same spots you had. Some people are going to get screwed. And we said, never mind. So that show sold out. No more tickets for that. So everything is sold out until August the 12th when we are in Chicago, baby. Get your tickets.
Starting point is 00:01:51 Come strong, Chicago. Make it our biggest show ever. We're very excited. August 12th, Chicago. And then tickets left for Dallas and, what, Philly and D.C. and Charlotte. Yeah, those are the tickets left in Atlanta. Those are the ones that are left. Everything else is sold out.
Starting point is 00:02:08 So get in there now. Get your tickets. Shut up and give me murder.com. Patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get the good stuff, all the bonus material. Anybody $5 or above, you're going to get access to the whole back catalog of bonus episodes. It's deep and it's thick.
Starting point is 00:02:22 So that's a lot of fun. A couple hundred of those. And every other week you are going to get access to of bonus episodes. It's deep and it's thick, so that's a lot of fun. A couple hundred of those. Every other week you are going to get access to two new episodes. This week for Crime and Sports, which you'll have access to, we're going to talk about something that has nothing to do with sports whatsoever. We've done some sports ones. We're going to talk
Starting point is 00:02:38 about something just fun and funny, Stairway to Stardom, which is a public access show in New York from the late 70s to the early 90s where people would come on and sing. And it was like an amateur talent show. And it's hilarious. And I've never seen Jimmy laugh so hard in my life. The host and his wife are marvelous.
Starting point is 00:02:55 The whole thing's great. The whole thing. We're going to play clips of bad singing, and it's going to be amazing. Can't wait for that. The whole thing's great for the wrong reasons. Oh, it's beautiful. And then for small-town murder, it's that time again. Oh, it is.
Starting point is 00:03:06 Prisoner Dating Game is back. That's right. The most popular thing we do on Patreon, the Prisoner Dating Game, where I choose four young men and four young ladies for Jimmy to choose from. The only thing they have in common is they are currently incarcerated around the country. And we're going to give Jimmy just the pitch that they put on their dating profile. He's going to choose one of each just from that and based on that. And then we'll find out not only what they look like, but who they are and what they've done, most importantly. So that'll be a lot of fun.
Starting point is 00:03:35 Let's see if Jimmy can avoid the pedophile. It's like a shell game. So to that, that's patreon.com slash crime and sports. Look out very soon for soon next couple weeks on monday mornings your stupid opinions will be coming out our new show where we make fun of people's reviews on the internet there's so many people review everything and we'll find the weirdest wildest things we could find and talk about it your stupid opinions coming monday mornings to a podcast place near you i guess is the best way to put that.
Starting point is 00:04:05 Quickly, disclaimer time. It's a comedy show. We're comedians. People are going to die. That's going to happen and jokes will be made. But this is the thing here. First of all, we don't do small town murder to make fun of small towns, too. That's the other thing.
Starting point is 00:04:19 We do it because people feel safe in small towns and you feel like, wow, horrible murder shouldn't happen there. This is kind of like what's going on in your neighbor's house. It's fun. It's a weird voyeuristic type thing. So that's why that's there. We go out of our way not to make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Why, James? Because we're
Starting point is 00:04:40 assholes, but we're not scumbags. That's how that works. So if that sounds good to you, you're going to hear a wild story. If you think true crime and comedy should never ever go together, maybe we're not for you. Maybe it's a first date that's just not working out. You're a vegan. I ordered a steak. It's not going to happen.
Starting point is 00:04:56 That's how it is. So we don't know. Either way, though, for the rest of you out there who want to hear just an insane story and have a crazy time and hear some wild jokes. I think it's time to sit back and clear the lungs, everyone. Let's do this and let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder.
Starting point is 00:05:18 Let's do this, Jimmy. Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's do it. We shall. We're going all the way to Wisconsin today. Oh, baby. I love when we go to Wisconsin.
Starting point is 00:05:27 It's always a fun one. My favorite shirt I've ever seen there is Smell Our Dairy Air. That's a lot of people. Yeah. That's a common shirt. I just saw that shirt the other day. Did you? Yes.
Starting point is 00:05:39 You know what it was? I was re-watching The Wire, and it's when Hurt gets suspended and Kima comes and knocks on his door and says and he's like listen i can't come i'm suspended and she's like this is police work and he's got a wisconsin smell our dairy air shirt on very funny absolutely has that on so um this is in southwestern wisconsin uh-huh it's about a half hour outside madison so okay it's in the middle of nowhere put outside madison an's about a half hour outside madison so okay it's kind of the middle of nowhere put outside madison an hour and a half to milwaukee about an hour 15 to i'm not even going to say it our last wisconsin episode because i know i didn't say it correctly i have no idea don't you dare episode 344 don't look in the stove and uh the town's name, which shall never be uttered again. Sorry.
Starting point is 00:06:27 This is in Dane County. Yeah. Area code 608. And there's a motto here, and it's here. It is the troll capital of the world. What does that mean? We don't mean the modern version of a troll. It's not just a bunch of assholes sitting there trying to piss people off on Twitter. It's actually trolls, you know, like with the hair and little oh the troll dolls troll
Starting point is 00:06:49 things troll yeah troll people oh yeah troll dolls right trolls yeah trolls i guess that they may come there or what no not troll dolls but like the troll dolls come from like a legend of trolls you know what i mean like that's a legend thing if you whatever i don't know much about mythology or norwegian troll fucking imaginary bullshit i have no idea gnomes and trolls there's a lot of that stuff and uh yeah that's where this comes from and we'll get into that because they embrace their troll heritage here big time huge fascinating it's fascinating uh this was originally called called the corners that was the name of this town which sounds kind of cool actually going over to the corners uh then they changed it to horrib's corner which sounds way less cool yeah that sounds like a pimp took
Starting point is 00:07:36 that corner now it's his corner um jeez marlo took that corner. It's his corner now. And it's got ho in it. It's got ho, whore in it, whore. Never mind. Oh, it's got ho and whore, both. Before, then they, eventually they called it Mount Horeb. And it had a large Norwegian population, both from Norway, from Norwegia, as we know, as we know where they're from. Norwegia. Norwegia, obviously, clearly. norwegia as we know as we know where they're from norwegia norwegia obviously clearly um no either they were from norway or they're nor nor norway descendant people you know nordic nordic so well
Starting point is 00:08:14 i think but that isn't that just kind of a more sweeping term doesn't that mean not from norway isn't that from i think i haven't got a clue because you hear like nordic countries and that's like all that fucking tall white people shit up there tall blonde you know they norm six foot two is the average person walking around with blonde and all that shit i feel like that's how that's nordic so i have no idea though like i said i know as much about that as trolls so yeah and then you've got nordic track which yeah it's only for tall people. It's for tall, blonde people. They'll know if your hair is not blonde.
Starting point is 00:08:51 So they had Little Norway, Wisconsin, which was near Blue Mounds. They actually called it Little Norway. 1856, Osten Olsen Haugen and his family, who emigrated from Norway, established a 40-acre farmstead. It feels like a sentence. It really does. That's a lot. It's a lot here. So the Norwegian word Nisadel, which is – there's all sorts. This Nisadel is a farmstead that this haugen guy
Starting point is 00:09:25 had in 1856 and it turned into part of the town nissadel in norwegian translates to valley of the elves oh so yeah that's how the whole elves and trolls okay so during the 1980s as a part of an effort to continue to celebrate their norwegian heritage, as well as they built a highway past here. They wanted people to pull off the highway and have something to talk about. Hey, come over here. We have. And they had a blank space, so they said, We are the troll capital of the world.
Starting point is 00:09:56 Come on in, everybody. But there's no trolls. There's no. No, of course not. Yeah, they're hiding in the trees, Jimmy. They're making cookies in the trees. The mythological things that you built your hometown around. Not there.
Starting point is 00:10:10 Don't exist. In Norwegian folklore, trolls are said to be about the size of, if not smaller than humans. Well, yeah. A troll, I think, is small. If a troll is huge, I'm terrified. That sounds frightening. They're supposed to. About the same size as or smaller.
Starting point is 00:10:26 Or smaller. They have ugly faces, stout bodies, and tails. That's what I'm getting out of this. Apart from the tail, they've got me nailed. That's it. That's us. I'm a little smaller than a person. A little smaller, quite hairy.
Starting point is 00:10:41 Yeah. No tail. And your face isn't ugly. You're good. A little smaller, quite hairy. Yeah. No tail. And your face isn't ugly.
Starting point is 00:10:44 You're good. These trolls featured in Mount Horeb harken to this tradition, and residents have incorporated these trolls and characters all throughout the village. So there's trolls all over the place. There's painted trolls, sculpted trolls, trolls carved from logs with a chainsaw. Whole deal. They call Main Street the Troll Way. logs with a chainsaw whole deal they call main street the troll way okay each of the 40 trolls in mount horrib have their own distinct identity such as the chicken thief the accordion player and sweet swill i guess that's the drunk troll yeah the fun one yeah uh the troll way was the chamber of commerce's way to attempt to draw traffic from the highway nearby and into the center of town to promote businesses.
Starting point is 00:11:28 I want to go here so bad. This is crazy. This just makes me think of the old riff tracks. It's called Troll, the movie, but it's about goblins. It's called Troll 2. I've seen that. Troll 2. It's a funny, it's a terrible, bad movie.
Starting point is 00:11:44 And the town is called nilbog which is goblin backwards and i feel like that's where we are right now we're in nilbog we're in nilbog everybody enjoy so uh funny reviews of this town here people like this place man they love it they love these trolls i mean these could be trolls leaving the reviews we don't know yeah it's very it it's a clever way to and unique because nobody else is doing this shit no no i guess there's nothing else to do here so uh five stars i couldn't imagine a better place to raise to rise children is what they say i think they mean i'm gonna rise them up uh the streets are wide and welcoming with
Starting point is 00:12:22 a bike trail that goes right through town and there are endless options for ways to be active with many parks in and around the area. The school district supplies endless opportunities. A lot of endless things going on. Endless opportunities for growth. Well, there is an end. How can the school district provide endless opportunities? It's going to end at college. So eventually it ends for for growth and there's a
Starting point is 00:12:46 culvers in town oh well oh welcome to cash it in everybody that's it gets you fried cheese cards endless opportunities at the school and a culvers so and then the next line could could one ask for anything better i guess not how about a vibrant main street with thriving local shops and restaurants to fit every little niche? If that isn't enough, the carved wooden trolls that line the street are more welcoming than they look. Okay. Five stars. Okay.
Starting point is 00:13:14 Here's five stars. Quote, we are the town of trolls. Terrific. Great. Yeah. I had to mention the trolls ahead of time. I had to mention the trolls ahead of time. The restaurants have great quality food and are in ideal locations.
Starting point is 00:13:33 Everyone in town is nice and welcoming to newcomers. We are in a great location outside of Madison. So everything is great. Great food quality. Endless great troll goodness. That's all it is. And a butter burger from Culver's. Oh, baby.
Starting point is 00:13:46 That's just great. Okay. Three stars. Yeah. A bit of a drinking culture around here. Really? In Wisconsin? No. No.
Starting point is 00:13:54 Surprise? No. See, sometimes these reviews are way off. I would never imagine, never, in rural Wisconsin, a half hour away from a college town, too, there'd be drinking? Are you kidding me? No. No. No is there are trolls everywhere everybody's clearly drunk there should i see fucking trolls man i swear to god this is like make one as my chainsaw i figured this would be
Starting point is 00:14:18 like a dry county like arkansas somewhere right that's? Drinking culture around here. It's very much a small town that seems sweet on the outside, but everyone gossips about everyone else's business. You sons of bitches. There are still quite a few very good people who live here, and it has some beautiful parks around it, and the military
Starting point is 00:14:40 ridge running through it. I don't know. A few good people. I thought they were going to start naming them. Bill, he's nice. I few good people. I thought they were going to start naming them. Bill, he's nice. I swear to God, I thought they were going to start naming the good people in town. Population here, 7,727 people. So triple seven's in there. That's a lot of people, but they're spread out.
Starting point is 00:14:59 There's some farms here and shit like that. More male than female by a lot. It's like 53% male, which a lot it's like 53 percent male which a lot of times that's when there's a lot of farm shit you'll get that out that way that's a lot of farm work yeah a lot of people live in town to do farm work and usually dudes uh median age is about average about 38 um the 10 to 14 year olds very high yeah people were very fertile at a certain period of time here right around 2004 right around 2004 uh 55 married which is way more than the normal and all that kind of thing so it's very kind of family all the stats are family leaning uh race here not surprising it's it's
Starting point is 00:15:38 wisconsin 93.9 white uh 1.3 black 0.2 as, 2.1% Hispanic, about what you'd expect from Wisconsin. Religion here, 47% religious, which is just below the national average, and it is mostly Catholic, actually. Is that right? Catholic is the dominant, with 12.4% Lutheran right behind it. So there you go. 0.6% Jewish. Very close. We almost made it. Very close. Almost got there you go uh 0.6 percent jewish very close we almost made it very close
Starting point is 00:16:06 almost got there but not quite uh in dane county wisconsin and i believe this is where madison is by the way uh 75.5 percent of the people in the last election voted democratic 22.9 percent republican 1.7 percent independent uh unemployment rate here is low it's about half the national average actually but yeah there you can work in madison so there's a lot of you can go a lot of places sure there's a lot of options for employment especially in a madison's a bustling college town so there's stuff to do there uh median household income here is a little bit higher than average it's 63 634 which is uh yeah it's not bad a little bit higher than the national average cost of living though is a little bit higher also the average is being 100 for cost
Starting point is 00:16:51 of living here it's 104 uh housing is a little bit more expensive than everywhere else that's the high thing 371 200 is your average house now a lot of these houses have a couple acres attached to them and shit like that, which is part of it. Not so much, but acreage and just it's by a college town, which doesn't hurt. And there's lakes and all kinds of shit there. It's a beautiful area of the country. It's very nice.
Starting point is 00:17:16 So if we've convinced you that this area of the country is in fact for you, we have for you the Mount Horeb, Wisconsin Real Estate Report. you. We have for you the Mount Horeb, Wisconsin real estate report. The average two bedroom rental here is just about the national average, about twelve hundred seventy dollars, maybe a little above the national average. Houses here, they're all all these houses are all pretty new. They're all new construction places. Yeah, there's nothing for sale. That's like older. I don't know if they get passed down
Starting point is 00:17:48 generationally or how it works, but, uh, here's a two bedroom, two bath, 1,424 square feet. Uh, it's a nice house. It's not a huge house, two bedrooms and less than 1500 square feet. Um, but it's just like, it looks a nice, new, clean little house. That's all it looks like. $335,000 for that. How much land? Not much. Just your normal lot.
Starting point is 00:18:15 But that's your average. That's just under the average here of a house. So that's what you're going to pay. Here's a two-bedroom, two-bath, 1,202-squ 1202 square foot house it is brand new no one's ever lived here before it looks like they it looks like they built it for an hgtv show like it's got all the you know the gray here and the white cats all the whatever the themes and standards of the day are um it is a 55 plus community though so don't get your hopes up yet. Not quite. And it says, with verification and everything.
Starting point is 00:18:47 Oh, you gotta have ID. You gotta have ID. On the island table in the kitchen, for some reason, this is the weirdest thing, there's just a cake there. Like a fake black cake, like a chocolate cake that doesn't look real, and it has a slice taken out of it that's sitting on a plate next to it. Also... For no reason. It's just, that's how they staged it. It's so fucking weird.
Starting point is 00:19:08 $405,000. Holy shit. I don't know if that includes the cake or what, but I'm not sure. Here's a three-bedroom, five-bath T-bowl for each and every b-hole here, guys. 3,824 square feet. Uh-huh. Big house.
Starting point is 00:19:23 11.48 acres. Holy shit. Lots of land. It's built in 1986 and it has not been touched since, obviously, on the inside. A lot of Knight Rider in here. Yeah, it's decorated in just Miami Vice and Don Johnson and David Hasselhoff and Tom Selleck and his mustache. Hulk Hogan posing everywhere. It's crazy.
Starting point is 00:19:44 It just looks like it's yeah hulk hogan posing everywhere it's crazy um it just looks like it's from 1986 but it looks like the crime scene photos of murders we've done in wisconsin it looks like it took place in this house it's you know kind of got its own land one million one hundred thousand dollars for that so yeah dig deep everybody whoa big deep things to do. Oh, baby. The Mount Horeb Trollway. There you go. Remember, they talked about it. It's to entice people. It says, say hello to your favorite trolls and then head out and enjoy all that Mount Horeb has to offer.
Starting point is 00:20:15 This thing to do is drive down Main Street and look at the trolls and then keep going and fucking find something else to do. And figure it out on your own. That's it. Our carved trolls are known to relax while watering flowers, tending chickens. They're made of wood, by the way. They're not dead. Until you go to sleep, then they do shit. Then they do shit, obviously, like Toy Story.
Starting point is 00:20:36 Playing music or just playing a hole, hamming it up for your viewing pleasure. They've been doing the same things since they've been carved. They protect the hidden gems of mount horrib in our case they guard the friendly people and wonderful attractions of our community yeah wow that's a thing to do okay uh these skanda hoovian winter festival i'm not shitting you very dr seuss Seuss oriented? Scandi-Hoovian, yes. Like Scandinavian, but Scandi-Hoovian. One chilly weekend every February, the people of Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, don their red pointy hats as they celebrate the town's Scandinavian heritage. All are welcome to join in this weekend-long family-friendly celebration of winter.
Starting point is 00:21:21 You put on a red hat and you celebrate that it's freezing outside guys it's still cold that's it you go cold as fuck right high five and then you get the guy yeah whoa i'm freezing my balls off two more months of this shit look at that my kids lips are blue isn't that nice this is great dot pointy hats what is this red pointy hats yeah this is they literally said at one point they said we should have a festival and then that's how this festival came about i'm not shitting you here um they do uh there's also some other events for activities a spelling bee for adults broom ball on stewart lake frozen turkey bowling at the local skating rink a fat tire bike race i don't know if your bike
Starting point is 00:22:06 tires are fat or if you have to drink a bunch of fat tire and then try to ride a bike that would be more fun norwegian fiddlers of course gotta have that so uh it does say no crankiness allowed so you're not allowed to be mad that it's cold nope you gotta enjoy the cold asshole smile motherfucker let's go this is wisconsin bitch put your hat on Nope, you got to enjoy the cold, asshole. Suck it up. Smile, motherfucker. Let's go. This is Wisconsin, bitch. Put your hat on. Does it have earmuffs, your hat?
Starting point is 00:22:31 Because you're going to be freezing. It's fucking better. Oh, man. Then there is the Festival for Thirsty Trolls. Okay. The Thirsty Troll Brew Fest is an intimate beer sampling that features 30 craft brewers, intimate. You'll be fingering you while you drink. And fermenters from across the Midwest serving over 125 different beers, ciders, seltzers, and more.
Starting point is 00:22:52 $50 these tickets are. Oh, my God. Is it all you can drink? You get a tasting glass souvenir. There will be a Trolls Gold voting taken for your favorite brewer. Unlimited tastings of a hundred. Yeah. You can drink as much as you want. 50 bucks.
Starting point is 00:23:09 This is packed. You can get shit face there. People are going to be passed out. Um, enjoy live music. Catch up with old friends. Yeah. If they're there, I mean, you can't promise that. Then you want to throw down an extra 10 bucks for an entry fee.
Starting point is 00:23:24 Quote, think you're the strongest thirsty troll? Test yourself in this Steinholding strength competition. Purchase your entry when you purchase your tickets or enter at the event, the strength competition. Get drunk and then see how tough you are? And then see how strong you are. This ends in a fight every year. I guarantee it. Fight. People passed out. I would love to just – I want an aerial view of this. you are and then see how strong you are this ends in a fight every year i guarantee it to fight
Starting point is 00:23:45 people passed out i would love to just want an air i want an aerial view of this i want to sit in like a balloon and watch this shit have up they're starting to fall there's somebody's drone footage of this i want to watch the whole thing two giant blonde guys are trying to beat the shit out of each other now this is awesome awesome. There's Sven. Somebody brought an axe. He got him. There we go. Uh-oh, watch out. Crime rate in this town, what we're interested in, property crime, a little more than half the average, but almost half. Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course, assault.
Starting point is 00:24:15 The Mount Rushmore of crime is about one-third of the national average. Oh. So the trolls keep it safe. They do. There's always eyewitnesses to anything that could happen. That's why. They're always thereewitnesses to anything that could happen. That's why. They're always there looking, just trolling, looking. What a town.
Starting point is 00:24:30 Hamming it up. That said, let's talk about a murder, shall we? Let's talk about a murder. Let's say that in preacher style. Let's talk about a murder, shall we? Amen. Let's do it. That's what I was, yeah, you got to get an amen.
Starting point is 00:24:42 All right. Now, let's see. November 17th, 1981. Let's go back to That's what I was. Yeah. You got to get an amen. It's all right. Now, let's see. November 17th, 1981. Let's go back to 81. Look at that. That's some good stuff there. Born, babe. You're born.
Starting point is 00:24:54 I was covered in goo. People's giant puffy pubes. This is the time right here. What day is it? It's December. November 17th, 1981. I'm nine months old. Yeah, you're getting there.
Starting point is 00:25:05 I'm about to start walking and causing trouble around this motherfucker. You're already a pain in the ass is what I would assume at this point. I'm going to kick dents in this trailer. Yeah, definitely. I've been a pain in the ass for a couple years already, so it's good. This is 6 p.m., November 17th, 1981. A call comes in to 911. Uh-huh.
Starting point is 00:25:24 And this is what this 9-1-1 call says the exact quote is quote this is 103 henry street curly weiss my wife is downstairs dead she's stiff as a board oh curly get on down here and that's it he fucking hangs up that's the 9-1-1 call that's all the information we get out of him that's it that's what you're getting out of me. So now, first of all, let's look over what he said. Address, my name, my wife is downstairs dead. This is all pertinent information. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:56 And then she's stiff as a board, which she's dead. So, yeah. It's been a while. It's been a while. Now, normally, this is one thing I will say for this, because right away, whenever anybody calls 911 and says, my wife's dead, she's downstairs, because this is small-town murder, we're immediately suspicious, correct? So they actually do very deep analysis of 911 calls over years of people who are guilty of murder and people who aren't and and they're different 9-1-1 calls and they found very stark similarities and people who didn't kill whoever they're calling about and people who did call and did do it and did do it yeah they have very you can tell a lot there's lots of reasons
Starting point is 00:26:38 there's lots of stories this one is just straight up facts generally curly's pretty well innocent here it's not scientific but generally people who didn't kill somebody, they immediately want to tell you the address. That's first. I need you here. And then who it is helps or who the victim is, something like that, one of those things. And then my wife is downstairs dead. She's stiff as a board. There's no I walked in and I was coming from over here because that's what you hear a lot of yeah given the alibi into that 911 tape those phony 911 calls are setting up the
Starting point is 00:27:11 alibi already so they're already saying i was doing this and then i think she did they're trying to explain how they could have ended up people who just want help for their injured spouse yell get over here they're hurt holy shit blah blah blah and if they ask what happened he got for fucking i don't fucking know then i found her like this and she came in fucking so i don't know but they it's prompts the questions that get that shit out of them so right away that looks good for old old curly weiss here his name by the way is elmer is his real name curly is his middle name or not his middle name but it's not his given middle name but he's adopted it as his middle name or not his middle name but not his given middle name but he's adopted it as his middle name currently i'm currently so um his the the reason why he's calling is because their 17
Starting point is 00:27:53 year old son john weiss and weiss is w-y-s-s so it could be wiss i guess that is a wild one i'm going weiss just because it's easier to say than Wiss. So he had headed into the basement where the basement is set up like a rec room as most of the Wisconsin basements are. You know there's wood paneling down there. Oh, for sure. You absolutely know it. Yeah, and at least a ping pong
Starting point is 00:28:17 if not a foosball table. Probably exposed rafters. Yeah, and a keg. Is there a keg hooked up? Oh, for sure. Yeah, there's a tap. With a neon bud light sign. Yeah, and a keg. Is there a keg hooked up? Oh, for sure. Yeah, there's a tap. With a neon Bud Light sign. Yeah, there's a tap and a foosball table down here. I see it. Maybe not. So he had gone down there and found his mother very bloody.
Starting point is 00:28:38 And in the basement, he came upstairs, told his dad. His dad looked, called 911. Yeah. That's what ended up happening. Now, the weird part about the 911 call is, as we'll find out, well, actually, let me give you what's wrong with her here first. Tell me that. Okay. A pathologist, the police come in, and the pathologists do determine that, yes, there is a dead woman in the basement. And they said that she died probably between 2 a.m. and noon.
Starting point is 00:29:05 It's now 6 p.m. Okay. So somewhere between 2 a.m. and noon from loss of blood due to multiple knife wounds. Now, the word multiple, I can't express how much of an understatement that is
Starting point is 00:29:18 in this situation. Is that right? Yeah. 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.
Starting point is 00:29:41 She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. 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+.
Starting point is 00:30:16 Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. 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.
Starting point is 00:30:37 With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal,
Starting point is 00:30:57 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 okay uh her throat had been slashed yeah we'll give you who she is and everything like that in a minute here her throat had been slashed from ear to ear all the way to the vertebrae yeah so i mean basically almost instructions it's an oj wound
Starting point is 00:31:31 where the head is almost taken off severing the major blood vessels arteries and veins on both sides so really got it they said death was nearly instantaneous after receiving that wound. But there's also 33 stab and cut wounds in the area of the upper chest. Dozens. And 12 and 20 slash wounds on the neck. In addition to the giant, obviously, the huge throat wound. Truly an attack. This is brutal. This would take energy yeah and a lot
Starting point is 00:32:08 of anger time yeah and a lot of rage or a lot of something a lot of something because yeah or someone just did like three grams of coke at once and then had a someone in a fury to kill i'm gonna kill and then they did like three grams like because that's the only other way right or very angry at this person because certainly fueled by something yeah we're talking you know 45 to 53 stab wounds and a throat slashing is a lot one way or another did not want this person to continue to breathe clearly not they said there was a deep sawing groove on one of the three exposed vertebrae. God, jeez. So we're talking knife sawing into the actual bone of the vertebrae in the back of the neck from a front side slasher. Oh, boy. That is strong.
Starting point is 00:32:56 The fingers of both her left and right hands had at least two slash wounds each as well, which they said were defensive wounds, obviously. So she was alive and fighting. two slash wounds each as well, which they said were defensive wounds, obviously. So this, she was, you know, alive and fighting. So that tells you that the throat wound probably wasn't first. Right. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:33:14 She's fighting. There's a lot of stabbing. Once there's some incapacitating going on from all these stabbings, then you cut the throat. So they said that this was, the doctor said the same thing prior to the throat being slashed. They said also that the wounds were somewhat jagged and irregular and were consistent with a knife found near her, which is a dull serrated kitchen knife. Like what the fuck?
Starting point is 00:33:39 Your average in the 80s, everybody had the same set of Cutco steak knives with the plastic handle. Remember those? Serrated. That's what it is pretty much. It's like that sort of thing. Like a shitty steak knife? A shitty steak knife, yeah. Oh, my.
Starting point is 00:33:54 That someone gave you for Christmas eight years ago and you've been using it to cut. That's gone through so many cheap, shitty pieces. So many $2 chuck steaks over the years. It's not even funny. So that's what we're talking about here. That's what this was done, which makes it even more horrible, obviously. If you're going to stab me to death, please make sure that knife is good and sharp. And big.
Starting point is 00:34:17 And meant for that. Meant to really destroy something. Really get yourself a good stabbing knife if you're going to come at me. I want none of this taking forever tiny knife. No, don't go through my kitchen and pick the worst knives. I'll show you where the good knives are. Pick one of those because they're huge and scary. You pick a paring knife, I swear to fuck we'll have a fight.
Starting point is 00:34:36 I have machetes. You know what I mean? They're sharp and they're huge. It'll really get this over with fast. I'll give you a good one because this I don't like at all. I don't want this to happen at all here. They said this knife with a blade of about four and a half inches long, we all know this knife, was found partially obscured beneath her right arm. And bent to shit probably, right?
Starting point is 00:34:57 Yeah, it definitely looks like it's done some shit here. some shit here the deep sawing groove in the fourth cervical vertebrae that they found not the one we talked about before matched the serrated edge of the knife so they they kind of lined that up blood on the knife was consistent with that of hers as well so this looks like the murder weapon or at least one of them you know what i mean um so they said, okay, who was here this night? All right. So you have Elmer, Elmer F Weiss, who's curly. That's curly. You have their two children that are still home age. They have older children as well. Who is a Jolie or Joe Dorothy.
Starting point is 00:35:39 No, that Dorothy is the wife who's dead. She's the dead one. And in all the court documents, it's Dorothy, not Dorothy. Oh. D-O-R-T-H-Y. D-O-R-T-H-Y. Dorothy. Do we call her Dot?
Starting point is 00:35:52 That's my favorite name. I mean, no one else calls her Dot from what I understand. Nobody calls her Dot. So we'll stick with Dorothy for now. It's going to be Dorothy because Dorothy is hard to say. It is. So Dorothy here, she's home. John, who's the son who's 17 years old, he found his mom.
Starting point is 00:36:10 And then their daughter, Jo Reen, Jo Reen, who was named after the famous Dolly Parton impersonator. Yeah. The famous Asian Dolly Parton impersonator, Jo Reen. But that's true. Is that true? No, it's not true. No. The kid's name is definitely Joreen.
Starting point is 00:36:33 Yes, it's Joreen, but that's not how they. Is there one, though? I can see it existing. I know. That's the sad part. I really could on the old strip in Vegas somewhere. Yeah, somewhere on... Somewhere dancing out front of the plaza.
Starting point is 00:36:56 That is not offensive, by the way. No, it's not. I think that's offensive. You are definitely listening to the wrong show. There's something wrong with you. Yeah, that's just good, stupid humor. And Vegas. That's just dumb.
Starting point is 00:37:07 And we're making fun of Vegas. If you've ever been there, you understand. So you know it could exist if you've been to the old strip. You'd go, you know what? That's why you went. Is that for real? Why does that exist here? Because every time I've been down the old strip, I go, why does that exist?
Starting point is 00:37:23 Why are you here? For exist? Why are you here? For what? Why are you here? That's what my grandmother would say. For what? I don't get it. What are you doing here? So they're mixing Jolene and Doreen together.
Starting point is 00:37:39 Yes, and they're getting Joreen. I don't like it. I don't like that at all. It's only tough because for the kids she what's your name joe reen jolene joe reen how many times did she go through that in her life jolene joe reen oh okay with an r okay why does this exist is that a name yeah i've never heard that name before i've never heard joe reen as a name before but never at this moment she's 13 and her mother's been brutally stabbed
Starting point is 00:38:05 in the basement so we'll leave poor joe reen alone for now she can hang on to that name for a while and we'll leave it so let's find out who these people are and how we got here okay um because now we we've set a horrible scene they said by the way there is blood everywhere i mean it's and her son found this that's her son her Her 17-year-old found this. He was going down to do something. He was something with a stereo or some shit. He was going down. Going to be a 17-year-old in the basement.
Starting point is 00:38:32 Yeah, going to go get that foosball going or practice my shots. Obviously, there's no one to play against, but I can practice my quick wrist. So the amount of blood they said that was down there was just like, I mean, yeah. Like you cut a person open and swung them around in a circle. I mean, it was just from all the stab wounds and the hacking. So there's spatter going back. And then once you cut a throat, they're spraying blood everywhere. So it's disgusting, as you can imagine.
Starting point is 00:39:01 So let's find out, as of 1981, who are these people, okay? first of all, you have Elmer F. Weiss, who's Curly. That's Curly. Curly is 49 years old in 1981. He's born in 1932. Curly, I found out he's had an interesting little life here. He had some fun stuff happen. He played high school. He was a big athlete in high school. Is that right? Yeah, he played baseball and basketball in high school and was pretty good at baseball from what I read. And then basketball, he was on the team anyway. He went to Orangeville High, graduated in 1950, and went into the Navy. Wow. And this was a time between World War II and Korea. So good time to not be in a war. Very small. No, he doesn't know what's what's coming. But he's stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. So that's where he ends up being for a while there. He gets engaged to another Orangeville student who's a few years younger than him um named dorothy here uh gets engaged to her in 1952 uh when she's still in high school and he's in the navy uh we'll talk about their wedding in a
Starting point is 00:40:13 second oh my goodness what a what a lovely affair here but sure before he gets before he gets engaged to her he has something crazy happen in 1952. Okay. He apparently had a farm 14 miles southwest of Upper Sandusky. All right. Ohio? No. Oh. I think it's Wisconsin.
Starting point is 00:40:35 Sandusky, Wisconsin. Yeah. Yeah. It's a ski. It's in Wisconsin. There's one up there, too, I'm sure. So he apparently was going into the woods on his farm to dump some trash, you know, as you do, I guess. And when he did that, he found a human leg.
Starting point is 00:40:53 What? He found a human leg and he called the sheriff and he called the coroner. After he found the leg, he found other stuff just by standing there looking around. They found some arms. Oh, boy. Old Curly did looking around. They found some arms. Oh boy. Old Curly did. And then they found a head. The whole thing. The whole thing just in pieces and parts. Like a dumped bucket of person within a
Starting point is 00:41:16 200 foot radius of a depression torn into the ground by an explosion. What? The torso was nearby in five pieces. did what did okay what happened now neighbors this is why this is weird man i don't i don't know about this with him uh neighbors of of elmer curly here said that they saw headlights of a car enter and leave the woods shortly before a big blast shook the ground at about 9.30 p.m. the day before.
Starting point is 00:41:48 They thought the explosion was at the nearby stone quarry, so they didn't think anything of it there. So they ended up seeking two suspects that they thought were safecrackers for questioning in the murder of a Cleveland filling station operator, Cleveland he came from. Ohio, yeah. Yeah, whose body was dynamited to prevent identification. They say this man was shot and then blown up with dynamite. To not be found. Blown up with dynamite.
Starting point is 00:42:19 Holy shit. And Curly found this? It was on his farm. It was right by, like, that's what makes it, like, kind of like. Yeah, what the fuck would you do, Curly? That's strange here. So the sheriff said the victim was Carl Quimbin of Cleveland, alias Carl Stone. Identification was made from the fingerprints taken when he was arrested a few months earlier and pleaded guilty to passing a bad check in
Starting point is 00:42:45 Cleveland. So they said they were found strewn over a big area. Police obtained all these fingerprints from everybody. They the identification was the first break in the case. And they said they Jesus Christ that his wife saying that her husband indicated that he did something with two men who he called safe crackers and so they were trying to find what happened here they were looking for these safe crackers to talk to them so they said he was shot in the head and then blown apart by dynamite but it's found he finds him on his farm and then they never find anybody who did it who did it yeah yeah so told dorothy that he worked with two people on a no no no this is the guy who disappeared told his wife oh he had worked with two people these safecracker guys got it that's the only lead
Starting point is 00:43:39 they have on any kind of underworld anybody that would want to blow somebody up so yeah and safecrackers might keep explosives too so they thought that would be sure but also people on farms have explosives as well they do stump removals and shit like that so it's you know it's one of those deals who knows so he gets engaged to our our deceased woman here dorothy may uh booze boost john is her name b-u-s-j-a-h-n bus john bus john she won the lottery getting rid of that name wow and then she got wiss well w was so it's another equally puzzling name um she was born in 36 uh she also went to orangeville high School where she was a golfer there seems like she golfs for years after this too she's a good golfer in high school
Starting point is 00:44:30 here I guess he at this point when they got engaged it was announced in the paper he was working for Wally Tushar in South Wayne so they get married in 1954 and it's a
Starting point is 00:44:44 I found the August 25th 1954 i found the newspaper article and oh boy it says how uh she's the daughter of geraldine and and he's the daughter of burt he's the son of bertha so there you go they're married and uh the bride wore a ballerina length gown of nylon tulle t--U-L-L-E. I don't know what that is. Tulle? Tulle? And Allen's.
Starting point is 00:45:08 We are terrible with wedding dress materials. And remember the other last one we talked about a wedding dress? I don't remember. And Allen Conn lace and triple-tiered skirt of tulle or tulle or whatever that is. Yeah. Accented with a wide band of lace. hull or tool or whatever that is, accented with a wide band of lace,
Starting point is 00:45:25 a long-sleeved bolero, applique, I don't even know, it's hard to tell because it's an old newspaper, something with lace, covered the bodice, there it is, bodice,
Starting point is 00:45:35 bodice, bodice, there it is again. Damn it, of the gown. She wore half that lace, trimmed with sequins and seed pearls, and held her imported silk illusion veil featuring a hand rolled hem. Holy shit.
Starting point is 00:45:51 That sounds elaborate. Complicated. Sounds expensive is what it sounds like. Yeah, it does. And then they talked about her bridesmaids wearing identical bullshit and all that. That's what they do. Yeah, that's what they do. 1957.
Starting point is 00:46:02 I see old Elmer here. Old Curly gets busted for having an improper muffler on his car. Don't want to do that. That's going to cost him $10. So $10 fine there. That's not great. I see he wrote a letter to the Capital Times, a letter to the editor of the Capital Times newspaper on March 25th, 1964, that said, Dear Art, we would like to schedule a few games with softball teams from the American
Starting point is 00:46:33 Badger and Chippewa Leagues for my team, Joe's Bar at Mount Horeb. Joe's Bar, welcome all comers, come play. That's right. We can play any night at 8 except Friday, which is our league night. We hope to start our season about the second week in May. We played a few of the teams last year and would like more this year. I feel we have a fine team and can give them all a battle. Teams may contact me by writing to Elmer Wiss, and he gives the address. I enjoy your column very much, he says as well. Elmer Weiss, manager, Joe's Bar.
Starting point is 00:47:04 Oh, he's the manager. He's the manager joe's bar oh he's the manager he's the manager of joe's bar at that moment in time okay so 1972 okay dorothy and curly sue the town of mount horrib because of this is you'd sue too and so would i I. They're suing, by the way, for $100,000 in 1972 in damages for a sewage backup they said was due to negligence on the part of the village of Mount Horeb. They said in the complaint that sewage flowing through the village of Mount Horeb sewer system backed into their basement on November 1st. God damn it. That's gross. They turned that into their basement on November 1st. God damn it. That's gross. They turned that into a rec room. Holy shit.
Starting point is 00:47:49 How'd you ever get the poop smell out? And that's how she died. Oh my God. In addition, uh, they said that when they, he tried to inspect his basement after the sewage backup, he fell on steps made slippery by the stew sewage and injured his back while
Starting point is 00:48:04 falling into the sewage so then he was laying there with an injured back going help help i'm in i'm in sewage someone fucking help me oh my god what did he win or did they blame it on the trolls they said sorry the trolls get into the pipe sometimes he got drunk last last night. It was that smiley one. It's a troll town. You know the one with the big beer stein? It's him. He hooked up with the strongest man from the competition.
Starting point is 00:48:33 They get into tearing shit up. It's over. You can sue them if you want. They said the sewage system, lift stations and sewer lines and other pertinent parts of the sewage and disposal systems were carelessly improperly and negligently designed, installed, and maintained by the village. And they're asking for $100,000. They get some money out of that, and I believe that's how they fix and finish their whole basement as well. Wow.
Starting point is 00:48:56 So this finished basement exists because of a shit backup. So the things that shit, talk about shit rolling downhill yeah this is like a wow silver lining what is this is quite the butterfly effect yeah if the butterfly if the butterfly effect was about just tons of raw sewage that's what this would be about so if that if that basement's a concrete one you've got like a a water line on the wall from it oh yeah always remember line yeah you're gonna have a poop line oh boy always remember that's not good corn all stuck in there no one wants that yikes so 1981 when the this whole dorothy is is killed here let's catch up with them curly is currently a cheese maker of course he is what
Starting point is 00:49:47 else would he be really he manages a cheese factory yes and they're gonna they almost made a movie uh city slickers 3 the legend of curly's cheese legend of curly's gold cheese legend of curly's cheddar i believe they were gonna call it so yeah he manages a cheese factory that's what he does which sounds so made up if i just said yeah there's this guy in wisconsin his name's curly and he manages a cheese factory go get the fuck out of here curly's curds elmer curly he wears overalls to that cheese factory oh yeah i think i picture him every day wearing like the red and black lumberjack flannel yeah with overalls over it that's his workout day i feel like yeah so they have at least four kids that i can figure out here okay they have jackie who's the oldest she's a daughter
Starting point is 00:50:37 who's married out of the house they have terry who's another out of the house older daughter yeah they have john he's the son who found his mom and then they have joreen joreen joreen joreen obviously um she's 13 and here she is as well now john says that um his mother and father have had marital problems they've been married for 27 years they've had problems you're gonna fight a little there's some baggage there's fighting he said but they had been getting along quote very well in recent months oh things have been going well um now he's the only one who seems to say that though um now there are rumors around town as soon as dorothy's body is pulled out of the house and this is this case this town is gossipy they really are like
Starting point is 00:51:22 later on there's a lot of quotes where you're like, this is a gossipy-ass town. You people, shut the fuck up. Like, all of you, shut up. Worry about yourself. Yeah, mind your business already. While we talk about this, they said this spawned dozens of rumors in this town that Dorothy might have been killed by an intruder connected with the drug world. And there's a lot of reasons for this. Reason is she had told friends of hers that she used drugs on a regular basis
Starting point is 00:51:55 and that she had angered someone in the drug community. Yeah, the drug community. And there were reports, by by the way all around the neighborhood many people had reports of an quote unfamiliar man seen in the neighborhood a few days before the murder okay so they saw a stranger and one time she smoked a joint and then she told the guy this ain't shit yeah she was like was like, this is bullshit. You call this fucking chocolate tie, and then it was a... So, yeah, that's what's going on. But she had told friends she did use drugs.
Starting point is 00:52:34 She pissed somebody off, so friends had said that. An unfamiliar person in the neighborhood. Was it a troll? We don't know. Was it a tourist looking for trolls? That's the thing. Was it somebody going, I'm looking for the... I heard there's and he's just he's doing the cutest thing and i need to find it there's a lot of fun around here this is so much fun to be found with these dang trolls so the relationship uh obviously curly's gonna get questioned by the deputies and detectives
Starting point is 00:53:01 about what's up with yeah what's so how's your marriage going we found your wife you know taken apart with a knife in the basement things okay everything okay in the home front happy wife happy life what are we talking here so um now he currently described himself as extremely jealous oh very jealous he said he said that his wife liked to go out and hang out in bars all the time and all hang out and, you know, make friends and fuck around in bars. And he said that she would often, quote, flaunt this by bringing guys home. Okay, I don't like that. That's what he tells them afterwards. Yeah, so I don't know if that was um you know if he she she would bring
Starting point is 00:53:46 guys home i guess for what he's saying him for it you know what i mean no because it would be in the middle of the night so this would be for she'd bring guys home to fuck them apparently is what he's saying right yeah so i don't know if the basement was the the fuck den according to him if that's what he's claiming or what here. So he told the detective that her running around and being gone pissed him off all the time because he never knew who she was with or what she was doing. She'd come home with guys and she'd do all this shit. She said that, or he said, Elmer said that Curly told the detective
Starting point is 00:54:21 that if she was loud enough when she came home to the point where it woke him up in the middle of the night because he said he had to get up he had to get up by he had to be like out of the house by five to manage a cheese factory she's mongering early days well cheese doesn't curd itself you know what i mean you got to get in there you got to get in there so um he said the early worm the early early bird gets the cheese. We all know this. So he said that Elmer told him that if she was loud enough to that point that it woke him up in the middle of the night, he'd get angry and would often get up to yell at her. And that would lead between to a half asleep slash drunken argument at two o'clock in the morning between them, which is a lot of fun. That's great for the kids. That's how you want to wake up at two in the morning what's going on yeah and they're hearing them just oh my god i don't want to know what he heard mom's drunk and dad's pissed great
Starting point is 00:55:15 so um uh curly also told the detective that this secure this would occur after one or both of them had been drinking as well, too. They'd get in arguments all the time, which to drunk people, that happens a lot. There's no reasonable person there at that point. It's a very understandable argument. Yeah, we're both shit-faced. So they said that he said later on, Curly would tell them, that there would be arguments after she went, quote,
Starting point is 00:55:43 uptown and got back in the evenings also so yeah where before she'd leave they'd fight when she got home they'd fight they'd fight fight fight so he also admitted that he had physically abused her during their years of marriage okay he said he has physically abused her over the years quite a bit, as a matter of fact. Is that right? Yeah, on a pretty regular basis here. He did say, though, there has been no abuse during the last year. One year. I'm punch free.
Starting point is 00:56:15 Haven't touched her in a year. It's pretty good. Where's my chip? Where's my chip for that? What the fuck is that about? You got a chip with a boxing glove with a slash yeah super proud of it uh that he hasn't beat his wife you know the first 26 years of marriage fine but the last year i've been a saint i'm 368 days clean wow yeah so the son and john said the same thing
Starting point is 00:56:38 as it didn't seem to be they seem to be getting along better over in the last year probably because there's less beatings that would help that's going to help the relationship so um yeah there you go now she went to a psychiatrist in 1981 between january and june of 1981 she went to see a psychiatrist a dr maric j han and dorothy told this dr han that she lived in fear of her husband. Oh. Yes, and especially when he's drinking. He's extra scary, which is not a surprise. That seems pretty standard.
Starting point is 00:57:14 Far from the course, yeah. Yeah. Hahn said he treated her for help with quitting smoking and anxiety. She wanted to quit smoking. She was nervous. with quitting smoking and anxiety. She wanted to quit smoking. She was nervous.
Starting point is 00:57:28 Han said that Dorothy told him that, quote, her husband had a tendency to become violent while under the influence of alcohol. He gets drunk and beats me, you know. And I would like to quit smoking, and this environment is not helping with that. Not conducive. Yeah, I'd love a cigarette after he's, you know, I'm scared of him being drunk and violent. So I can't imagine she's the first person sitting in a chair who's told the psychiatrist this particular information here. The psychiatrist also said that Dorothy kept talking about her husband being a heavy drinker.
Starting point is 00:58:00 She said he would drink all day long just sipping. She's one of those people who starts early and just he's drinking all day long. Not binge drinking, like not trying to get as much in him as possible, but he's always got a buzz going. Maintain it. Yeah. Maintain it. Always. Oh, and you could kick that in high gear by slamming a couple quick and you could really get drunk. And he, uh, Dorothy also told the psychiatrist that
Starting point is 00:58:19 there were occasions when Curly had been abusive toward her and specifically pointed to a fight that they had in January of 1981. This is right before she started seeing the psychiatrist. She also expressed concern that her husband, quote, may become violent with the children, especially their son, John. Really?
Starting point is 00:58:40 Because he's 17 and, you know, he might have he might not love it that if you know dad's beating on mom yeah by the time you're 17 you start to go hey no i i got in a fight at school i i know what punch feels like i'm not doing that yeah you're not doing that shit anymore so by 17 he may become a challenge to his father yeah so this is what's going on here this is what she said to the to the you know to the psychiatrist so that's not great neighbors when police talk to neighbors as well neighbors who live across the street had overheard numerous arguments between dorothy and curly sometimes starting around midnight and continuing till 3 or 4 in the morning. Three or four hour fights.
Starting point is 00:59:28 Of drunken arguing. Oh, God. With the volume knob turned up and broke off. Rip the knob off. Oh, my God. Turn it up and rip off the knob. Domestic violence. This is horrible.
Starting point is 00:59:44 Turn it up to 10 and break it. Break the knob off. This is the worst morning radio show ever this is terrible not good fucking disgusting so yeah arguing all night long here um in march of 81 dorothy fled to her daughter's house which is like they have an apartment but it's like right down the street it's walking distance so she just ran out crying and ran over to her daughter's apartment saying that if she didn't get out curly was going to kill her okay that was her quote your father's going to kill me if i don't get out of the house okay i mean we got a great suspect for this this is yeah this is this is not looking great uh she spent the night in a local motel that night and um yeah then she had told her husband her
Starting point is 01:00:24 psychiatrist all through this because she had seen the psychiatrist right after that that she was definitely definitely living in fear and all that sort of thing so when they find all this out they ask elmer had you ever threatened your wife right it's one of the questions they ask curly elmer curly and old old elmer curly says this quote i told her that if she didn't clean up her axe she'd find her throat slit curly curls curls i told her if she didn't fix what she was doing she's gonna end up the way y'all found her the way y'all i told her that if she didn't stop doing the stuff i don't like her doing, that this is what would happen. And that's what happened in my own house.
Starting point is 01:01:09 In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Erin and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence
Starting point is 01:01:48 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.
Starting point is 01:02:08 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
Starting point is 01:02:30 Deity, that is pretty great, a dash of sarcasm, and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing, this mother 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.
Starting point is 01:02:56 You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. He said, though, that I wasn't meaning that like I was going to cut her throat. That's what he said. He said I wasn't going to slit her throat. He said I just made that statement in reference to the danger she faced from her association with criminal drug dealers. It was someone who cares about her giving her like a warning of, you know, I don't want this to happen to you.
Starting point is 01:03:24 That's his claim. Right. Yeah, like I'm sure OJ told Nicole like a warning of you know i don't want this to happen to you that's his claim right yeah like i'm sure oj told nicole right beforehand that you know you got to stop um yeah ridiculous it's so stupid so march 19th 1981 is the dorothy getting upset and marching over to her her daughter's apartment just a few months ago that was just yeah a few months before this this was at 1 a.m she showed up at her daughter jackie's door uh daughter jackie and husband lester there showed up at their door they got into a fight um well here's what happened they dorothy showed up at their door because she had gotten into a fight with elmer and Curly. The reason why they were in a fight is because Elmer, at 1 a.m., had gotten into a fist fight with another man inside their home. Okay.
Starting point is 01:04:12 So it seemed. Why you got to spoil every good time, Elmer? Dorothy brought a guy home, it seems, from the bar, and Elmer heard him coming in and didn't like that so much. So Elmer beat the shit out of this guy in his own house here. And the daughter said when Dorothy showed up all upset about this, she said, quote, she said she didn't know if he was going to kill the man. So it looked like Elmer was going to beat this guy to death in his own home,
Starting point is 01:04:40 which understandable. If you wake up at 1 in the morning and there's some guy about to fucking pork your wife in your own house, you might beat him half to death. You know what I mean? And he didn't hit her that night. He took it all out on that man. Yeah, he beat the shit. Well, she ran out of the house, so she probably knew she was next and fucking ran away, which makes sense. So that is crazy.
Starting point is 01:05:02 I guess they. So the husband, Jackie, the daughter's husband, Lester. He went over to the house to see what was up. Like Dorothy was like, go over there and see if you can calm him down. Like, fuck. You can either calm him down or call the police about the body. Yeah. Or do something. So once he gets there, though, it's just Curly alone in the house sitting there.
Starting point is 01:05:25 But he helped his father-in-law clean up the blood in the kitchen. He beat the shit out of the family. Yeah, there was blood all over the kitchen that they had to clean up. So, middle of the night this poor guy, mother-in-law, drunken mother-in-law banging on the door he has to go over there
Starting point is 01:05:41 and help his father-in-law clean up some other drunk's blood in his kitchen in the middle of the fucking night. He's like, I got to be up at 630. This is, yeah, Jackie, Jesus, he's a good husband, this guy. Sure is. What would you say to this request? No, not my problem. Yeah, I don't know, man.
Starting point is 01:06:00 If he kills him, that's their thing. I don't know. Mom can hang out here if she wants, but other than that, I'm not getting more involved than that, right? That seems like a lot, especially if you know how they are, if you've been in this family. You're married to Jackie. You know how things go in this family. And Lester's seen what he's done to Jackie's mom. If he's going to do that to a woman, holy fuck, I'm going to get over there.
Starting point is 01:06:23 It's going to be a bloodbath, whatever he did to this it's gonna be brutal yeah so um apparently according to lester curly said that he had seen the man at a bar earlier that evening went to the bar to confront this man to tell him to stay the hell away from his wife he said you stay the hell away from my wife then at 1 a.m this guy is in his house with his wife so this guy asked for a beating i'm sorry i'm on curly's side for this one if a person tells you hey i'm not cool like it's not like that live show where that lady was like my husband's really cool he's not cool with this you know what i mean at all and he's gonna come up and and fucking be like you stay the shit away from my wife.
Starting point is 01:07:06 And then you're going to show up at one in the morning. I would expect to get my ass kicked if I'm that other man. Fuck yes. I'm hoping old Elmer doesn't wake up because he's definitely going to want to whoop my ass. What did Dorothy do to coax that man? What man in his right mind goes there? A drunk horny one. She's like, we can sneak in.
Starting point is 01:07:26 It's okay. And she's like, let's go to the basement. Yeah, it's okay. It still smells like poop. I'll go. So they had seen, that's what he said that he would be asked by Dorothy to come over and try to, quote, calm Curly down when she suspected an argument was coming. When things were starting to get tense, she'd call up the kids and be like,
Starting point is 01:07:56 why don't you guys come over? Get a buffer in between the two of us. Lester's like the Curly Whisperer. He calms him down, and then I think having the daughter there maybe calms the situation down a little bit, having the adult daughter there. I don't know. So on November 17, 1981, which is the day of the murder here,
Starting point is 01:08:17 where were they? How did this happen? What led to this? Okay, well, Anne Erickson is the woman that on the night of the 16th that dorothy had been out drinking with a woman named ann erickson um again very viking erickson um they were hanging out the night of the 16th and um this ann is the woman who dropped dorothy at home shortly after 1 a.m she said that they met at the Viking Bowl, which is a bowling alley where you drink. That is very Wisconsin.
Starting point is 01:08:52 Meet me at the Viking Bowl so we can get shit tanked, and then I'll drop you off at home at 1 a.m. after we've just both been drinking a lot of booze. Literally the most disgusting sport on earth, too. It's fucking amazing. So they stop. I on earth, too. It's fucking amazing. It's fine. So they stop. I like bowling, though. It's fun.
Starting point is 01:09:09 It's good. Yeah, but it's so gross. Oh, it's... Yeah, get your own ball and shoes, and it's not as gross. It's fine, then. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Get your own shoes, mainly.
Starting point is 01:09:17 Yeah. There's so much of the touching other people's shit. The shoes are the main thing. I don't want to wear another person's shoes. That's disgusting. They've been out doing an activity in, especially hundreds of people yeah so they met at the viking bowl then stopped at several other bars before oh my they had a full night of it drinking and having a ball and then she dropped her off at like one she said that dorothy was feeling good but not drunk or intoxicated. I assure you she is hammered.
Starting point is 01:09:46 I was just going to say we have to kind of soften this for Wisconsin because feeling good but not drunk or intoxicated in rural Wisconsin means something different than wherever you are right now. Yeah, she was drinking all day, guys. Yeah. You're thinking buzzed, feeling good but not drunk or intoxicated. It's buzzed. I'm walking around feeling all right.
Starting point is 01:10:08 No slurring of speech. You know, that's drunk. That just means conscious is drunk or not intoxicated. I mean, she walked into the house on her own power, so I feel like she was feeling good but not drunk or intoxicated. Otherwise, she'd have fallen out of the car when I opened the door for her. It's a different deal there. So they talked about she had some appointments there, Dorothy. People had called.
Starting point is 01:10:38 I guess she had appointments that day. She had a hair appointment. She had some other appointments that day that she missed, I guess. Now, Curly, what did he do the night before? He attended a basketball game on the night of November 16th. I assume a high school game, possibly. Unless he maybe went over to Madison and watched a Badgers game? I'm not sure.
Starting point is 01:10:58 It seems like it was a local deal, though, because they were at somebody's house before that. This is while she went out and drank at bars. He went to the basketball game. A friend of theirs named David L. Flom, he's known them for 25 years, you know, known them forever. He said that Curly and Dorothy visited his home on November 16th, that he was on his way to a basketball game, and that Curly wanted David to come along with him to the basketball game,
Starting point is 01:11:28 but Flom didn't feel like going. So when Curly left the home, he asked his brother-in-law if he would see to it that Dorothy got home from here because they were both over there. Elmer came over with Dorothy, and then he said, okay, well, we're going to go. Will you make sure she gets home? They said then Curly kissed his wife goodbye and left for the game. He said, quote, they were getting along real well. Must have been a good kiss. That's that night. So that's fine. He Curly said he returned home about nine forty five p.m. and he walked through the door he watched some tv uh on the first floor which is the above the basement then he went to sleep in the ground floor basement or bedroom not
Starting point is 01:12:14 the basement this is the first floor bedroom that he shared with dorothy uh he said that he didn't sleep well that night though and woke up at approximately 1 a.m when he heard dorothy come in the door oh so he hears her coming the door now we know when she's loud enough to wake him up it pisses him off he gets up and he gets mad yeah he even said that so um she uh and that the 1 a.m is like we said backed up by ann erickson who dropped her off at 1 a.m um by the way this is a feeling good but not intoxicated yeah or or drunk uh in wisconsin that means a 0.21 alcohol level that's what they found inside her blood alcohol content for her of 0.21 my god yeah that's pretty fucking drunk i'm sorry that's drunk you've been drinking that's you've been fucking drinking you're
Starting point is 01:13:06 going to jail for a while if you drive yeah watch a long live pd or on patrol whatever it's called now and you'll see somebody blow you'll see wow he's pretty tanked and they blow like a fucking 0.19 you're like yeah they're pretty fucking hammered 0.21 is pretty drunk but not not that drunk in wisconsin which means her friend was probably at the same amount and she was driving what does that tell you wow we're all wisconsin get it together man um so curly said immediately after she came home he said like he heard her come in and then heard you know walking bump bump bump. Heard her immediately go to the bathroom and start vomiting. Again, a sign of not being very drunk.
Starting point is 01:13:49 0.21 and she's puking. She's puking. Now, the 0.21, too, think about this. Her alcohol level was 0.21 in the autopsy. Right. You know what I'm saying? So we could have got 0.28 here. Who knows?
Starting point is 01:14:00 That's what I mean. We have no idea. And while the body sat there, too, who knows? Also, when you're that drunk, when somebody else is driving, you will get so pukey. Oh, you'll get pukey. Yeah, she came right in and puked. Yeah, that's a sign our friend's a shit driver. Yeah, her friend's, or there's windy roads.
Starting point is 01:14:19 We don't know. They might have fucking had to dodge a deer or two also. So he said he went back to sleep after that. He was like, I don't know, went back to sleep. Heard her puking and was like, well, she's home, I guess, and went back to sleep. He said then he woke up a little bit later and heard her vomiting in the basement rec room. Oh. Okay.
Starting point is 01:14:40 Now we'll find out why. There's a weird sound thing in this house that's from the way it's built, where you can hear everything that happens in the basement everywhere in the house. It's very strange. So he said that it wasn't unusual for her to sleep in the rec room basement on the couch. That was normal for her to do, especially when she's sleeping went off. So he got up, he said at 2 20 a.m he said he arose from bed so wife gets home puking at one goes back to sleep sometime between one and two here's her
Starting point is 01:15:12 puking in the basement and then by 2 20 he just says fuck it and gets up okay um he gets up this is what he does in the middle of the night. Gets out of bed, cleans the kitchen. Really? Okay. Said he didn't check on her at all. Cleaned the kitchen. Then he went back to bed and read a little while and then fell asleep. And then he had to get up at 4.30 a.m. to leave by 5. Jesus.
Starting point is 01:15:42 So even though he has to get up at 4.30, he woke up at 2.20 and said, I should clean the kitchen. He's doing house chores. Then go back to bed. I'll get up early now. Fuck it. I'll should clean the kitchen. He's doing house chores. Then go back to bed. I'll get up early now. Fuck it. I'll just stay up until I have to go to work. I'll clean the kitchen. I'd have nothing better to do.
Starting point is 01:15:52 Nothing's on in the middle of the night. It is good for sleep structure if you get up and do some light activities. Just clean the kitchen at 2.20 a.m. That's fine. And then he goes back. So what did he get? Maybe an hour's sleep? How long does it take you to clean the kitchen and read? You know what I fine and then he goes back so what'd he get maybe an hour sleep how long does it take you to clean the kitchen and read you know what i mean so he goes back to bed got up at 4 30 a.m went to work at 5 to manage the cheese factory time to make the cheese over here
Starting point is 01:16:15 so he said he worked the entire day came home that evening started to prepare dinner and then it was after that at 6 p.m when his son discovered Dorothy in the basement and that's when he learned she'd been killed. He didn't know where she was. He was like, I don't know where she was. Five, we have a fucking Three. Hour and a half. No, 6pm that happened.
Starting point is 01:16:38 Oh. He said I heard her vomiting at about 2am and then no one heard shit from her until 6pm the following day. I heard her vomiting at about 2 a.m. And then no one heard shit from her till 6 p.m. the following day. So you got a 16-hour window here. Holy. Of when he's saying he last heard her to when they found her.
Starting point is 01:16:55 Okay. So he obviously denies. He's like, well, I didn't kill her. Shit. He denied killing her to everyone. And that's when the deputy sheriff asked him and about the shit and he said i told her she didn't clean up her act she'd get her throat slit told her look at her throat slit told her um now john they talked to john as well he's 17 yeah they he said he went
Starting point is 01:17:16 to sleep about 9 p.m and a 17 year old goes to bed at nine o'clock a good boy a good but not me i wasn't even home by 9 o'clock at that age. I can't even get my 14-year-old to do it. No, I wasn't even home by 9 at that age. I was out smoking weed at 9. I'd be home at 10. A 17-year-old going on 43 is who does that.
Starting point is 01:17:38 Yeah, that's great right now. I'd like to take a nice long 9 o'clock nap. That sounds pretty good. That's what I've been trying to get myself to do is go to bed at 9 and then 11.30 rolls around. Yeah. Good luck with that shit. That ain't happening.
Starting point is 01:17:51 9 o'clock. 9 is just too early for a human to go to sleep unless you're doing farm work or you're like a baker or something like that. Someone who is absolutely imperative that you get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and no other... Can't go any later. You know? Those are the only people, though. The military, bakers...
Starting point is 01:18:12 If by 5 a.m. the day is fucked if you're not there, then you need to be in bed at 9. Then you need to be in bed at 9. Otherwise, let's all chill the fuck out a little bit. Let's all calm down. No one needs to be to bed that early. But he's trying to get asleep. He said that he was awoken, though, sometime between 2 and 3 a.m.
Starting point is 01:18:33 when he heard what he described as a single dull or deadened scream, not a piercing, a dull or deadened scream by his mother. He recognized it as his mother screams he's heard her scream quite a bit um coming from the basement rec room okay at the time when curly said he was cleaning the kitchen right okay that shit yeah he said though that he had never heard his mother scream like that before it was a different scream he said he didn't investigate because as he said quote it was none of my business oh attaboy he gets it um he said none of my business and he said that if his mother was arguing with his father they might be fighting about it and the last thing he wants to do at two
Starting point is 01:19:19 in the morning is go wander down and go what you guys fighting about what's the matter yep he just wants to go back to sleep and ignore it and go to school the next day. He said he stayed awake for a few minutes, then went back to sleep. He got up about 7.30, left for school about 8. So that's his day. He said when he came home from school on November 17th, his father asked him if he had heard his mother the previous night. And John had said he didn't, though.
Starting point is 01:19:44 He said no. Because he didn't want to get involved or hear his father's story about he just said no i don't know nothing he's just trying to ignore it and uh and that john said no he said that elmer told him curly told him that she had quote a real doozy when she came home she was shit shit faced and i guess in quite the mood when she came home is what Curly tells his son. This is before they find the body. So after, uh,
Starting point is 01:20:11 Curly, um, finds out late, he doesn't find out that John heard a scream till later when the police tell him your son heard a scream. What was that all about? Um, so Curly asked John if it could have been the noise from the ice machine in the refrigerator that he heard rather than a scream because obviously those noises sound very similar
Starting point is 01:20:29 you need a new refrigerator yeah your mother's screaming for her life or a couple ice cubes being dropped into a fucking tray I get that it's 81 and the ice makers weren't that great in the fridges yet, but a woman's dying scream? Really? We're all sick. Wow. You really got to get the Maytag man over there. He's got something to do now. He's got his work cut out for him.
Starting point is 01:20:56 It's your old ass up over here. We can't tell if it's a murder or a new batch of ice. So John had told him it was definitely not the ice machine. You can tell the difference. Dummy. So that is crazy. Now, Curly said that he didn't hear a scream at all, he tells the police later on. He said the only sound he heard his wife making was retching and vomiting noises from the basement.
Starting point is 01:21:23 Yeah. That's it. That was about the time that noises from the basement yeah that's it that was about the time that john heard the scream apparently so retching vomiting or screaming for her life or screaming for her life so he's trying to say maybe he heard her puking i don't know or maybe i heard her screaming and thought i heard her puking yeah so they're saying somebody was confused with someone's be confused between throwing up and you know your death throes someone's sound gross it's sometimes it really does sound bad and like afterwards i'll almost like kind of
Starting point is 01:21:52 whimper to myself a little bit like a couple weeks ago when i got sick and i had food poisoning all night and i threw up like every hour by like three four in the morning i was just i would throw up and then go i'd literally just feel like why it hurts so bad my fucking ribs hurt i just give a little sob but it didn't wouldn't be confused with me being murdered and screaming for it you know i went to dinner with my friend in detroit and he fed me all kinds of meats and we went downstairs and i puked in the detroit river had my back torn to him when i did it and he goes oh my god was that a puke i was like yeah he goes are you okay i'm like oh i'm fine yeah oh god you were puking excess food yeah yeah but whatever noise i make to do that evidently sounds horrifying yeah yeah it's sound like an animal i got hit by a car but still not a murdered person yeah it's not yeah it's not please stop yeah i've never done
Starting point is 01:22:48 that i've never thrown up and just went oh god it's never happened before yeah so um he stated here elmer said curly that the sound carries easily from the rec room in the basement all the way to their bedroom and John's bedroom because of, OK, quote, a register running under the ceiling of the rec room to those two bedrooms. So they talk through the AC vents to each other. So apparently, yes, you can hear from that. He said it carried very easily. He said, quote, we always used to say, why the hell did they put that damn thing in? Because every darn sound could be heard from that rec room. It's rare that people use damn and darn in the same sentence.
Starting point is 01:23:32 Yeah. Usually you go full damn or you just stick with darn. But you don't usually say, God damn it, this darn thing is driving me crazy. Unless you say it and then you go, it's not. It doesn't warrant that word yet. Yeah, maybe. That's what it is. Why the hell did they put that damn thing in there?
Starting point is 01:23:47 Because every darn sound could be heard from that rec room. Okay. So that's where we get the sounds. Now, Jackie, the daughter again here that lives in the apartment nearby, she said that shortly after Dorothy's body was discovered, while Curly was distraught, she heard him say, quote, Why did you get drunk? Why did you make me mad at you? Which is not what you want to be heard saying. No. Why did you do that?
Starting point is 01:24:15 Then she said that he just kept kind of saying, why, why, why? OK, that's what the police have her statement as in the beginning. Okay. That's what the police have her statement as in the beginning. Her sister, Terry, who was also there, said that she never heard her father make any statement and she was by him the whole time. She never heard him say that. Jackie's husband says also they talked to him. He's got something to talk about on the stranger theory. theory okay he said that a stranger came to their apartment which is two houses away from the curly and dorothy's home yeah at about 7 p.m on november 12th and november 16th both days both
Starting point is 01:24:55 days this stranger asked for a blonde woman who lived in the neighborhood that he was quote looking for okay she had dyed her hair blonde in the last few months so dorothy so somebody a stranger could have been looking for her two doors away the night of the murder at 7 p.m okay according to uh according to lester now joreen she said she uh went to bed that night and heard nothing about nothing from nothing. No puking, no screaming, nothing. She slept through the night, woke up about 730, went to school at eight, doesn't know anything. Wow. Doesn't know shit.
Starting point is 01:25:34 So the emergency medical service crew that responded to the home here, they described Elmer as, quote, very agitated, very upset, crying, and rather incoherent when they got there. Okay. Which all makes sense if you found your wife slaughtered in the basement. Makes sense both ways, really. Makes sense whether you killed her, whether you didn't kill her, you know, whatever. Whether you're trying to put on a show or you actually didn't do anything. It all makes sense there.
Starting point is 01:26:01 One of the members of the crew, Mickey Dinen, he said he was assigned to stay with and comfort Curly at the scene. Yeah. Hang with him. Make sure he doesn't do anything weird. He described him as incoherent. He said that he spoke in rambling phrases and just kept saying that his wife had just had surgery. He said that over and over. She just had surgery.
Starting point is 01:26:21 She just had surgery. He had told this EMS worker that when he came home from work, his wife wasn't there, so he began cooking a barbecue dinner. Which that's what you do. You don't even look in, by the way, one of the floors that your wife hangs out in a lot. Don't look there. Don't crack the door open. Where everything was a mess last night, according to the noise from the register. I wonder if maybe if he just said
Starting point is 01:26:45 if he's claiming he just called her dorothy home and then she didn't answer or whatever the fuck but i think i'd go look for him i'd be worried that my spouse didn't choke on her own vomit yes that's one of the other things but he doesn't worry about that much later on uh he said that uh he told the the ems worker that his son went into the basement family room and returned upstairs saying, Mom's sick. Okay. So then Elmer told him, Sick, she's dead. The damn kid didn't even act surprised. This is what he said.
Starting point is 01:27:19 This is what Curly told the EMS worker. He said, I told John, Sick, she's dead. The damn kid didn't even act surprised. He didn't even cry. She wasn't sick. She was dead. There was blood all over everything. That's what Elmer said.
Starting point is 01:27:34 You getting something out of that? I mean. He's either. Right. How does that kid not know the difference between sick and dead that's what i mean if he's telling the truth john john has a lot of explaining to do sure does yeah and if he's not telling the truth he's a fucking monster who's trying to set his son up to fall for this because that's what he's doing he's either telling the truth and saying i'm worried you know he's
Starting point is 01:28:04 scared his son did it. Or he's literally going, I mean, he didn't even cry. Kid didn't even have a reaction. Look at me. Kid had no emotions. I'm losing my shit. This is how people react. He's not even reacting.
Starting point is 01:28:16 Yeah, she's sick. She's dead. What are you talking about? And from this scene, you would not go down there and go, oh, she's sick. Yeah, you'd never have that conclusion. There's fucking blood everywhere. You'd go, oh, she's sick. Yeah, you'd never have that conclusion. There's fucking blood everywhere. You'd go, holy shit, mom exploded, is what you'd say. Like, insane.
Starting point is 01:28:31 And that's the thing that I found strange. I was waiting to get to this. In his 911 call, Curly says, my wife's dead downstairs. She's stiff as a board. Yeah, there's no mention of how much fucking blood is everywhere yeah what would be the first thing you would notice her her you know state of rigor or the fact that she has no blood inside right yeah she's got her head is almost off and there's blood fucking everywhere like that me, she's stiff as a board. Get on over here.
Starting point is 01:29:05 It's not, that's not enough. That tells me this is, there's, all he's saying is there's no, there's no bringing her back. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But you also have to understand, see, this is another fucking thing that you have to take into place is kind of regional shit. Wisconsin people are non-demonstrative, extremely non-demonstrative. I need help.
Starting point is 01:29:26 They're the least Italian people there are. Okay. You know what I'm saying? No. They're very calm. No. They're very calm. They're very quiet.
Starting point is 01:29:37 They're not a, they don't talk with their hands and act crazy. They're very reserved. Yeah. Or non-demonstrative if you want to be have a fucking eighth grade vocabulary so they're very much like that like they're they're i remember watching a behavior panel thing uh where they were talking about uh the uh steven avery yeah and they were talking about him and one of the guys on the behavior panel was saying you can see like his arms are down at his side like he's keeping it in and that could be a sign of deception and the
Starting point is 01:30:07 other guy went he goes i gotta break in here in wisconsin he said that's you keep your arms down by your side if you raised your hand to say something be like oh calm down pal like what are you trying to hit me yeah exactly they're so like oh i don't know so that's part of it also that you know oh she's sick she's dead i don't know it's or i'm not sure so there's he's not going to be going crazy and wailing maybe but i don't know you might cry they said he was crying when they got there the ems he was sobbing and wailing and rambling incoherently when he got there. The son, I mean? No, not the son, the father. The son was fine. He was fine. That's weird.
Starting point is 01:30:46 That's weird. So the guy who performed the autopsy, Dr. Billy Bauman here, he said that he presumed the murder was done with the steak knife near the body because the knife fit into the cut on the vertebrae. The knife found beneath her right arm was described by him as, Curly said, they said, we found this murder weapon and he said that's quote my favorite knife that's my favorite knife oh man my wife being dead wasn't the worst part of this day you guys are gonna take that aren't you oh i'm never gonna be able to cut my new york strips now fuck the fuck why would he say that my favorite knife god damn it he said
Starting point is 01:31:27 that the last time he saw this knife he keeps track of it it's like a the last time he saw this knife was when he had left for the basketball game on the evening before and then at that time it was on the kitchen counter okay ready for just any sort of utility use because it's his favorite night. Any sandwich I fucking crave. So he said that when he cleaned the kitchen at 2.20 a.m., nothing weird about that, he was certain the knife wasn't there. Couldn't find it. Huh. Gone. He said that he checked the kitchen area again in the morning before he left for work.
Starting point is 01:31:59 He said, and if there was anything still out, I turned the dishwasher on and went to work. So he looked for the knife multiple times and couldn't find it. It's his favorite steak knife. How many times have you ever scoured your kitchen for a particular knife? When you wake up in the middle of the night, you go, is my knife down there? Where is my damn knife? And then the next morning before you go to work, before the sun is even up, you say, fucking, oh, man, I got to find that damn steak knife. It's that knife. knife is that knife that is
Starting point is 01:32:26 really weird um he said that uh now the the bowman the guy who did the autopsy said this serrated you know steak kitchen knife right uh was quote a most inefficient weapon to slash anybody's throat it required a minimum of a dozen slash wounds to make the throat wound he sawed her fucking head off with this because it's a serrated dull yeah so one slash isn't going to go in very far it's not like a sharp knife where if you slash it's going to go deep yeah this isn't going that deep so he had to saw her head off basically back and forth till he finally hit vertebrae. Oh my. And went, oh, too far. That's wild. That's wild.
Starting point is 01:33:09 I don't even know what to say about the brutality it takes to do that. That's fucking insane. They said that, this Bauman said that nearly 20 other stab wounds were found on the torso, like we said. He said slashes on her palms, classic defense wounds that showed that she attempted to grab the blade of the knife and it had been pulled through her hand.
Starting point is 01:33:27 She grabbed the blade and they fucking ripped it out. They estimated that she died a minimum of 10 hours before he saw her body, which was he saw her body at 1030 p.m. Finally, this guy, he said she'd been gone for at least 10 hours. So he says time of death somewhere between midnight and basically noon of that night. So physical evidence taken from the crime scene. Murder weapon, a white handled knife with a
Starting point is 01:33:55 serrated edge like we said. They also analyzed a white dish towel found lying near her body and a pair of tennis shoes taken from the home that belonged to Curly and samples of blood found on the hood of the family car and on the inside doorknob leading from the home into the garage. So whoever did it went out the garage?
Starting point is 01:34:17 Went out the garage, apparently. Dripped it on the car and everything. So the lab analyst in this one for the state crime laboratory said that they were unable to lift any finger or palm prints suitable for identification from a doorknob taken in the Weiss home. That particular doorknob. The knob where blood was found was on a door leading from the home to the garage. He said the same thing was true for the steak knife that was found near. They couldn't get prints on it. They also examined three footwear impressions that were found on the hood of the family car.
Starting point is 01:34:53 Somebody jumped on the car? On the hood of the car, which is a 1979 blue Ford LTD. It's a fucking boat. Big car. It's a long car. They said the three impressions on the vehicle were similar in basic size and tread surface design of a pair of running shoes that belonged to Curly Weiss. But he also noted that the soles of the shoes reportedly belonging to Weiss contain no individual characteristics such as cuts or worn areas. So this guy said, I cannot possibly say that the shoes made those impressions the possibility exists that other shoes of the same basic side size and tread surface design could have made those impressions which in 1981 as we know from like richard ramirez there wasn't
Starting point is 01:35:37 that many shoes shoe tread designs there just wasn't nowadays it'd be like holy fuck who knows but back then there really wasn't that many shoe tread designs. There was a waffle. There was kind of a circular thing that basketball shoes used. There was a certain grain for runner shoes. But there wasn't that many. So they're saying that's very possible. They said that they also analyzed hairs found.
Starting point is 01:36:03 Okay. They said there was hairs found in her hand that we'll find. Yes. Four hairs were found in the area around her body and were vacuumed up, and they were consistent with Curly's hair. However, they found the hairs taken from the bag when they stuffed, put her in the body bag, the hairs they got after that. They said one hair was consistent with curly's head hair two others could not be matched with any of the weiss family who lived in the house those are the ones that are out of the hairs had uh the ones in her hands um they said that it was not unusual to find hair of family members near a dead body
Starting point is 01:36:40 obviously because you know um but five head hairs were found in her right hand, grasping them. While some were consistent with her hair, one was inconsistent with any family member. That's fascinating. Yes. So that's interesting. They found some with her hair, some consistent with Curly's hair, some completely don't know whose fucking hair that is.
Starting point is 01:37:05 It's hair. Some completely don't know whose fucking hair that is. It's interesting. So they said, yeah, they found footprints and blood on the hood of the parked car parked in their garage. Also on Dorothy's sweatshirt and bra that was consistent with small blood sample taken from her body. So they said the blood matches. They said the blood on the inside knob of a door leading from the basement stairs to the garage was unidentifiable god damn it i wish we had this technology for this shit now um like you know then yeah 1981 they see blood and go i don't know where that came from yeah absolutely they also said no fingerprints but no evidence that someone had tried to wipe away any prints either okay
Starting point is 01:37:43 they found blood They said blood found on some toilet paper and shredded paper found in the house did not match Dorothy's blood. They found blood in other areas, but that doesn't match Dorothy's blood. They found no bloody clothing in the house.
Starting point is 01:37:59 And they said they found no blood on the jacket or tennis shoes that they took as evidence. They also said that the fingernails were tested for blood and none was found. Okay. Under Elmer's fingernails. Under his hands. Okay. Nothing was found.
Starting point is 01:38:17 No blood on his jacket or shoes as well. Whoever did this is covered in blood. They have to be absolutely head to toe covered in blood. Now, there's time frames that the murder could have occurred in this is where some good technical fucking solve a mystery shit here so they said even assuming some motive existed for the murder by someone other than elmer let's say it's someone other than elmer they're saying that um there's these different time frames the pathologist testified the murder occurs between 12 a orm. and 12 noon on November 17th.
Starting point is 01:38:50 They said there's all these different time frames that the defense are putting up, saying that it could have happened in these time frames, actually. So they said, examining his, this is Elmer's hypothesis, which you don't hear those words go together very often, that an unknown intruder came into his house sometime between 2 a.m. and noon and killed his wife so they said it could have been then he said that
Starting point is 01:39:13 she could have been down there sleeping we could have all left everyone left the house by 8 a.m. no one was left in the house so there's four hours left in the coroner's window anyone could have broken a murderer in that time anybody that's what he says. So that's obvious here. So he said that here's the time frames between 8 a.m. and noon, like I just said.
Starting point is 01:39:34 There's that. So they said that she could have been dead before the children left at 8 a.m. or even after. They said the death was much more likely to have occurred between 2 and 6 a.m., but it could have happened after 6 a.m. as well. Dorothy had a hair appointment at 8.30 a.m. that day. She had made the appointment herself at 4 p.m. the day before. It's not like she forgot about it or something.
Starting point is 01:40:00 So they're saying if she was alive at 8, she would have probably been up and getting ready for her hair appointment. Right. They are whittling this time frame down fast with that that's a big one there um she had averaged two to three appointments a month at the hairdresser's shop since september of 1980 jesus christ that's a lot of hairdressing loves her hair wow the hairdresser testified it was dorothy's practice to be timely for her appointments and she always
Starting point is 01:40:23 kept them yep no she has blonde hair so she's got to keep that up, I guess. Yeah, those roots are a motherfucker. She had dyed it in September of 80, blonde, like we were saying. So the hairdresser told Dorothy when she made the appointment the previous day that the 17th was her day off, but that she would come in on my day off to do it for you. She wasn't going to miss this. No. And she said that she would prefer to do it early in the day
Starting point is 01:40:47 so she could have the rest of the day off, like she had planned. So Dorothy would not have done it. If you're a Harris person saying, I'm going to come in on my day off for you, you're going to fucking show up on time. Yeah. The murders between 2 and 8. Absolutely.
Starting point is 01:41:01 They said also when she didn't show up that she tried calling the Weiss home at 8.45 a.m. and two more times and nobody ever answered, which makes sense because she was dead and everybody else was gone. 17th, she called the Weiss home between 8.30 and 9 a.m. to set up an appointment. She received no answer, and she tried to telephone then Dorothy Weiss's home at intervals every 45 minutes to an hour until 5 p.m., but never received an answer. So they said that, you know, seems like 8 a.m. to noon would be a weird time. What about 5 a.m. to 7.30 a.m.? What about in there? 8 a.m. to noon would be a weird time. What about 5 a.m. to 7.30 a.m.? What about in there? That's another time period.
Starting point is 01:41:47 They said that neither John nor Joreen heard a sound in the house during the early morning hours and were not awakened because Elmer was out of the house. They said that the evidence strongly suggests that this murder was done in a frenzy. This is a frenzied murder like I was talking about. This is slashing and attacking and force. This is wild shit they said that um you know 33 stab wounds 20 wounds in the upper upper part 33 on the body there was an attempt made to separate the head from the body by sawing at the vertebrae after the victim was already dead or within moments of being dead um the defensive wound show was a struggle there There's blood everywhere.
Starting point is 01:42:25 In order for the murder to occur between 5 and 7.30, the intruder would have had to come into a strange house in a darkened and semi-darkened condition, search the house for Dorothy, feel like they want to kill her, then search the house for the white-handled steak knife, kill her in a frenzy while she attempted to defend herself, and have all this done without waking anybody else up. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:42:48 The key to that is the person would have to be in a rage enough to want to murder, and then they're not showing up there without the weapon that they're going to murder with. Yeah. You don't go in, I have a rage to murder. I hope there's something in there to do it with. That's not a real good murderer. That's a bad murderer. And now, not waking up the kids, the daughter didn't wake up from the scream in the middle of the night.
Starting point is 01:43:12 So that's possible. So I don't know about that here. But, yeah, they said there's that. Now, between 2 and 4.30 a.m., that's the other one, They said there's strong evidence here that that's the time frame she was killed. John said he heard the scream. Never heard his mother scream like that before. The pathologist said much more likely between 2 and 6. She failed to keep her hair appointment at 8.30.
Starting point is 01:43:35 They said in order for an unknown intruder to have killed Dorothy between 2 and 4.30, the intruder would have had to enter a strange house at night in a darkened condition, search the house for Dorothy, become sufficiently motivated to kill her, search the house for the white-handled knife, kill her in a raging frenzy while she attempted to defend herself, and have all this done without anyone in the house being aware of it. The three other people in the house. Now, the problem with this is, though, if somebody broke into a strange house, okay? If you broke in and you were walking around, you didn't have a weapon. Let's say you didn't show up to murder somebody, but you showed up to rob the place, to look around.
Starting point is 01:44:13 Yeah. And you saw a knife sitting on the counter. You might grab that just to have protection. You're in somebody's house. You have no idea. Yeah. Let's say you went in the basement to see if that's probably away from people sleeping, away from maybe there's shit down there I could steal. Let's say you went down there and you came upon Dorothy.
Starting point is 01:44:30 She freaked out and screamed and started hitting you. And she's drunk, so she's incapacitated. And you have a knife in your hand and you start hacking away at her. But would you continue this assault on her? That's the thing. I guess maybe if you're on a shitload of coke or something you would, but otherwise would you just stab her enough to get her off of you and run out of the house at that point probably?
Starting point is 01:44:54 Or would you try to saw her head off? That's the other part is that it had to have been between then, between the early times because that's when he didn't see the knife there. That's what he said, too. Yeah. And so he said that he wasn't sleeping well. He said sound carried easily. So he heard her throwing up and everything like that.
Starting point is 01:45:15 So that's the time period. Those are the three time periods where this is possible. And those are what they're going to fight about in court here. So January 82, he is arrested. Elmer's arrested. Two months later, they arrest him. Okay. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media
Starting point is 01:45:33 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 um they asked the cops why did this last two months when you had a suspect since you walked in the door right and the lieutenant of the dane county sheriff did this last two months when you had a suspect since you walked in the door? Right.
Starting point is 01:46:10 And the lieutenant of the Dane County Sheriff's Department said, two months isn't very long for an investigation. That's pretty fast around here. We're demonstrative. We do things non-demonstrative. We do things just pretty cool, keep our hands down by our sides and just kind of take it as it comes over here. Plus, I've been drunk for the last like 45 days. Plus, I've been drunk for the last, like, 45 days. Yeah, I've been sober for 11 hours. So we all sobered up a bit and decided that why not?
Starting point is 01:46:31 Let's do it. It is mid-January. We've all been drunk since Christmas. So, you know, we've kept the party going. We've had holidays to do. Yeah. He said, in fact, it's a very short time. That's not true either.
Starting point is 01:46:43 Don't lie. It's not a short time. We do this show. Not very short time. That's not true either. Don't lie. It's not a short time. We do this show. Not a short time. He said there's a number of homicides in both the city and the county that are still being investigated many months after the fact. Yeah, those are called where they don't have a suspect. They probably didn't happen in a house with one other fucking adult person who has a reason to kill her and a history of abuse in it those are called almost cold cases that's what those are called yeah um he is freed on bond oh yeah he is freed on fifteen thousand dollars bond not even a lot my god yep he's been there
Starting point is 01:47:19 his whole life and he's you know they said well he's fine i'm sure he's, you know, they said, well, he's fine. I'm sure he's not going anywhere. He's allowed to use the equity in his family home to post bond. Unbelievable. He uses his equity. He used the jointly owned home there, used that to satisfy the bond. They said that, yeah, he's released from custody. The home and adjoining lot had a total assessed value of $59,900. This is 1980. And has a net equity in the property of $42,400, so he's allowed to borrow against that.
Starting point is 01:47:50 He only has a $17,000 mortgage. Pull out of that, yep. So in making the decision, the judge referenced in the complaint here, or no, when they tried to fight his bail, the prosecutor said, he said this, though, quote, I did not work 49 years of my life to spend the rest of my life in jail. Like, so he doesn't want to go to jail. And the judge said, well, nobody wants to go to jail. And they gave him bail. That does sound inconvenient. Who does, really?
Starting point is 01:48:18 You know what I mean? So the town is a chit-chatting about this. Boy, are they talking a lot. Yeah. There's an international airport 30 minutes away. This is fucking crazy. This is big news, and it became public on November 18th, and people just talked about it a lot. The one neighbor of them said that this is a lady who operated a book and art store on Main Street by the Trolls.
Starting point is 01:48:42 Troll Way. Troll Way. They said, we talked about it. Everybody talked about it a lot. There were a lot of rumors flying around. They said, the town's opinions, based on what these reporters have gone around and talked to everybody, everybody's on Curly's side. Is that right?
Starting point is 01:48:57 They say Curly's getting railroaded. He's innocent. It was a strain. Couldn't have been anybody from this town, Jimmy. That's the thing. There's a lot of things where, it couldn't have – nobody from here did this. It's obviously someone drove – they pulled it off the trollway and they did this, clearly. But they don't – they're not privy to the investigation and the information, right?
Starting point is 01:49:16 It's in the paper. Most of it. Yeah, they're talking about everything that I just gave you was in newspapers and everything. The knife disappeared at 2 a.m. I don't know if they know that level of detail that's what i mean there's so much information that really says the only person that could have done this is either him or his son well once we get once we get up to the trial which is about now most of the people do know all the facts pretty much they've all come out yeah because it came out in the preliminaries when they were fighting.
Starting point is 01:49:46 He was fighting to not get charged. There was different things there. So they said that the trial is going to be carried live by some local cable television stations. Wow. That would have been awesome back then. But the residents of the village here of where they live, Mount Horeb,
Starting point is 01:50:01 said they're relying on newspapers and a Madison television a madison television news reports the trial since mount horob doesn't yet have cable hooked up it didn't have it's 81 yeah it didn't have cable this is when they were first laying cable places and that was a not a place there but it's that's a place one of the places they get it first was in the middle of nowhere right because all the cable yeah all the places that got mtv first back in the middle of nowhere. Right. All the cable, yeah. All the places that got MTV first back in the day were all places that were Oklahoma and the middle of Long Island out there somewhere
Starting point is 01:50:31 where they're building shit and they could easily tear up the ground and lay a cable down. Manhattan, it took fucking until like 84 before they got cable. Yeah, it took forever. 83, whatever the fuck it was because it took a lot of expensive
Starting point is 01:50:43 to dig up cities and cable shit down so they said they talked to a clerk at the ace hardware store they're just going around town and this guy said it's been a lot of talk uh they said people who live outside mount horrib have cable they're really interested in what's happening all them cable people um the owner of the mount horrib's radio shack store Robert Washburn, said a lot of his customers are talking about the trial, too. But, quote, they still can't figure out if he's guilty or not. Fascinating. He said, quote, it was common knowledge that Curly threatened his wife and that she ran around a lot if there were drugs involved as you know they were alleging it's certainly if there were drugs a lot uh involved as they're alleging it certainly didn't come from this town okay so
Starting point is 01:51:31 go over this again we know that he would you know threaten his wife and stuff she ran around drinking and carousing common common knowledge common knowledge but if it did involve drugs the only thing i do know is the drugs weren't from this town. Yeah. That we do know. We don't have that around here. We don't have drugs here. We only have Radio Shack.
Starting point is 01:51:52 That's it. A clerk at a store selling religious effects said that her son attended school with one of the children, the Weiss children. She said her son's friends didn't say very much about it, but by the few comments made by customers in the store, she said there was a lot of feeling that Curly didn't do it. Because they go, oh, she was out there running around. Could have been one of these guys she's running around with. The In Place, which is a bar, they have two women bartenders,
Starting point is 01:52:22 who didn't want their names being used. They said their customers were watching the Weiss trial on television, but were, quote, keeping their thoughts to themselves. That's very Wisconsin. Just reserving judgment, I'm not going to say. Can you imagine a trial going on at a bar in New York? There'd be people, get the fuck out of here. Look at him. He fucking did it.
Starting point is 01:52:40 Now your sister's ass, he did it. Get the fuck out of here. That's amazing. The very judge not lest ye thing, huh? Wow. They He did it. Get the fuck out of here. That's amazing. Not lest ye think. Wow. They're just quiet. I'm not going to judge. So, yeah, keeping their thoughts to themselves.
Starting point is 01:52:52 The younger bartender said, quote, I don't think they've got the right person. Unbelievable. I thought that from the start. There are a lot of rumors in town about people who aren't suspected. Let's just put it that way. Is that right so yeah there's apparently a whole other layer to this that the people in town know about that other that the cops are ignoring and that the outsiders don't know about apparently everyone in town's
Starting point is 01:53:15 like we all know it was probably so and so or is this guy or that guy we're all aware yeah the other bartender said if he had done something like that, he would have done it a long time ago. It's not like he would have waited 27 years to kill her. He's been beating her for decades. And she's been doing this for a long time. So if that's probably what it's about, then it's a bit late. That's a bad argument, I feel like. Right?
Starting point is 01:53:43 That's a terrible argument. She's been cheating on him for years. He beats the shit out of her all the time. Why would he's, right? That's a terrible argument. She's been cheating on him for years. He beats the shit out of her all the time. Why would he do it now? It's a very weird chicken or the egg cause and effect argument that I don't understand here. And then Washburn, who was the guy from the radio shack, he was there and he agreed as well. He said, that's right. He agreed with the bartender's opinion. He said, quote, people can't comprehend how Cur almost cut her head off, and then just went in and supervised cheese making.
Starting point is 01:54:30 An hour later, he was just like, oh, I don't know. You might want to put a little more fucking milk in that. Like, really? How is that possible? Jeffrey Dahmer made chocolate, you guys. That's what's so crazy. That's what's wild about it. Fuck. Gacy would go in and fucking, you know, give you an estimate on your construction project the next
Starting point is 01:54:45 day he'd go to a jc's meeting for christ's sake jesus uh one neighbor who lived near them for 20 years said he firmly supports his neighbor okay he said quote let's put it this way he's not guilty let's put it this way i'm out of my fucking mind let's put it this way in wisconsin is code for i know a bunch of shit i'm not going to tell you let me give you the succinct version of this he's not guilty that means let's put it this way yeah is i have so much information i'm not going to share with you yeah and here's my conclusion i've reached from this information that i can't tell you about because it'd be gossipy and i'm from wisconsin and we'll handle it. We got it. Don't worry. Yeah, because that's exactly what the other one said. Let's let's put it this way. That's about people who aren't suspected. Let's put it that way is what the bartender said. This person said, let's put it this way. He's not guilty. friend of Weiss's here, Laura Friske of Blue Mounds, said, I've known him for 25 years.
Starting point is 01:55:49 He's known to have a violent temper, but I don't think he's capable of crime. Let's think about that sentence for a second. Generally, violent temper is criminal behavior, right? I mean, if he didn't have a violent temper, would you think he was capable of it? At what point would you think he was capable of it? He's only violent when it's capable of it he's only violent when it's justified james yeah what a violent plus like that's so weird i mean he's known to have a violent temper and all everyone knows that elmer will throw a punch at you no problem but i don't think he'll do anything criminal another guy here doug he's he's known them forever since he used to deliver newspapers to them since he was a kid he said i would guess he was there and had the opportunity uh he said since i've known the family since i
Starting point is 01:56:30 was a nine-year-old kid delivering newspapers but it's a very good possibility that the cops got the wrong person you what i would guess he he could have done it in other words it's possible probably had the opportunity but somebody else probably did it. But I don't think, yeah, I don't think he did it, though. He could have done it, but I don't think he did, is the thing there. I know he's possible. Another one here, the owner of a craft shop in town, whose mother is also a neighbor of the Weiss family. This town is so fucking small.
Starting point is 01:56:59 She said, quote, from day one, I just haven't heard anything about it. From the few people I do hear talking about this, they're just hoping he gets a fair trial. Okay. She wasn't reading the newspaper because it was in every single fucking day. It was in the newspaper about this shit. Something new. It's a small town where someone almost had their head cut off in a fucking rec room. What do you expect? Right next to the foosball table. With a steak knife she's used numerous times.
Starting point is 01:57:25 No shit. So now the criminal complaint here, the first thing that his legal team is going to do, the Weiss's, is say, we can't even go to trial because the criminal complaint is defective. Okay. Doesn't work right. It's defective. It quotes his daughter Jackie saying that he had threatened to kill his wife and all that. Right.
Starting point is 01:57:50 But she says she never said that. And it's a quote, a material and substantial misrepresentation. They have an affidavit from her saying she never said that. The sister was saying I was there the whole time. Never heard him say that. The other sister, she said her parents were not together at her home that day and she didn't hear her father threaten her mother. She also said that she'd been shown a draft of the 14-page criminal complaint in the case to review the accuracy of her statements. And that version didn't match,
Starting point is 01:58:18 didn't contain the information about the threat. And she said she was not shown the 10 page complaint that was filed later on that said that had that in it. They said the state evidence shows that the defendant spoke to Dorothy Weiss in the past of the danger of her dying in exactly the manner that she did die. The judge rejects a defense argument that someone outside of the Weiss family could have been involved in that part. They said the possibility is of a limited probability if the time of death is most likely to be between two and three. And they said the criminal complaint is fine. They also the judge also kept saying he said it was his favorite knife.
Starting point is 01:58:56 Yeah, that's a that's a bad quote. And how would you fucking not hear the screams that woke your son up? That seems and you were up 10 minutes later cleaning. you fucking not hear the screams that woke your son up that seems and you were up 10 minutes later cleaning so um the ruling is that there is sufficient evidence to hold him for trial they said that you know they heard all the probable cause they said quote although there are undeniable problems with this prosecution in terms of variants from police reports and witness statements there's a lot of bad police work here it sounds like it a lot of like they said this and then another statement they said something different but similar a lot of bad police work here. It sounds like it. A lot of like they said this
Starting point is 01:59:25 and then another statement. They said something different, but similar. A lot of things like that where they're finding a lot of cops out of there bumping into each other, just not used to this or what it was. But they're definitely not didn't do a terrific job here. A little overwhelmed, little bit overwhelmed. Yeah. They said also the prosecution in terms of variance from police reports and witness statements and physical evidence presented at the preliminary hearing. It's the determination of this court that the state has shown probable cause to believe a felony was committed and probable cause to believe the defendant committed it. The fact that he's in the house and had the opportunity means there's probable cause. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:00:01 The rest of it doesn't matter. But there is a lot of stuff that's a little weird. there's probable cause yeah the rest of it doesn't matter but there is a lot of stuff that's a little weird uh the judge also said that um that elmer's conduct just before the body was discovered implies an expectation of something more than a report of on stereo repairs they were saying that his son was going down to check the stereo or some shit so anyway the trial comes in they do the trial it's nine men three women on the jury okay they spend a lot of the first day at the actual murder scene they go to this they go to the home to tour the site yeah to tour the basement to look at it to see um the prosecutors they contend that weiss um you know they said he described himself as extremely jealous.
Starting point is 02:00:45 He killed his wife in a rage. Now, there is no significant fingerprint or no evidence. There's no fingerprints. There's no blood. There's no clothing. The hairs are he lives in the same house. There's nothing. And he's got nine men on this jury that likely are married also.
Starting point is 02:01:00 And if this shit happened to them, they might react the same way. That's who knows. You know what I mean? Yeah. Depending on what he says them, they might react the same way. That's who knows. You know what I mean? Yeah. Depending on what he says happened, you could get some sympathy possibly. You know, you never know what you need. One person to be on your side. Right.
Starting point is 02:01:13 That's it. So they said there's no the court obviously points out no significant evidence there. They do take Anne Erickson. She was going to Sweden and they had to take her shit on tape and they submitted that as her testimony. She's going to be on vacation. She'll be in Sweden. Can't reach her. Out of the country. An evidence technician with the Dane County Sheriff's Department told jurors that that afternoon he saw several hairs in Dorothy's right hand as she lay on the basement floor. They photographed the crime scene and told of placing bags over her hands to prevent the hairs from falling out while they take her to the lab.
Starting point is 02:01:54 They testified that at least six hairs were found in her right hand. One of the six hairs was right by the wrist, they said. The others were actually in her hand and between her fingers like you were she was grabbing at someone fighting they said the significance of the hair is expected to come out later with the shit like that they said the expert is expected to testify which of those hairs are consistent but that doesn't matter if it's in the fucking house right it doesn't matter so they said she could have blood on her hands touched the carpet picked up at one of his hairs you know what i mean especially he's 49 fucking years old he's got a hair coming out every once It doesn't matter. So they said she could have had blood on her hands, touched the carpet, picked up one of his hairs.
Starting point is 02:02:25 You know what I mean? Especially he's 49 fucking years old. He's got a hair coming out every once in a while. It's his house. It's his house, exactly. So the defense attorneys said they're going to try to show that it's not unusual that hairs would have been on the floor of the basement and thereby transferred into the bag while the body was moved. They said there was at least one hair found on her body that doesn't match hers, her husband's, or anyone in the family. And the defense will argue that that shows someone else was in the room when she was murdered.
Starting point is 02:02:53 Or she had a hair on her clothes from being out that night at the bar and touched it with her bloody hand. Hugged a friend, anything. Anything like that. So the defense here said in their opening statement that they would show that drugs are probably the factor in the death of dorothy here they said the dead woman admitted to at least one person that she was involved with quote marijuana amphetamines and cocaine oh so that's that's a lot that's that's more than you expect she's not just smoking a joint
Starting point is 02:03:26 out behind the fucking joe's bar yeah that's dabbling yeah she's it's 81 i mean i get 81 coke is everywhere i mean it's the biggest thing in the world but you know you gotta want it to get it here you know what i mean yeah meth too yeah that's what i mean? Yeah. Meth, too. Yeah, that's what I mean. Probably pills then. Probably amphetamine pills, I bet, back then. So they said that the state's case is based on entirely circumstantial evidence, but the prosecution said that's not unusual in a first-degree murder case. Sometimes it's all you have. So the defense, in support of the hypothesis that an unknown intruder murdered Dorothy, Elmer and his team here emphasize that no significant evidence implicates him, which is true. Further, he argues that certain pieces of physical evidence affirmatively indicate the presence of an unknown intruder. He says that nothing indicates him.
Starting point is 02:04:19 The state found no fingerprint or fingernail scrapings incriminating him. No bloodstains or spots were found on his person or clothing there. But the prosecution says that he had ample time to clean himself up at his home or his workplace and could have destroyed incriminating items of clothing that he might have been wearing. He could have taken them out of the house, tossed them in a dumpster by his job. Who knows? tossed him in a dumpster by his job. Who knows? The record also says that it doesn't indicate what, if any, bed clothes he was wearing when he went to bed that night.
Starting point is 02:04:55 If there were any clothes to destroy, the cheese factory maintained an incinerator, which burned almost constantly and was readily accessible right near where he parked his car. Oh, my God. He could have got out with the bloody clothes, tossed them in the incinerator on the way into work. Went and punched in. Yeah. That's it. Done.
Starting point is 02:05:10 But they have no proof of this. They don't have him on camera doing this or anything like that. They point to other pieces of evidence that this is the defense's case for an unknown intruder. They argue that they also found a bloody doorknob leading to the basement from the garage. Blood analysis determined that the blood on the doorknob was of human origin but of an unidentified person not belonging to Elmer or Dorothy. Although a reader might infer
Starting point is 02:05:33 from this statement that the blood on the doorknob was from someone other than Dorothy they said actually an unidentified person the record indicates the lab technician was unable to type the blood at all due to some sort of environmental conditions. So we don't know whose blood that was in actuality. They tried to argue.
Starting point is 02:05:51 See, it's an unknown person. They said, not so fast. They said also it was human origin. It could have been anyone's, including those two. The doorknob in question there was leading from the basement to the garage, not from the garage to the basement. They said he also argues in support of the unknown intruder hypothesis that hairs were retrieved from her right hand and from the coroner's body bag. Two hairs from the body bag, one hair from the victim's hand were not identifiable as being from the victim defendant or either of the children leaving at home. identifiable as being from the victim defendant or either of the children leaving at home so they said the prosecution said hairs from the victim's right hand of the six hairs stuck to the hand of
Starting point is 02:06:31 dorothy weiss from blood one hair was not consistent with that of the defendant or dorothy one hair was not suitable for comparison four hairs were similar to dorothy's and uh that's in type and characteristics it It's before DNA. So frustrating. But there is a hair that doesn't belong to God knows who. Hairs from the coroner's body bag. Of the five hairs obtained from the body bag, the state crime lab analysis testified that one hair was similar to his hair, two hairs similar to hers. Same basic thing there.
Starting point is 02:07:02 They said that it's highly likely that if you find hair from people living within that household and anyone else that would have visited the house or come in contact with her. Thus, a hair from a person who was not a member of the family was found stuck to her hand and the two hairs fell. So they said no evidence showed that the only family that only the family used this recreation room. The victim was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. The family used this recreation room. The victim was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Any hairs previously left on the floor by visitors to the home could easily have attached themselves to her bloodied clothing or hand. This evidence points, the defendant says this points to the unknown intruder theory and they say it makes it actually just more cloudy so given this evidence and the inferences drawn from this uh jealous nature
Starting point is 02:07:46 of the defendant here fights between them frequently fights after her drinking and coming back in the evenings obviously as well um all this type of shit so dorothy shrink testifies here dr han he says she was being treated for emotional problems. Now, Elmer's going to say that nothing Dorothy said at this time should even be let into court, not because of any privilege, but because Dorothy was not reliable because she was being treated for emotional
Starting point is 02:08:18 problems. So anything she said to the shrink could have just been off the top of her head. Yeah. They said that also they claim that Dr. Han used hypnosis as part of his treatment of her. And thus the statements may have been produced while under the influence of a hypnotic state. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:08:36 Which would make them not admissible. So they said the evidence was actually evidence of bad character and was unreliable as a matter of law. They're saying so you can't just say he was a bad guy because she told the shrink that. So they said Dorothy was not the shrink said Dorothy was not psychotic or delusional, but was suffering from an anxiety disorder. And they said she was always touch in touch with reality. Second, there was no evidence that she was ever in a hypnotic state when these evidence when these statements were made. They said the doctor testified that Dorothy had 10 sessions with him, but he used a formal procedure to put her in a hypnotic state only once during their first session. The statements at issue were made during the June session and no hypnosis was used at that time.
Starting point is 02:09:24 So, OK. And that's true because that your psychiatrist you say some shit you can say anything oh god and and it's and it can be something that just happened and you are charged up about it and it's really nothing that's a big deal but yeah i say may sound really inflammatory absolutely yeah that's a good point. Sometimes, I mean, yeah, that's a good way to put it. So he said that also the threat, there's a possible threat here to exclude evidence. He wants it to be if you don't clean up your act, you may wind up with your throat slit. He doesn't want that in. No, that would be terrible.
Starting point is 02:10:02 Yeah, that's not good. But if it is in, he's going to say that's because criminal drug dealers she was associating with and all that shit. So they did say the court acknowledged that a strong argument could be made that this statement was made in the context of her conduct and who she's hanging around with. But they ruled it admissible anyway. Yeah. They said the jury can decide what they feel like, how he meant it. The trial court found the testimony was relevant because of the fact that such a highly coincidental circumstance that said,
Starting point is 02:10:32 you know, that's the fact she met her dad, how she met her dad. So they said, uh, all of that. Um, so the defendant's son-in-law here,
Starting point is 02:10:40 we're talking about Lester, um, Jackie's husband. He said he heard elmer tell his wife that she should clean up her act and watch the crowd she hung around with or she would find her her throat slit he said he didn't take this to be a statement or to be a threat by elmer he said because he was there when she said it he said i didn't take that as a threat that he would cut her throat i took it as someone's gonna cut your throat out there if you're not careful who you're
Starting point is 02:11:05 hanging out with. They said, that's how I took it. He's really on Elmer's side, man. Sure is. An officer who interrogated Curly Elmer here said that he asked Elmer if he had ever threatened his wife and he admitted that he had and volunteered that he told her she'd find her throat slit and all that shit. So there's that.
Starting point is 02:11:22 Now, in the closing arguments arguments District Attorney John Burr noted that Curly could have burned his bloody clothing at his job in the incinerator and all that type of shit. They said an intruder bent on hunting or hurting or punishing her or collecting a drug debt would enter the house go to the kitchen, pick up a dull and inefficient
Starting point is 02:11:39 knife and search and find her in the basement and then kill her is improbable. Which is fair. So so nine men three women for jury comes back with a verdict of what do you think jimmy not guilty guilty oh they got him a first degree murder oh that's questionable yeah that's that's that's some wisconsin evidence that's some drunken, that's some.35 BAC evidence. They literally have no evidence at all. And you can, circumstantial evidence convicts most people. They don't have physical evidence.
Starting point is 02:12:20 Now there's more physical evidence because they have easier DNA swabs and shit. But for years and years, physical evidence really didn't mean that much in a case it's all circumstantial that's not a great case but they don't even have like oh i saw my dad go into the basement at 2 a.m even if just john had saw his dad just go in there at 2 a.m then i go okay at least they have him being put with her in the same room at the same time they don't have that and i realize that that's impossible but yeah even with that i don't like that i want i saw my dad come out of there covered in blood i need that that's yeah that would help but this is tough but at the same time if he just did a half decent job got rid of the fucking got rid of his bloody clothes
Starting point is 02:13:02 and cleaned up a little bit and didn't leave bloody footprints all the way back to his bedroom as long as he didn't do that it'd be really hard to have any evidence on and they did such a fucking bad job botching the physical evidence i feel like that i don't know what you'd even do here as a jury i don't know what i would say here i really don't i don't know what i would do what the what the prosecution has to give is that he put like a change of clothes in the garage. That's the only explanation. That's what I mean. Something like that. Or he went out there to strip his bloody clothes off, maybe threw them on top of his car for a second.
Starting point is 02:13:37 That's how they got – put his shoes up there. Right. But there was no blood on his shoes though. Right. So if he was – I don't understand. He got rid of the shoes that he wore in there. That's what I mean. If I'm a juror, I'm thinking he probably did it. Yeah. But I don't have the evidence to convict this person.
Starting point is 02:14:00 Yeah. You know what I mean? Like I did. I think he did it and I think he's skating. But I would feel that little bit would be like, oh, do you want to put someone in jail forever for that? I don't know if there's not really any evidence here. Police feels like they need three or four months to do this, not two. Yeah, they need a couple more months. So he's guilty. Sentencing comes around. You, sir, may fuck off life in prison with parole. That's the mandatory.
Starting point is 02:14:20 So life with. So, yeah, he appeals, obviously. He said the evidence in the case is entirely circumstantial in order for the circumstantial evidence to meet the demanding beyond a reasonable doubt standard the evidence must be sufficiently strong to exclude to a moral certainty every reasonable hypothesis of innocence right he argues that there's a reasonable hypothesis that supports his innocence and the hypothesis is that someone else killed his wife between the hours of 2 a.m. and 12 noon. Because you could say, well, yeah, she blew off her hair appointment. She normally doesn't.
Starting point is 02:14:53 But she was also throwing up at 1.30 in the morning. So maybe she overslept through it. Someone came in at 10 and killed her. That's possible. The coroner said it, you know, so they don't know. They said there's no suggestion in the record or in his argument that the someone else may have been the children, John or Joreen. The someone else suggested by him would have had to have been an unknown intruder, even though he said my son thought she was sick, even though there's blood everywhere. And, you know.
Starting point is 02:15:20 Yeah, I tried to pin it on him. Tried to pin it on him at that point. And, you know, yeah, I tried to pin it on him, tried to pin it on him at that point. So they said the he implies that Dorothy was involved with a disreputable drug dealers and suggests that as a motive for her murder, that could have been it. They said whatever the motive, the evidence strongly suggests and a jury could reasonably conclude that if there was an unknown intruder, he became motivated to kill Dorothy only after he entered the home. It cannot be seriously argued that an unknown intruder came into the house prepared to kill a person bent on murder would have come better prepared and certainly wouldn't have depended on a dull serrated knife that was on a countertop to accomplish his planned murder.
Starting point is 02:15:57 And how many drugs is a rural housewife doing that they're willing to kill her over? How much could she owe? How bad much she could she owe what could she owe how deep in debt could she be to to who do gisella blanco is fucking i mean who does she owe money to in rural wisconsin how much partying is she another norwegian guy like yeah so um yeah they said that um his his hypothesis fails to demonstrate that drugs would have motivated an intruder to kill her after he entered the home. The extent, if any, of her drug use or involvement with drug dealers was never conclusively proven, basically. They said that the – I couldn't get conclusively out of my mouth. They said that the couldn't get conclusively out of my mouth, even if his statement with respect to a baggie of marijuana and some pills missing from her purse is true.
Starting point is 02:16:55 Because he tells the cops that she had some pills and weed in her purse that she'd keep in there all the time and they were gone. So the intruder must have taken her pills and weed. It cannot be seriously suggested that the desire to take these items prompted this murder, particularly in the manner in which it was carried out. that the desire to take these items prompted this murder, particularly in the manner in which it was carried out. Even assuming a motive other than one related to drugs existed for the killing of the victim, a jury could reasonably find that it's unreasonable to believe that an unknown intruder would have entered the Weiss home without a plan for murder and used that shit. Now there's also a juror question here. Juror Brayshaw is the name here.
Starting point is 02:17:24 It was the foreperson of the jury turns out he wasn't a resident of the county oh what the fuck you can't do that um yeah so he alleged they they alleged that brayshaw concealed that he was not a resident of the county at the time of the trial and failed to reveal his employment connection with the Division of Corrections. He works at Waupon Prison. Can't do that. The defendant states that the defense counsel would have moved to strike Brayshaw for cause had those facts been known and would have exercised a preemptory strike to remove him from the jury had that motion been denied. They said we would definitely have would have gotten him off of there.
Starting point is 02:18:03 They argue that the jury selection process was tainted by Brayshaw's failure to disclose his information. And thus he was just denied. Elmer was denied his constitutional rights to due process. So they said an evidentiary hearing was set in this whole thing. They found Brayshaw received a questionnaire jury questionnaire in January of 82 and um brayshaw was living with his mother in madison in dane county at the time he completed and returned the questionnaire the form inquired about uh the jurors parentage and also asked whether he's married single divorced or widowed he's divorced but he marked the box that indicated he was single who cares what's the same thing well i guess not if it's a if it's a case that
Starting point is 02:18:45 has to do with a man murdering his wife yeah that's important actually he felt it was the same thing because i am single and ready to mingle ready to mingle that's what he felt and he didn't realize that that divorce but not feeling it yeah divorce not paying her shit he drew a line through the question which asked about the ages of his children, even though he had a nine-year-old son. You have to know who the jurors are. That's the thing. Shortly after, the lawyers do to know who to strike. Shortly after returning his questionnaire, he moved from Madison and Dane County to Beaver Dam in Dodge County.
Starting point is 02:19:22 As part of the move, he changed his employment and took a job as an electrician at the Waupon Correctional Institution. So that was all after he filled out the questionnaire. So subsequently, he was approved and qualified to serve as a juror and summoned to appear. He was not asked, nor did he tell anyone, that he had moved from the county or changed his employment since he completed the juror questionnaire, because it was only two months before he got the questionnaire. When asked why he checked the box indicating why he was single rather than divorced, he said not why he was single but that he was single. Well, I'm single because I'm just unemotionally unavailable.
Starting point is 02:19:59 I'm too non-demonstrative. Well, that means this. He said Brayshaw indicated he considered himself single as opposed to divorced. I don't know why you would consider that. If divorced is an option and you're divorced, you're divorced. I identify as single. My prior life, as long as it is legal and lawful, is nobody's business. Well, when you're filling out a juror questionnaire, that is under penalty of you're supposed to be honest. It's on there. You have to be. It's like an affidavit kind of a thing. But my child is a minor, and I want nobody to know anything about him.
Starting point is 02:20:40 The court, yeah. The state knows he exists, dude. So he was then asked whether, or the jurors were asked whether any jurors were acquainted with law enforcement personnel. He did not respond, even though he was working at a fucking maximum security prison. Wow. And had daily contact with prison guards and had met with police officers on several occasions concerning an allegation that he was involved in serious criminal activity. He was under investigation for a while. This guy's a giant pain in the ass.
Starting point is 02:21:08 He's the jury foreman. Unbelievable. Brayshaw also failed to respond when the court asked whether any jurors were acquainted with the district attorney's office. Brayshaw did, however, have contact with the district attorney's office because of a problem with his child support payments, which they didn't even know he had a fucking kid. That would have opened up a whole other fucking bag of worms.
Starting point is 02:21:31 He testified, Brayshaw, that he failed to respond to the court's question about his acquaintance with law enforcement officers because he did not consider prison guards to be law enforcement personnel. They're enforcing laws, man. And they're literally the same thing prison guards in most states can arrest people outside of prison is that right and i know in new york state they did yeah they're so i know that yeah they're they're officers so they just work inside of a prison instead of on the street so they uh he also said that uh he
Starting point is 02:22:02 thought he had contact with a police officer because he thought the word acquainted meant more than having just talked and hung out with someone. This guy is a fucking menace. He gave a similar response when asked about why he failed to indicate that he was acquainted with members of the district attorney's office. He also testified that he did not know the individual he had contact with regarding the child support matter was from the district attorney's office so in a unanimous ruling yeah court of appeals reverses the conviction because this is crazy because this guy's a complete asshole what's none of their business you're a joke you're the foreman, sir. Holy shit. You sat in a box. It's all their business. It's called the Constitution. It matters, you son of a bitch.
Starting point is 02:22:50 And you're skirting it. God, you're fucking this all up. You're just costing us money now. So in reversing this, the Court of Appeals cited the closeness of the case, meaning it was a squeaker anyway, and the fact that the jury foreman failed to disclose all this other shit here. So the three-judge court said that he deserved a new trial in the interest of justice. The circumstances convince us
Starting point is 02:23:13 that justice probably has miscarried. That's a weird way to put it. Miscarriage of justice. Yeah, has miscarried. It's been aborted. It's been aborted. Justice is bleed. It's bleed.
Starting point is 02:23:25 And we should order a new trial. So he says that he expects that he'll face a murder trial there. And so now is he getting out? That's a good question. His lawyer said he should be released from jail on bail awaiting a new trial. Yeah. He said if that's overturned, he said he had one before, he said it should just be the bail application, the same bail he had before.
Starting point is 02:23:51 Why not? They said no hearing date was set, but he asked for the same amount of bail, $15,000 property bond. They said, well, the property which secured that bond has since been sold. Other property recently appraised in excess of $50,000, is available and owned outright by him. So they said, why not? He also noted that he made all of his court appearances while his case was pending, has no other criminal record except for that muffler issue.
Starting point is 02:24:16 They didn't mention that in court, but we know about it. And lived in the area for 27 years, never going anywhere. So they rule that the state has a week to be to respond to this request for bail and figure it out. So finally, they a parole board says that the court needs to decide whether he gets out or not. So he is finally freed on bail in August of 84. Oh, boy.
Starting point is 02:24:44 After the court, after all all this so the state appeals the appeal maybe we can get out of this without having another trial because they know another trial they don't have a lot of evidence they just don't yeah so another trial if that statement that that judge didn't let in from the daughter doesn't get in that might be the whole case you know what i mean yeah yeah so uh the court of appeals finding no merit in any of the defendant's claims of error nevertheless granted him a new trial. This is the ruling from this next appeal in the interest of justice. The court of appeals determined that justice had miscarried in the proceedings below.
Starting point is 02:25:18 So they said the likelihood of Brayshaw would have been excused or struck from the jury had more candid, had he more candidly answered the questions and the closeness of the case. They said the state argues that the Court of Appeals erred as a matter of law when it granted a new trial, so he shouldn't be let out. But he is. So, new trial. The Supreme Court, this is the state Supreme Court, reverses the lower court's decision for a new trial wow it was ordered a year ago the supreme court overturns the appeals court decision that he was entitled to a new trial they said we find that the circumstantial evidence in this case was strong
Starting point is 02:25:56 enough to exclude to a moral certainty every reasonable hypothesis of the defendant's innocence i can't quite go that far. I can't go that far. Yeah, that's what they said. It was a 32-page ruling to say that. Lock him back up. They took him back to prison. Yep. And they even said, quote, Brayshaw's attitude, this is the juror, as expressed by his acts and words is compatible with that of a juror's earnestness to do his duty.
Starting point is 02:26:28 So he's fine. Is that right? Yeah, they said it allows, yeah, there is somebody dissenting opinion there that says, because a juror's answers in a close case kept knowledge from the defendant, which would have prompted a preemptory strike, and because we infer the juror's attitude was inconsistent with his duties, we prevent a probable miscarriage of justice by ordering a new trial by a new jury. That's what the first court said.
Starting point is 02:26:52 And they go, we don't think so. Unreal. June of 85, he's taken back to prison. Yeah. Back to prison with you. That's fucking wild. To serve life with parole. Yep.
Starting point is 02:27:09 1986, May 16th 1986 he's trying to get pardoned really yes um this is from the wisconsin state journal a possible pardon for elmer weiss of mount horrib will be considered next week at the prison uh where he is serving life sentence the the pardon advisory board will hear Weiss's case and make a recommendation to the governor who makes the final decision. Oh, boy. In his application for a pardon, he continues to emphasize that he did not commit the crime.
Starting point is 02:27:33 Quote, I am innocent of the charge that the state has convicted me of. My children and friends believe in me. He says he wants to earn money to be able to hire people to investigate his wife's murder. And he wants to be with his children and grandchildren because my wife was taken from our lives. Oh, don't say don't say I want to get out there and find the real killer. He just he I think O.J. read this case and was like, you know what?
Starting point is 02:27:57 I get away with this shit. Oh, if he was only famous, he could have got away with it is what O.J. said. He should have been in Naked Gun movies. All right. His application has been endorsed in 64 letters from friends, relatives, and co-workers who describe him as a productive, hardworking, nonviolent citizen. Except for the times they all knew he beat the shit out of his wife. Except for the part where everybody says he's got a violent temper. Violent temper and beats his wife.
Starting point is 02:28:22 But, you know, other than than that uh petition bearing 391 signatures has been filed on his behalf not bad um one person wrote society friends and family have nothing to fear fear from elmer curly weiss one let they got one letter opposing the pardon one after all that so the board uh makes recommendations to the governor and then it's up to the governor for sure. But whatever. If they are pardoned, they regain full civil rights and all that kind of shit. And the governor has not granted any full pardons to people still in prison so far since he's been in office. Governor also has the power to grant a conditional pardon, reduce a criminal sentence, or delay its starting date.
Starting point is 02:29:07 So he can pretty much do whatever he wants here. So the pardon board, they say a pardon request from Elmer Curley Weiss of Mount Horeb received a negative recommendation from the governor's advisory board. So that's not good. Yes, so he goes back in prison the whole community since then for 20 years after argued about whether they thought he was guilty or not and as you can tell by the letters and everything it became a whole thing where the whole town just decided he was not guilty and he got railroaded and they all decided to get on his side unbelievable it's crazy eventually he does get out of prison really i don I don't know exactly when, but I do know he's out on April 20th, 2019 because he dies.
Starting point is 02:29:53 I know he's out then because there's a picture of him in there and he's an old man and he's not in a prison. He's in like a recliner in some living room. So he's definitely has been out and he dies at age 87 at the va hospital in madison wisconsin is that right and uh there will be no services per his request and that's all his obituary was curly died no services per his request cremated fuck off that's it that's all the fucking unreal all you're gonna get out of him uh there so curly is dead uh he definitely went to prison the whole town was pissed off this is what small town murder is all about right this happened everybody gossiped they all knew both people and oh did he do it i don't think he did it old oh
Starting point is 02:30:36 old curly couldn't have done it well i don't know boy i'll tell you what he used to beat on that wife all the time yeah but she's running around drinking with other fellers all the time. Yeah, I know, but damn that Curly. He sure is a fine, nice guy. I played poker with him back in 73. That's what you get. This is small-town murder. The sequel to this is his twin brother Butch did it. Totally, yeah.
Starting point is 02:30:58 And you get cops that don't handle these type of murder scenes as much as other places, so they fuck up physical evidence. They think that they got it, they got it and they don't technology's shit so they have no idea what they're looking at that's the other thing yeah the physical evidence if they don't gather it properly even if they do gather it properly properly they don't have a lot they can really do with it other than go this blood is the same type as her or him and these hairs are similar to this person's head that's all you can really do. I think he did it, and he benefited from the lack of opportunity of anybody to properly investigate it. That's what I think. That's what I absolutely think happened.
Starting point is 02:31:32 I think he did it, and the jury shouldn't have convicted him. I think he did it, and he's good. Yeah. It's one of those. It's a Scott Peterson. I think he did it. I don't think they had enough evidence to convict him. They should have checked the fridge, James.
Starting point is 02:31:45 But they did. What was his pizza like? Did he have a bite taken out of that pizza? What does his sock drawer look like? We could have figured this all out. So there you go. So that is Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. And quite a fucking tale of just, like I said, this is the small town murder, quintessential
Starting point is 02:32:04 small town murder right here type of shit. It's delicious. It's like a sharp cheddar. Just delicious. Like a nice Colby. Thin cracker with a nice. You can't beat that. You can't beat little piece of sausage on there, too.
Starting point is 02:32:19 Some kind of salami or something. Oh, man, now you're talking. That's Mount Horror of wisconsin a cheesemaker possibly murdering his wife could it get any more wisconsin than that so for being drunk yeah a cheesemaker kills his wife because she's too drunk in the in the rec room basement could it be any more wisconsin he got drunk one too many times he'd had enough well he's had enough so holy shit boy that's crazy. If you enjoyed that show and you want to tell the world about it, and most of all, if you want to help us out by doing that, please do that.
Starting point is 02:32:52 Get on whatever app you're listening to and give us five stars because it helps a lot. Those reviews help a fuckload. They help drive you up the chart and help people notice you. So, thanks for everyone who's done it. And if you haven't, please do that. So thanks for everyone who's done it. And if you haven't, please do that. And speaking of reviews, we have a new show coming out called Your Stupid Opinions.
Starting point is 02:33:11 I just got reviews in my head. You know what it is. Your Stupid Opinions. Yes, definitely. Where we are going to talk about, it's going to be an hour-long show every Monday morning where we find reviews from every corner of the internet about every weird thing you could think of and listen to people complain about weird shit and make fun of them for it it's going to be absolute gold we can't wait we've done it on patreon before and it's one of the everybody's favorites so can't wait to your stupid opinions check that out also speaking of that you want to go over to patreon right patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of the bonus stuff. Yes.
Starting point is 02:33:46 Anybody $5 a month or above, a cup of coffee, less than a cup of coffee, you're going to get four new bonus episodes, sometimes six. Either way, every other week you get two new episodes. There's a couple hundred back episodes of Dare to Binge for bonus stuff that's not available to anybody publicly. And this week, which you're going to get for crime and Sports, which has nothing to do with sports this week. You'll get it. We're going to talk about Stairway to Stardom, which is a public access show that ran in New York from the late 70s to the early 90s where people come on and sing. And it's like a talent show, an amateur talent show, not a contest, which is, hey, take a look at this. People singing and dancing and doing the worst stand-up comedy anyone's ever heard.
Starting point is 02:34:28 It's amazing stuff. It's so wild. We'll play some clips of people singing terrible cover songs. It's incredible. We're going to have so much fun with it. This is just a let's have a fun time. Then for Small Town Murder, we're going to do one of our favorites, one of everyone's favorites. The Prisoner Dating Game is back. Yeah prisoner dating game again and i'm gonna pick out four bachelors and four
Starting point is 02:34:50 bachelorettes that only have one thing in common and that is that they are all currently incarcerated uh four violent felonies by the way as well this is the violent felon edition nobody who had three bags of fucking coke on them or some bullshit like that. No, no. You had to do something bad to end up in here. Jimmy's going to pick a male and a female out based solely on their pitch that they give on their dating website. I'm so-and-so and I do this and that.
Starting point is 02:35:15 He's going to pick somebody out that he thinks sounds like a nice person. Maybe they've been put in prison wrongly. We don't know. And then he's going to find out who he picks at the end and it's hilarious. And more importantly, what they did to end up in there and it's always fucking hilarious check that out watch Jimmy pick the wrong person as always
Starting point is 02:35:32 the prisoner dating game that is patreon.com slash crime and sports this is if you're thinking about signing up and you've been on the fence this is the time to do it for prisoner dating game time trust us and there's so much more to catch up on. You'll be hooked.
Starting point is 02:35:45 So thank you so much for doing that. Head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. Get tickets for live shows. Merch, too. Tons of merch up. New stuff up all the time. And tickets for live shows. We are not going to.
Starting point is 02:35:58 We were expanding our Salt Lake show because it sold out in like six hours. So we were putting it in a bigger venue that had more than twice as many seats. But the way the seats are, they couldn't guarantee that people who had different quality seats would get those good seats or would they be back there. And it was very confusing and would have been a huge pain in the ass for everyone involved. And some people wouldn't have been happy. So we said, you know what? Salt Lake is sold out.
Starting point is 02:36:23 Fuck it. We're keeping this venue. It's a nice venue, so we're keeping this. Everything is sold out until August right now. All the shows, San Diego, Denver, Salt Lake, all these shows sold out. The only thing right now you can get Chicago, August the 12th. It's going to be our biggest show ever, so make your way to Chicago. I believe Minneapolis the next night sold out.
Starting point is 02:36:43 And then there's some tickets available for Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, D.C., and Philly. That's what's available. Everything else, Boston sold out. They're selling out fast. Get your goddamn tickets if you want to see us this year. I'm telling you right now. And Chicago, especially you. Get your tickets right now. So thank you
Starting point is 02:36:59 so much for doing that. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com is where you do all of that shit. And you definitely want to as well. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com is where you do all of that shit. And you definitely want to as well. ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com Go there. Live show. Social media you want to do as well. Social media. Follow us there. We are at Small Town Murder on Instagram.
Starting point is 02:37:16 I don't know. We're on there. You'll find us. Find us. We're there. You can't miss us. We're around. We'll check that out. So do that. Follow us. And hopefully, if you're a patron and all that, then you're going to get a shout out. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 02:37:31 Those shout outs happen right now. Jimmy, please give me the name of the people who would never, ever, ever put us in a wood paneled basement and stab us 55 times with a dull serrated steak knife. Please, Jimmy, hit me with that list right now. This week's executive producers are Simon Chet. Happy birthday, Simon! Happy birthday, Simon, you English-Canadian soul bitch, you. Liz Nelson just became a Meemaw.
Starting point is 02:37:53 Congratulations. That's a brand new grandchild. Congrats. That's beautiful. I love that. Kathy Lang is coming to the Denver show. We'll see you there. Happy Mother's Day, Kathy.
Starting point is 02:38:03 Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Absolutely, Kathy. Can't wait to see you there. Happy Mother's Day, Kathy. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Absolutely, Kathy. Can't wait to see you there. Alexandra, Alexander, Cpiella. Cpiella and Caleb, they're getting married. May 20th.
Starting point is 02:38:14 Oh, congrats. Congratulations. Make some little paisans. Look at you. You found love, you sons of bitches. Karen Lewis in Anne Arundel said hello and thank you. And we were right. Nothing was wrong.
Starting point is 02:38:27 Thank you. Good. That makes us feel better. Other producers this week are Rabbi Shmulevich's fresh-trimmed nose hairs. That's a nice thing. You get to breathe clean. Oh, terrific. Get all that filthy air in there that the nose hairs filtered.
Starting point is 02:38:41 Brandi Huntley, Peyton Meadows, Anna Moore, Maureen Ponderosa. You know who she is, that chick from It's always sunny right that was always sunny yeah and ponderosa what's uh didn't you perform with that lady what's her name uh oh marilyn rice yes yeah yeah oh she's that's who it is awesome lady real cool she's on 24 and all that shit yeah but marine she does the best that's oh she's amazing no she does yeah she no she does um best. Oh, she's amazing. No, she does the slug. What's her name? Oh, it's not Maureen, is it? It's not Maureen.
Starting point is 02:39:10 No, Maureen is the one that wants to fuck Dennis all the time. Yeah, the slug that's in the house. No, no, Maureen is the one that he married, isn't it? Yeah, yes, right? Yes, high school girlfriend or some shit. Yes. Yes, that's who it was. Okay, sorry. Yes. High school girlfriend or something? Yes. Yes. That's who it was.
Starting point is 02:39:25 And then, okay. Sorry. Marilyn's the slug. You're right. We figured it out. Yes. Janice Hill, Scott Anastasio? No.
Starting point is 02:39:32 Atanasio. All right. Dr. Seymour Cooter, OBGYN, Steve Chanel, Megan Showiker, Mabel H., Samantha Hall, Patty Cole, weaker. Mabel H., Samantha Hall, Patty Cole, Jordan Frumkin, Lance Lunsford, Michael McCann, Rayanne McGregor,
Starting point is 02:39:51 Kelligan, Calligan, Wilson, Crystal P., Stephen with no last name, your waifu is trash, Jasmine U., Madison Vaughn, Greg Naktreeb, Charles Allen Burnside, Zach Mills, Kaylee, Kaylee Koperski, Katie with no last name, Obito, Gretchen Zuckuskus, I don't know, Jill Robson, Sid Matt 14, Jessica Hudson,
Starting point is 02:40:15 Ashley Knotts, Stuart Hill, Carly Boyd, Katie Edwards, Tyson Garrison, James Apuzzo, Tyson Garrison, James Apuzzo, Gabrielle V, Victoria Luca, Danny Carbineau, Joy Nicholson, Tiffany with no last name, Gregory Smith, Leanne M, Liz with no last name but also a question mark, Becky Thuma-Bucher, Mark Fisher, Tracy McDonald, Jordan with no last name, Dory Greenaway, Daniel Masik, Simon Pyrock, Craig, I got a small loan, Cozara, he got a small loan, not a mortgage, just a very small loan. Joe Womack, Sandra Contarado, got shoes on the credit card. car denny mcintyre sandra hegeman hegeman hegeman hegeman uh valentine valentine valentine valentine garcia valentine valentine all right amanda klein gilmore kenna bradley will palmer plumber uh talos franks talos uh gabriel get gabriel johnson cameron doug trim tim, Doug Tim. Doug gets some trim.
Starting point is 02:41:25 Get that trim, Doug. Let's do it. WNP, EVJ, Kelly, Kelly Carman, Norma Jean, and how, Ansaril, Ansaril Muhammad. Muhammad, I know what Muhammad is. Kate Legler, Cassandra Brooks, Jane Gigante, Gigante, Gigante, Gigante. Gigante. It's an I on the end Jane Gigante, Debbie McLarnon, Callie Living 805, Michelle Pope, Audrey Touchet, Ross Jenkins, Miranda Lynn, Carrie Netherton, Nicole Coulter, Joseph Carranza,y redmond redmond uh beth heyday uh megan kleinfelder daniel crowder sarah with no last name carrie mcbride diana dina dina dyer christina hatfield mario poirier sue thompson becky with no last name brad brady brady eilers, Kim Van Kirk, Aaron, John, what? That's Aaron, Jimmy.
Starting point is 02:42:25 Pettis, Grant Clark, Aaron Hereford, Seanathan, Seanathan and Joshua. Bri, Bri, Bri Elliott, maybe Bri Elliott. Adam Gibson, Mariah Shipley, I think, yeah. Sabrina Holbrook, Benjamin Scott, Jolene with no last name. Dan Nicholson, Linda Gallantine. Ann Kozik. Bridget Lavish. Pete Griebus. Miss S-O-D.
Starting point is 02:42:50 Let's see. What's this? 22. Kelly Ketchup. 7-2-1. Andy with no last name. We got ketchup in there. Matthew Dinterman.
Starting point is 02:42:58 I love ketchup. Dinterman. Rex Remexbar. Remexbar 9. Jonathan Mackey. Mike Watson. Kim Moreland, Alana Hall, Walter Strickland, Sexy Sahara. Oh, boy. James Cantrell, William Kant, Tito's Time. Yes, he can, Jimmy.
Starting point is 02:43:18 He can. I believe in you, William. You can do it. Ashley Anderson, Julie Hall, Laura Austin, Flash McGee, Rhiannon Loveless, Jordan with no last name, Nate Lonsky, Grant Silver, Andrew Young, Nikki West, Chelsea Ockfish. Yep. Gary Pickren, Matthew Leighton.
Starting point is 02:43:36 Leighton, maybe. Darcy Jolene, UC Woods Epoxy and Supply. You may want to check on them. Brandon. If you need epoxy. Or supply. Or supply is for epoxy. Brandon Sne want to check on them. If you need epoxy. Or Supply. Or Supply is for epoxy. Brandon Sneed and
Starting point is 02:43:47 Teleskior. Raphael Parra. Megan Beals. Andrew Pace. Bridget Maloney. Thomas Ledbetter. Brand Maze. Brad Maze. S-P. No name at all. Just S and a P. Grace of Base. Jonathan Paulson.
Starting point is 02:44:07 Jane and Rose. No last name for either. Isn't that terrific? Grace of Bass. I love Grace of Bass. That's the best name so far. Tremendously. That's awesome. Johnny Kickifer, Steve Ripple, Laura Lewis, Gabrielle Armstrong, Anthony Vollen, Natalie Baker, AZ Native.
Starting point is 02:44:22 Hey! How about that? Maddie Gibbons. Sorry about it. It's hot there. Robin and Michael C. Shelly Jarrell, maybe. Jessica Queen. Kelly Morris. Rock Trotter. Wilson Fields. Brianna. Oh, Brenna.
Starting point is 02:44:36 Brenna Miles. Erica Graves. Jennell. Jennell. Not Jennell. Jennell. That sounds gross. Hi, Jennell. Perfect. Casey Graybill. Ben Bicknell. Jennell Borgstrom. That sounds gross. Hi, Jennell. Perfect. Casey Graybill, Ben Bicknell, Madison Wren, Mentally Ill Emily, Samesies, Kristen with no last name, Jonathan Paul... No, that's Justin.
Starting point is 02:44:55 Justin Paulker and all of our patrons, thank you so much. Thank you so much, everybody, for all that you do for us. We are blown away by your support. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you 20 times over. Overwhelmed like a small town Wisconsin police force. Thank you so much. Like a police force with some poor woman's head
Starting point is 02:45:14 almost chopped off. Keep doing that. Keep coming back and seeing us. You want to find us on social media individually. Very easy to do that. Just go to shutupandgivememurder.com. Links are there to everything. Come back and keep seeing us. Until until next week everybody it's been our pleasure
Starting point is 02:45:29 you 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.

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