Small Town Murder - #428 - Weak Motives & Wilderness Gangsters - Palmer, Alaska

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

This week, in Palmer, Alaska, a teenager, with a good future, heads to hang out with an old friend, and classmate, but never makes hit home. The whole area searches frantically, but when the teenager is finally found, it's worse than anyone could have thought. This senseless killing makes even less sense, when the facts come out, and the motive seems clouded in mystery!!Along the way, we find out that Alaska grows cabbages that could be used as murder weapons, that smoking a little weed certainly doesn't make you eligible to be murdered, and that it's rare for an equal amount of evil to be spread to a whole group of friends!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yeah, choo-choo. Oh indeed jimmy yay indeed my name is james petra gallo i'm here with my co-host i'm jimmy wissman thank you folks for joining us so much all aboard the murder train we are going up to the far pacific northwest today we're going to alaska today on this murder oh is it i guess that is chugga chugga a long way northwest as it gets as northwest as possible and to be in the united states so here we go we're gonna do that very quickly before we start your stupid opinions is out everybody it's going it's out we're on our we're gonna release our fourth episode here we love it it's been going great so if you have not

listened to it yet you are messing up check it out your stupid opinions our new podcast wherever you listen to podcasts right oh we can't wait also listen to crime and sports if you have it's happening also not yes lots of crazy stuff plenty of murder over there plenty of gross things it's gross it's just as gross we promise so check that out also you certainly also want tickets to the virtual live show. Oh, yeah. October the 26th. It's our Halloween spectacular. Hell, yeah.

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is no different what we're going to get this week for crime and sports bonus which you'll have access to we're going to talk about that crazy show that was on for a while there pros versus joes uh which said we'll just take a regular person and have them go up against a professional athlete in that athlete's sport and we'll see what. And a lot of concussions and bad things happened, and it's pretty damn hilarious, so we'll talk all about that. And then for Small Town Murder, we're going to talk about a crazy case that has yet to go to trial because it keeps getting delayed, the Sarah Boone case, the alleged suitcase killer

who zipped her boyfriend up in a suitcase. Pretty awesome that they're giving her a nickname. Yeah, it's hard not to. With one body it's well this she's real we'll talk about that but patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you're where you get all of that stuff and more you're gonna shout out at the end of the regular show as well that said let's get into this time to get into this let's do this i think it's time for everyone to sit back what do you say let's all clear the lungs, arms to the sky, everyone, and let's all shout.

Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy. What do you say, everybody? Let's go on a trip. Yeah. We're doing it. We're going all the way to Alaska today. Yeah.

Yeah. We don't go to Alaska often. No. And we're going all the way to alaska today yeah yeah we're the we don't go to alaska often no and uh we're gonna go out here we're in palmer alaska palmer palmer alaska it's in southern alaska here where most of the civilization is in southern alaska most of the towns and see well yeah because it gets colder the farther north you go so the colder it gets the less people you're gonna have a population is giant too right oh it's gigantic alaska's gigantic it's just sprawling like the size of europe and it's like two cities in it um this is in southern alaska 45 minutes to anchorage so kind of you know driving distance i guess two hours and 25 minutes to hope Alaska, which was our last episode up there,

which was the deadly love hexagon was the title of it. It was fun. The motto here is it was, there was a lot of people involved in that one. All just jizz everywhere. Motto of this place, Alaska at its best. Yeah.

It doesn't get better than this. For vegetables. It certainly doesn't get better than this. Of course it does. It's worse. For vegetables, it certainly doesn't as we'll talk about here. That's where it's at its worst. Quickly with the town stuff here. Population 5,978 currently.

Okay. Up 32% since 2000. So it's been- Booming. Booming out here. Median household income, little bit high, but not too high.

$62,068. And median home cost, $351,300. So it's pretty average, actually. A lot of military families live here. There's a base nearby. So a little bit of history. In the late 19th century, so late 1800s, the U.S. government started taking interest in the coal fields north of Palmer. There's coal up there.

taking interest in the coal fields north of Palmer. There's coal up there. So they were like, hmm. And then financiers started constructing the Alaska Central Railroad to be able to go get that coal in 1904. World War I, we needed a lot of coal. And they said, well, let's get coal from up there. So they had the Navy constructed rails from Seward and got all the coal. By the end of World War I, the U.S. Navy distributed land in the coal fields to war veterans.

Is that right? Yeah, like the Revolutionary War almost. It gave them land. And additional land was open to homesteading as well. They were trying to get people to settle this up here. Farmers, miners, homesteaders began to come here and populate it. By 1917, they had a post office. It was called Wharton originally, this town.

Wharton, and then it changed to Palmer. But farming was the big thing. In the middle of the Great Depression, part of the New Deal relief program was to transplant struggling farmers from continental U.S., 48 up to up to palmer so they could farm there because you have more chance of being successful because this this town is famed for 90 pound cabbages seven pound turnips and giant root vegetables what nuclear shit went on the the sun in the summertime when these things are growing the sun shines for 20 hours a day so it's like that's right yeah that all day shit in the winter it's dark for like four months so right it's hard up there you better you better grow a 90 pound

cabbage if you want to eat this winter you're gonna need sauerkraut all winter with that thing so reviews of this town let's find out what it is to live up here uh first of all this person says five stars love it plamer they don't even spell it correctly there is a plamer is a close knit community where everyone know everyone all right okay everyone know them everyone know the majority of the people are very helpful and inviting in a great place to live and watch your family grow so they love it fascinating person that's good three stars palmer is very community oriented it's a good place to raise kids it can get pretty windy here though oh okay it's a very weird you're gonna lose a balloon they lose two stars for wind though

it's kind of rough i've lost like four of those canopy things that you put out in your yard and eat under in the last year here's three stars it is a great place to live if you wanted to live in a place where it's quiet and away from the city smells oh god my head hurts whatever what that sentence is tough but i'm gonna get rid of the english and whatever grammar problems let's go to it stinks the people i've never people want to get away from the you know the congestion and the noise i never hear i gotta get out of the smells of this place that's very strange so many smells i'm confused all day. I'm very confused. I can't spell. The smells make for bad spells.

But it have its disadvantage due to the fact that there aren't many opportunities and no malls. Well. I mean, well, I thought you wanted to get away from the smells, man. That food court will fuck you up. I want to smell Auntie Anne's pretzels now. And it does feel lonely as well. All right. Two stars. It's a nice, sweet rural town.

This is not sounding like a two-star review on the first sentence. That is a great place to raise kids safely and healthily. Okay. What is this next one going to be? It has no nightlife or healthy options for young adults. It has limited job opportunities for young adults. Okay. That makes sense.

Two stars. Quote, Alaska does have the highest crime rate after all. Does it? No. Well, that depends because violent crime rate, I know number one in the nation is Arkansas on that one. So not Alaska. Anchorage is actually one of the highest cities for crime rate, though. Is that right?

Yeah. Anchorage has a very high crime rate for some reason. Fascinating. Things to do here. The Alaska State Fair is in. Oh, yeah. And so this is the biggest deal in Alaska. State Fair.

State Fair. It goes on for weeks, it looks like. I see at least Friday, Augustust 18th to september 2nd so it's got to be the last the last hurrah of being outdoors right i i think so after that everything freezes over i think on the third of september is the annual freeze over and you just know you start ice skating then yeah the sun goes away for four or five months. Put your old blankets over the plants. Oh, shit, man. So in 2008, Scott Robb of Palmer won first place and a $2,000 prize for his 79.1 pound cabbage. 79 pounds of cabbage.

Just the one. But in 2009, a world record breaking cabbage was put out here yeah at this at the alaska state fair 127 pounds fuck you're 79 cabbage you could murder a person with a cabbage would they ever you could murder them with the cabbage and then cut it up make kraut out of it and no one would ever know they'd never suspect i bet it was a cabbage they'd never find the weapon i broke your 79 pound record in cabbage three months ago cabbage that's nothing 120 pounds with your bullshit ass cabbage uh then the pumpkin contest this is last this is this year that just happened 2023 first place was a 2023.5 pound pumpkin from anchorage alaska how fucking big is that a ton literally it's a ton of pumpkin that's insane so that one pumpkin is 2 000 pounds i'm gonna we don't have a lot of time so i'm gonna

read through the list of their musical acts and And it's definitely not what you expect, probably. The Turnpike Troubadours. Noah Kahan for King Plus Country. Blues Traveler. Flogging Molly. Nate Bargatze will be slinging jokes over there. Home Free. Young Gravy.

Jay Boog. Kill. Of course he will. Home Free. Yeah. Young Gravy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Jay Boog. Uh-huh. Kill Switch Engage. Fuck yeah. The String Cheese Incident. I don't know that one.

Noah Cyrus. And of course, last but not least by any means, The Little River Band. So, yeah. Dude, they've got something for everybody. This is fantastic. I mean, it's really throwing darts all over the board to make sure that someone will like everything there. Young Gravy just went to the VMAs with Lisa Ann. Yeah, that's what I mean.

It's from Very Current to The Little River Band. It's just everybody there. Incredible. And Blues Traveler in between. Yeah, Skinny Blues Traveler. Yeah, used to be the world record pumpkin. Now he's not anymore. That's how it goes.

Let's talk about a murder. What do you say? Let's do it. All right. Let's talk about a young man, shall we? Uh-huh. All right. We're going to go back in time to about 2016 here.

Okay. 2016, we'll catch up with a teenager here named David Grunwald. Hell yeah. David Grunwald. He's 16 years old. Seems like a nice kid from what I'm gathering here. His parents are, they're both military people or were military people, retired, as we'll talk about. His mom is the Alaska Parole Board chair.

So, chair's the Alaska Parole Board. It's her decision whether they're getting out or not. I mean, I don't know if it's a vote or whatever, but she's the chair. She's the one who says, all right, we're going to vote now. Yeah. Her votes probably got some swing and influence. That's what I mean. She's probably the most senior member or the most respected or whatever.

I don't know. Now, mom here, the chair of the parole board, Edie is her name. board edie is her name she joined the active duty air force in 1984 and came to alaska as her first station that she was okay place she was stationed and uh she really enjoyed alaska um when she retired in 2015 and her only son is david so oh yeah um she's got one son david i guess the father i think has another child but he only but she only has young David here. So she retired in 2015 to spend time with David, get him through high school, and all that sort of thing. He's really good with technical stuff here. Like he built his own computer at a young age.

Oh, like real tech stuff. And he's one of the kids, like my son is, with this stuff. He's a Lego, like, insane. Savant. Yeah. Just so good at it. That's the thing. And he would build the projects that were, when he's eight, you give him the ones that are for adults, and he can slap them together.

Wow. Like, my son's been doing that since. You see him put it together. It's like watching. Bananas. It's like watching Johnny Five do something, where you're like, how's he doing that? So that's what he does. So fast, and just not even thinking about it.

It's like watching those Rubik's Cube champions. Yes. That shit. It's so confusing because I can't do it. It's more it's more impressive because the Rubik's Cube is just fucking patterns and shit. Once you know the patterns you can figure it out really fast. The Lego's like 8,000 pieces some of these. Oh my God. And the instructions are more

complicated than. Yes. Yeah. I feel like I could put together I could build a car before I could build a Lego car. Yeah. I feel like I could put together... I could build a car before I could build a Lego car. Probably. Your son could probably build a Lego car that runs before he could build a car.

Oh, before I could build anything. A Lego car or anything else. Yeah. So he was... He wanted to go to the Mat-Su, M-A-T-S-U, because it's the area. Mat-Su Career and Tech. That's the area. Matt Sue Career and Tech.

That's the high school he wanted to go to. I guess it's kind of a technical high school for people who want to do shit like that, engineering and that kind of thing. Engineer school, yeah. Yeah. So he applied in the ninth grade, and his mom said he was number one on the waiting list. So to get into there, he attended school. He went to the anchorage christian school

for kindergarten he went with his mom to alabama i guess because she was still active duty at that point uh and went to the alabama christian academy for the first play upgrade and then they ended up going to dc for a little while and they were back in alaska uh he played he was like into soccer took karate played basketball you, that sort of shit. Went to church twice a week. Kind of a typical, just a nice kid who does what his parents say he should do. Yeah, got his hand in a lot of pots. He's not focused on just one thing, but the engineering thing is clearly his thing.

Age-appropriate things he likes, too. He's not like, I just want to go to strip clubs. You know what I'm saying? It's good. Or a 16-year and cub scouts yeah uh he had a parakeet named zeke that hung out on his shoulder um so all sorts of always a fucking bird i like how his mom said we went on a quote miserable hot trip to dis World. Made the mistake of going to Florida in the summer, and that's a problem. Went to Florida in July. Whoops-a-daisy. Whoopsie.

That's not great. So, yeah, he liked all that kind of thing. He attended space camp and aviation camp at NASA in Huntsville, Alabama each summer. So they only take smart kids, good kids. It's a tough program to get into probably easy for him where he's just they're just like show him that lego thing you're in kid they're like wow okay yeah how quick come on with us how quick can you put together an at-at lego because i watched my son put that thing together real fast i was like whoa

that's crazy so one summer he wasn't allowed to go because he failed English. So his mom said, no space camp for you this summer. None for you. Which is, you know, that's parenting too. That's heartbreaking. But I mean, you have to do it though. He didn't want to fail English after that. So English was hard for him in the ninth grade because if he's more into technical stuff, my son's the same way.

Like that sort of thing is not where his brain works. His brain works on the technical side of shit like that. He went to the Solid Rock Bible Camp every summer as well. So he's at Colony High School for the 10th grade. And he's applying again to go to Mat-Su, the career and tech place, and was accepted to go there for the 11th grade, I guess, apparently. So at some point in the second semester of 11th grade or something like that, he was going to go there. So, yeah, he's doing well.

In 2016, he went to aviation camp that summer and loved it again. You know, was doing all that sort of stuff and uh attending his bible camp and doing water sports and all that sort of thing and you know he really committed himself to christianity and everything so he's doing well kid yeah good kid nice kid yes um he also likes to smoke a little weed with his friends on the side good kid which is fine i yeah i knew so many i mean there was kids that i hung out with that were complete ne'er-do-well shitheads that smoked weed. But then we also hung out with, I'll tell you what, somebody we went to high school with who got a scholarship to Harvard and literally was like a great athlete and a brilliant person, got a perfect score on her SATs, all that. I sold her weed all the time and mushrooms. You know what I mean? Greg Giraldo told the joke that Michael Phelps smokes weed.

That's a great story because you can smoke a little bit of weed and still be the greatest Olympian that ever lived. Not just have lung capacity, the best lung capacity. The lung capacity of a fucking blue whale, basically. Yeah. So so not bad he'll bogart your whole fucking bag doing well that's not the guy you want to give a bong hit to definitely not so he's got some friends that he hangs out with and you know some of his friends are good kids and some of them are shitheads because i mean if you're going to smoke some

weed you're going to hang out with the kids who smoke weed which yeah it's not big groups of of good kids that hang out it's a couple of good kids that hang out with the kids who smoke weed, which it's not big groups of good kids that hang out. It's a couple of good kids that hang out with a few whatever. And hopefully maybe they'll rub off on each other a little bit. The nerds will find some music they like. The bad kids will be like, hey, maybe I should show up for class. And then everybody makes out. Everybody gets drawn in a smidge.

Let's hope. Just in the center. Yeah, just everyone rubs off just a drop on each other. So November 13,th 2016 he's got a girlfriend david okay doing well there so he hangs out with her on this day it's a sunday and uh hangs out with his girlfriend spent the day with her and then drops her off at her father's house in palmer at about 6 30 p.m okays her off. Then he called his mother. It's 2016, so unlike some of our cases, there's cell phones, which helps for tracking down murderers and such, too.

So he called his mother, and he said he's going to stop by his friend's house on the way back, so he might not be able to make it home on his 9 p.m. curfew. He's got a very strict curfew. Yeah. Mom keeps him in line. that's some military shit you fail english no space camp you you know you're late for curfew you're in trouble you better if you're gonna be late you gotta call so right he calls and he said i might not be able to be there by nine but i won't be more than 20 minutes late so i'm just might be blurring it a little bit and she said yeah no problem at all so that's a responsible kid even called his mom to say i could i might be 15 minutes late good stuff saving himself some

trouble later on smart so his friend who he's stopping to hang out with is a kid named eric with a k with a ck by the way oh weird unnecessary let me add an unnecessary letter to that yeah i know the c makes a c sound and so does K, but if they go together, it's a super cuh. We get it. Now, with that, we should be calling you E-Rick. That's your name now. You're E-Rick. Yeah, exactly, because it's a very strange way to spell, Eric.

You're Internet Rick. That's what we call you. My brother's name is Eric. It's just a C. Just a C. It's not so bad. You didn't go, we should tack another letter on there people could be confused is that a scandinavian thing with the ck on it is that what that is i think just the k is scandinavian is it the k is

yeah that's usually what it is ck is i don't know what it is last name i'm sure it might be and we were just ignorant i mean that's very popular so eric. Rick Allmendinger is his name. Yeah, it's E. Rick. E. Rick Allmendinger. He doesn't get Eric, but Allmendinger. Never mind his first name, his last name. A-L-M-A-N-D-I-N-G-E-R. Dinger.

Dinger. Allmendinger. They call him Dinger? And I don't know if it's Dinger, but I'm calling him Dinger. Allman Dinger. They call him Dinger? And I don't know if it's Dinger, but I'm calling him Dinger. It's Dinger. So, yeah, he knows David. They attend Colony High School. They had gone to Colony High School together.

Allman Dinger had went to a Shaw Elementary, went to T-Land Middle School and Colony High School. All his friends say that All almond dinger is like a gentle kid from what people say there he liked animals and you know people his friends said like he would take a spider and put it outside he wouldn't kill it oh really that kind of yeah so that's what his grandmother was saying too interesting yeah he uh he likes to um him and his brother entered uh arts and crafts competitions and the cookie competition at the Alaska State Fair. How big are your cabbages, Eric? That's my question there.

Eric, what do you see my 500 pound chocolate chip? Yeah, let's see that. It's fucking huge. We had to get a flatbed to bring it here. He also helped raise chickens for a while. He was living with his mother near Wasilla, which is nearby. And his father had visitation rights on weekends. Now, his dad, Rod, described him as a bit of a wild child, but generally respectful.

E-Rick? E-Rick, yeah. Generally, you know, not a bad kid, but he's got a little wild streak in him, as a lot of teenagers do. But he said he was getting good grades for the most part yeah until the summer of his back well until the summer of 2015 when he met a friend named devin who's a couple years older than him yeah and uh rubbed off on him in a bad way i don't mean that sexually but yeah yeah so devin peterson summer of 2015 um they they started hanging out to the point where Eric's dad eventually banned Peterson from the house. Really?

Because he thought he was a bad influence. Yeah, his grades started slipping. He wasn't coming home on time. Sure thing, Devin. So then Eric stopped coming over to his dad's house a lot because he wasn't allowed to bring his dirtbag friend with him. So I can't bring my degenerate friend i'm not coming that's the way it works we get bad grades together dad it's damn it no he's not even in school this guy's fucking 18 right oh is that oh devon isn't he unbelievable years old so by the

summer of 2016 eric wasn't staying with his mother anymore he had moved out of his mom's house and his dad said he was basically homeless just he was basically just kind of crashing not homeless but crashing which is homeless with you know someone will let you sleep on their couch that's yeah with some social social ability stuff yeah exactly uh he said he would also though in addition to staying with friends his dad said he would move through trap houses that serve as drug-dealing bases in Wasilla. Dad knows the word trap houses? Dad knows trap house and drug deal. Yeah, he knows it all.

Fascinating. Isn't that wild? Very street-savvy father. Yeah, he's like, motherfuckers at a trap house. It's weird, right? Very interesting. E-Rick over at the trap house, man. It's weird, right?

Very interesting. E-Rick over at the trap house, man. So he's got a group of friends that he hangs out with that we'll talk about these few kids in a second here. And they would come by. The dad said when he started staying with his dad that they would come by and hang out and just eat. They were always hungry because they were wandering. And bullshit, he said. They always had backpacks on you know just kind of wandering that's the sign of the dipshit generally anybody wandering around with a backpack uh after 4 p.m is probably up to no good probably up to no good yeah unless they're a comedian on the road

are you funny no you're up to no good then yeah or on the way to a club or on the way home from a club or because i always do that but yeah just ask someone if they're funny tell me what's your best joke motherfucker if it's funny then let them go i don't know if i'm afraid of you or i want to hang out with you i'm not sure you're probably up to know good. So Rod, Eric's dad, Eric's dad, agreed to let him stay at the house again by October of 2016. They had to agree also to let another teen stay with him as well. Somebody else here.

So another friend of his has to be able to come over and stay there as well. That passed in the bill, huh? Yeah, not Peterson, though. There. Okay. and stay there as well. That passed in the bill, huh? Yeah, not Peterson, though, there. Okay.

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enrolled him, Eric, at Valley Pathways Alternative School and, you know, tried to keep him from wandering about too much. He said the teens would sneak out and get drunk, and he said he was giving him, he told them, you get one last chance here, and I'm kicking you both out, and then the other friend took off.

He's like, well, I'm going to fuck up anyway, so I might as well just leave here. He has one more chance, and I know what that means. Yeah. So a week later, that kid came back again here. So we'll talk about his group of friends. He's got a group of friends, and that is Bradley Renfro. They're all 16 here, these kids.

Brad Renfro, we'll talk about this idiot later. Austin Barrett, double R, double T, Barrett. Apparently, he's got a little bit of a past. He and Devin Peterson, the guy who was banned from Allman Dinger's house, were among three people from this area charged with kidnapping earlier. Of who? In connection with a case that allegedly involved luring an Eagle River man to the valley for sex with a 16 year old girl. Oh, my God. They're're trying to i don't know they were trying to rob somebody and they were like well tell him he could fuck this chick and then they were they kidnap him so what the shit so damian peterson who's devin's little brother

told the police that this man had texted with the girl and drove her drove to her home in wasilla but showed up without any money and then damien and two others uh damien devon and them were accused of uh forcing the man to drive them back to his home to get his money and his credit cards they were just trying to jack him so they were trying they're doing under the guise of like a underage prostitution scam and he showed up with no money not even underage just prostitution scam they were trying to do i don't even know i feel like i feel like chris hansen would have even let that guy go he didn't even bring anything chris hansen wouldn't have tried to rob him yeah but i

mean if they like called the cops and were like this guy's coming to fuck a 16 year old that's fine that's okay but they chris hansen's not like hiding in the bushes going let's see if he's got his credit cards hey boom mic operator fucking jack him when he comes this way i'll fucking punch him and then you take his wallet that didn't i told him i told him to bring a pizza because i'm hungry just take the pizza from sunday morning's way take the pizza and fucking kick him in the ass no more fucking kids thanks for the pizza take his phone smash it on the ground, just for good measure. That's the one I want. I'm sure he's got condoms.

Take those, too. I'm going to need some later, Chris Hansen's saying. I'm going to get me some fucking later. So the way this happened here, once they get inside, the victim here introduced damien to his father while and while damien was shaking hands with this guy's father then the the guy the victim pulled out a pistol from the dresser drawer he's like i gotta go over here and get my money out of the dresser drawer came out with a pistol and ordered a damien to get on the ground and then they called the cops and the cops came and arrested Damien and Devin and Barrett here. They all got arrested for this.

So these are the people we're dealing with. These are this guy's buddies. Yeah. And dumb. These people all think they're in a gang, by the way. This is a bad gang. Wasilla and here, there's no people here. This is a really shitty gang, if this is a gang.

Like, this is a terrible representative of a gang. It's a dumb shit gang in the first place if you're trying to rob somebody and you take them back to their own house where in Alaska everybody's got fucking guns in their drawers. Yeah, no shit. Are you out of your mind? You're going to take that man into the place where he lives where clearly all of his shit is? Five white kids living in the wilderness is not a gang you know what i mean like i'm sorry five woodsy white kids that's not a gang mate yeah they just saw like 90s like west coast rap and they're like well i saw they were wearing flannel we always wear flannel i feel like we should i got a bandana in my back

pocket yeah covered in snot it's covered in snot my dad uses it to wash the uh to wipe the drippings the oil drippings off the chainsaw but i'll put it on my head so on then there's another guy here named dominic johnson and dominic d-o-m-i-n-i-c so a little different spelling dominic johnson he on his facebook page it showed him making some sort of you know gang just trying to do like can gestures gang signs and shit make made up his own like an a fucking you know i don't know yeah um they all and almond dinger also had facebook was on his page making things. And they all thought they were, in their mind, they're in a gang.

They're hard. They're hard as shit. Yeah. They're hard. They're hard. So they said they're basically, this whole group has very little parental supervision. They'd show up at school sometimes. And they fucking have easy access to weed and booze and shit like that

so you know they're hanging out so on the night of november 13th now this is the night that david was going to hang out with uh almond dinger here um it is uh when he gets there it's almond dinger renfro and dominic johnson bradley renfro dominic johnson and almond dinger um i guess first it was just those three they while they left for a while got something to eat and came back and what they're doing is they're hanging out in a camper trailer in the back of eric's dad's house in the backyard that's the hangout spot which you know yeah know, yeah, it blocks the wind. Right. We've all been here. Well, it's probably plugged into something, and they have electricity for, like, TV to play video games and shit like that, too.

Well, they're just going to use it as, like, a drinking shed. Okay. Drinking and weed smoking shed. They're not even that advanced. Yikes. I guess Allmendinger's dad does custom glass work, things like that. So he's got a shop in the house, and he's doing that, making shit. So they just hang out out there.

They said that Allmendinger brought a bunch of alcohol from his dad's house, and I guess they were also – he had a bunch of weed, too. And they were just all hanging out, sitting and drinking and smoking weed and bullshitting and teenagers you know normal stuff here so grunwald here david he comes over and joins this group and he's smoking weed and hanging out they're in the they're in the trailer back there and you know everybody's just bullshitting and you know doing whatever now david only knows eric he doesn't know the other guys okay so this is like eric's quote is my gang crew yeah over here and then david is like his buddy that he went to high school with before he got sent to the bad kid high school that he barely shows up for anyway so very different groups of people here and eric in the middle so we all had that friend though you know i mean the one that was like was in the group and then he like went his own way and then now he brings like scumbags around like dude what the fuck are you

doing absolutely and there's a weird there's a weird lord of the flies things that happens when you get more than two boys together that are of a teenage years it's a strange thing where groups form and it's based on power and it's based on weird shit pecking order and it's a weird pecking order yeah well we all have the same interest of just smoking weed here today why do we need yeah and there has to be a leader for that and there has to be a like a who are we versus that type of thing also the asshole that we're gonna make fun of today exactly that's kind of how it works and apparently at some point here this turned into eric and his quote-unquote gang dipshit friends yeah kind of turning on david here and fucking

with him and what the fuck the reason it seems like it may have started with something mild and then it just escalated and when you have four people feeding off of each other and nobody's mature enough to stop it it escalates into something way bigger or it was a plan and it's just a gross thing to do either way it's gross but yeah the degree of grossness will vary here it depends on yeah depends on the motivation of it so david's hanging out that night and smoking weed in the camper when apparently they lured him into the camper's bathroom. Those are tiny. Small in there.

It's like an airplane bathroom, basically. And I guess Allmendinger has a real heavy.40 caliber Ruger pistol. Oh. And they pistol whip David with this. Why? pistol oh and they pistol whip david with this why and they end up just beating him senselessly with their hands it seems like with their hands feet with the gun he's they beat this poor kid into half consciousness for no reason if you're in an rv bathroom there's only room for you and a fist you know what i mean yeah oh that poor bastard he had no chance to defend himself in there you can't fight back no that bathroom there's no room for anything it's not

even like no you could there's no mile high club was at the c-level club if you fucking an rv bathroom you can barely shit by yourself and yeah so small by yourself because people are right there so they're beating him and beating him um then they take him he's half conscious he's bloody they take him he's got a like a 94 ford bronco like an oj bronco yeah essentially is what uh david's driving sure so they drag david outside and he's begging for his life he doesn't what the hell are they doing to him this is this wasn the plan. We were going to smoke weed in a camper. This is crazy. They throw him in his own Bronco and drive him to the KNIK.

Is that Nick? Is it Knick? I have no idea. It's probably the KNIK. KNIK. KNIK. Country 94.6 River. six river um where they get him out of the bronco and they walk him into the woods and beat him some more and then shoot him with the 40 caliber ruger and kill what the fuck no reason

no reason we'll find out just to be dicks we'll find out um the kind of reason later on but that ain't the reason it's one of those things where you're like no no i'm not buying that oh i need to know so bad this fucking poor kid they shoot him out there i'm so mad and they just leave him out there in the woods then they take his truck and they go what do we do here now renfro bradley renfro he was the one that was making suggestions on where they should take him to kill him when they were driving. Well, we should go there. We should go here. It's pretty remote over here.

So following that also, he was the one who said, yeah, we should definitely burn the vehicle. And Renfro was the one who bought gas to pour all over the Bronco and set a flame, which they do. They drive it to another place and set it on fire and leave it in the woods. I don't, I don't understand what the motivation and point of all this is. I don't get what the point of the fire is other than to destroy evidence is all I can imagine because physical evidence hairs and that sort of thing are going to burn up in a fucking car fire.

So, but what that does tell you is guaranteed. Whoever did this was in this car. Was in this car. This car had something to do with it. And if you want to try to be inconspicuous about something, I would say lighting an SUV on fire in the middle of the night probably isn't the best way to do that.

Remember we had that crime in sports about Craig Titus where they went and did that. They killed this lady. Right in the fucking Vegas desert. Yeah, in the desert where if you have a room on the 20th floor of the Luxor you can see this fucking fire going on for Christ's sake in the middle of the desert and and set it aflame and everyone saw it for 50 miles around and said what's that fire in the desert why is the whole town uh flickering yeah which these are 16-year-old idiots also. So that night, Allmendinger messages a girl here just before 4 a.m. here.

So later on that evening, whatever. Now, the girl was dating a different boy of the group, not Allmendinger. boy of the group not almond dinner she says later that uh she was staying with uh she told him on the text that she was staying with the friends of her father's in a nice neighborhood and wasn't going to school all the time and all this type of shit so he sent her two videos that were filmed in the shed in the camper shed back there in one of them almond dinger looks really wasted and he's laughing hysterically and wrestling with somebody while rap music plays in the background that's all she can make out of it then he makes what looks like a gang sign afterwards these kids are so you just

want to open hand smack these fucking kids go go to school you fucking idiot. Stop. You're dumb. This isn't real. I want a man named Junebug to paintbrush these motherfuckers. Remember Scared Straight? These are the kids who need it. This is why. They need somebody to go get in their face and fucking talk about tossing salad on them. I don't want a drill sergeant. I want them literally thrown in jail to sit with fucking Gen Pop and see what life is really like.

Just that program. Just that scared straight program. They just send people in one after another going, I'd take your shoes first day. What you going to do about that? And the kid's like, oh, fuck, nothing probably. And then your butthole day too. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And then I'd sell you.

And it's like, well, yeah. In the next video, Almond Dinger looks all kind of dazed and has what's described as a triangular stain spreading across the front of his jeans. And somebody asked him if he pissed himself. Did you piss yourself? So at some point, the girl said she messaged Almond Dinger to, you know, say, you guys are really you're gonna get in trouble i can hear how loud this is your dad's gonna hear from the house and also she got angry with him and one of her girlfriends who was fooling around with almond dinger in the shed and came in with hickeys on her neck so she's arguing you were giving my friend hickeys they just murdered a kid and pissed his pants and

there's so many things happening that but she's mad about the hickeys though she said wow i got mad at them because i just didn't feel that was okay the hickeys the moral on this girl good girl what what else isn't okay is david doesn't come home at all oh so he's supposed to be home by 9 20 at the latest and he is you know by midnight they're like well david would call by now you know he's a good kid and they said his you know his dad said it's completely unlike him not to call um so they call the cops and reported that he met this almond dinger uh to give him a ride to anchorage he may have done that he may have said he may have given his friend

a ride maybe that's why i guess the um here, Edie, said that his girlfriend had mentioned a planned stop at Allmendinger's house on the night after he dropped her off. But she said she didn't really know Allmendinger, but that's what he was saying he was going to do. Now, this is from Edie. Edie says, says quote when david didn't call or show up at 9 20 we knew something was wrong i tried calling him several times left messages then i called victoria that's the girlfriend to ask what time he left and where he might have been headed when uh we then called eric eric's father even devin peterson at eric at eric's father's recommendation. They might be with this guy.

Victoria here, that's the girlfriend, started reaching out to all sorts of people for information. And each of these vicious group members lied and misled her, us and the troopers. The troopers even questioned us because of what they were saying. We had to write a letter describing David and that he was not a runaway and had no desire to go off the grid and all this type of shit. That's what the group was telling the cops. He told us he wanted to run away and live off the grid. I don't know, man.

He's probably in the woods somewhere. Yeah, that's what 16-year-olds who have a lot of shit going on do normally. Yeah. So she said, all night on the 13th of November, David's father and I drove around looking for evidence of breaking down, sliding off the road.

Anything just looking. Yeah. Flashlight. This car go off to hit a tree. He's unconscious, slumped over the wheel. She said they stopped at the trooper station and the trooper said, well, we'll keep an eye out for any, you know, Broncos on the side of the road. So they said the night of the 13th. This is Rod Allmendinger, Eric's dad. He assumed that Eric and the other teens were staying at the house, inside the house and watching TV in a downstairs bedroom.

Because, you know, he didn't even know Eric. He thought Eric was in the house. He said, I didn't know what he was doing. He said he didn't see David come back or anyone else go to the trailer which he usually kept locked he said that he kept trying to reach eric and finally heard from him at 4 a.m and his dad said that the grunwalds were worried about david because that's his parents were calling all around so um the father said this quote he just said for everybody to just chill he's probably just out hanging out with somebody else and being late so that's what i did because i'm a dad i just chilled i just chilled and said oh that's cool and okay i don't know if rod knows this david kid or maybe this that's the type of

behavior he would normally exhibit but david wouldn't that's nothing it's just out of character feels like feels like rod's just thankful that eric isn't at a trap house yeah yeah at least he's here not at a trap house maybe he's at a trap house yeah yeah at least he's here not at a trap house maybe he's at a trap house david have you looked there have you checked all the trap houses by any chance rod the dad said he looked in the trailer once a few days after david went missing to see if he was maybe hiding back there maybe he's like living back here running away he said he poked some sleeping bags but didn't see anything amiss. He didn't look in the bathroom and see the blood. He said it was dark in there and I quote, wasn't looking in the bathroom.

So you were looking hard enough that you were poking sleeping bags to make sure he wasn't hiding in one, but you didn't check a whole room. Didn't make sure a room where he could easily be standing up hiding from you. He could be just shitting, reading a magazine. We have no idea what he's doing in there. Whacking. That's a dad that's willfully ignorant about everything happening around him. Yeah, that's fucking ridiculous. Yeah, just wandering through it.

He said he locked the door whenever he saw it had been opened. And when he saw that the trailer was opened a few days later when he went to go in there, the dad said that Eric told him that he needed to get something out of the trailer. So that's why he must have opened it. Allman Dinger said he went to bed around, this is the dad, said he went to bed around 1 a.m. after trying unsuccessfully to reach Eric via Facebook Messenger. trying unsuccessfully to reach Eric via Facebook Messenger, and a response from his son came at 3 a.m. and said, quote, hey, I'm sorry. I'm not with any David, to be honest.

I'm with some friends, and I won't be home tonight. Sorry. Maybe I will be at school tomorrow, hopefully, if I can get a ride. How about get your fucking ass home and don't tell me any of this maybe shit? How about we are curfew, motherfucker? You're a child. Come the fuck home. One six, bitch.

Get home. Wow, bitch. Hey, if you're saying that shit, one six, bitch. Get your ass back to the house. Maybe I'll go to school. How about maybe I'll beat the shit out of you? Holy shit, that is crazy. For talking to me that way.

Are you nuts? So they're searching. The authorities are asking for the public's help in locating possibly any surveillance video from around the area that could possibly show David or his Ford Bronco license plate JFM 910 on the night of November 13th. So the next day, November 14th, a passerby, it's a popular where they where they set the truck on fire is like a popular spot for four wheeling. Apparently, of course, somebody went out four wheeling and they find his Bronco west of Wasilla burnt to shit and no sign of David. Yeah.

So mom here, Edie, David's mom, said instant fright, horrific scenes played out of David being burned to a crisp, leading to scenes of David out there in those woods somewhere, people searching everywhere. At this point, people came from all over as we started searching for our 16-year-old son, imagining all sorts of horrific and even hopeful situations. All the while, the deranged group, meaning those other kids, were partying, lying, and going about their lives. During this time, the troopers' family, trackers, U.S. Marshal, search and rescue groups, private investigators, drones, horses, dogs, a helicopter, community members, our military family, our church family, our neighbors, and everyone else searched.

What the fuck is wrong with people? This went on for 19 days get out of here then i had to ask the dentist for david's dental records um and uh we had to uh we had to give dna samples the realization that love and light of our lives is more than likely gone pushed pushed us way down. They're like, we need to start getting like believable samples. Now, the troopers could not find Allmendinger originally here, these police officers. But they caught up with him on November 16th, where he denied seeing David the night he disappeared and said he had taken a cab to Anchorage. OK, cab to Anchorage. They figured out that he was lying, obviously, and Sergeant Tony Wegsrin, he said

that cellular data from Allmendinger's mobile tablet indicated he had been near Grunwald's SUV the night it was burned. That's where he was. They tracked him. They pinged him there. The troopers also found a cab driver who had picked up Allmendinger and another teen near the SUV. They set it on fire and then

called a fucking cab. Come meet me near this fire. Well, I obviously needed a ride. My car's on fire, see, so. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly.

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

Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied.

Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal or you love to hop in the way back 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 and the wondery app or on apple podcasts welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community.

Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent VB Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars Kelly Marie Tran,

Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So this police officer on November 29th obtained a search warrant for Allmendinger's home and found a camper trailer with the, quote, overwhelming odor of bleach inside of it. Oh. And they found blood on the inside,

on the floor, on the walls, on the toilet, all over the bathroom where they dragged him. Yeah, here's the thing about stoners. They're not real good at attention to detail like that. Well, here's the real thing about fucking teenage boys. They're shitty at cleaning. Yeah, here's the thing about stoners. They're not real good at attention to detail like that. Well, here's the real thing about fucking teenage boys. They're shitty at cleaning. Yeah, that too. So they can't clean if their lives depended on it, which it did here, and they couldn't fucking do it.

And their freedom depended on it. Their very lives depended on it. Nope, not at all. They're dumb. all they're dumb so then on friday of that week the 29th that week the the police detective here interviewed an acquaintance of almond dinger who said what he called an acquaintance who said that um yes me and another 16 year old showed up at his door on the 13th and almond dinger said that he killed grunwald and needed advice that's what what he said. So they had showed up at someone's house, and this guy that they talked to said,

I sent them away. I was like, I'm not fucking talking to you people. Get out of here. I'm not the wolf, dude. Pulp fiction. Crank caller, crank caller. Yeah, crank caller, crank caller. I don't know what you're doing.

Are you on a cell phone? Are you on a cell phone right now? So December 2nd here um alaska state troopers round up most of the teenagers as they leave the palmer's valley hotel oh they're leaving there um now johnson the dominic johnson offered he cracks immediately yeah if you get four 16 year olds one of them will go this is exactly what did, and I'll take you right to it. They just want to, yeah. Four 16-year-olds, all the cop has to say is, one of you is going to get the light one, and they will race, race to sing.

And they're not real gangsters who like, you know, know to go, lawyer, motherfucker. You know, they're not going to say that. This isn't Omar in the box. He's a dumb kid. From the wire, this is a dumb kid. So Johnson offers to lead them to the body. Oh, my God. I'll take you there.

How about that? I know where it is. So he leads them to poor David's body. His body is frozen to the ground. Oh, God. It's so cold. It's so cold it's frozen to the fucking ground. He has over, in addition to being shot, he has over 34 bruises and deep gashes in his scalp as well from being pistol whipped repeatedly.

They just... Savaged him. Yeah, they treated him like a piece of trash and just beat him and fucking... It's horrible what they did to this kid. For nothing. For no fucking reason. Well, we'll find out what Almond Dinger says possibly is the reason. Oh, Dinger.

I can't wait to hear your fucking excuse uh edie grunwald said december 2nd around 4 p.m the trooper showed up i didn't move from the couch didn't want to listen or even know the words we found david is what they heard so dominic johnson there um like i, he led them out there. The police detective said he interviewed the Dominic Johnson. They had him in court docs as DJ, like a witness, but then they realized he's not a witness. They said the youth consulted with an attorney and then provided directions to the body. The remains were found 200 feet off KNIK 94.6 River Road, southeast of Palmer. They found only one shell casing nearby as well. So when they interview almond dinger with his father and grandfather present,

which is weird too. And the detective, she's great. She's like a big, big, heavy set gray haired grandmother type. Who's like an older lady. And she holds his hand and goes,

we'll get through this together. And then just fucking sets them up to be fried it's beautiful sucks it out of him it's fucking really good here fantastic almond dinger said david came over to his house to drink and smoke pot in the camper while doing so he said that dj texted him uh to bring a gun to the trailer. Okay. So he said he handed a.40 caliber handgun to his friend Dominic there. Who used it to bludgeon Grunwald. The complaint says Allmendinger admitted he stood by as this happened and did nothing to stop it. It's on YouTube, his interrogation. It's like two hours long.

It's really interesting here. interrogation too it's like two hours long it's really interesting here uh he said he accompanied dj as the other youth loaded grunwald into the bronco drove him to the river road picked him out picked out a spot to stop walked him into the woods and shot him it's cold in a second recounting though he blamed the shooting on another kid he blamed he blamed it on barrett this time yeah so he's not taking any responsibility at all other than it was my gun right the fuck away from everything yep he acknowledged burning the bronco catching a cab home cleaning the trailer and burning a rug from the trailer that was covered in blood okay the only motive they could get out of this. Is that. Wow. Allman Dinger said that David had, quote, smoked up all his weed. Holy shit, man.

Smoked up. That's why he came over. That's what I mean. Smoked up. There's more. There's five fucking people, too. Yeah. There's one, two, three, four, five.

There's five people altogether, too. So was David the only one? He's smoking a fucking Cheech and chong joint to the dome while everyone else is smacking your hands as you try to take it from everyone else is rolling a pinner and fucking getting it going between them and going on to a fucking puff puff pass man there's not a lot to go around guys is that what happened no i don't think so um these almond showed little remorse for his actions but he did cry when told his friends had talked to police and told on him that's when he cried

that's when he cried? yeah that's the only time not about killing this nice kid for no reason when he realized that his friends aren't his friends fucking dork so fucking unbelievable so after the arrest here Barrett what ends up happening everybody Barrett's the one apparently

here that fired the fatal shot. Really? Because in a jailhouse phone call, which are recorded, you fucking morons, with his grandmother, he said he did. Oh, wow. He told his grandma? He told his grandma. He did it. Now, Edie, the mom, David's mom, said the devastation, sadness, disbelief need to regroup and to try to think what's next.

It's interesting the details that tend to derail the big picture, but it all adds up. The shock numbed me, tricked me. I heard we got the bad guy. Okay, but we don't have our son. There are more involved, more than on the eve of a massive vigil for David. The others were arrested, including Austin Barrett. That's the one who we said did the shooting, actually. One more idiot, though.

They arrest David Devin Peterson. He's charged with hindering prosecution and evidence tampering. Apparently, he is the guy who brought the gas can, allegedly. Now, Allmendinger first claims it was Dominic Johnson who was the one that did the shooting, obviously. Then he changed his story and said that Barrett did the shooting, which appears to be true. So in court, now let's find out what happens to these morons. Barrett's case, because for some reason is considered the most difficult to prosecute, even though people, he, they have a recording of him saying he shot the kid because he didn't engage in social media or texting after the murder so oh everybody else left a trail of

electronic trail of what times they were here there everywhere who they were with and all that kind of shit and he didn't so sometimes it pays not to have a social media account that's what i mean he pleads guilty. Oh, he says, I'm going to fucking take a plea deal here because this looks bad. Yeah. So here is Edie Grunwald statement about this whole thing. This is this is she said David had entered the devil's lair and had no idea what was in store for him. Ben and I, that's the father, keep think and weep about our son getting pistol whipped and his ride to death.

Take my Bronco, my wallet, anything. Sitting in his own vehicle being lied to, his cell phone being broken and tossed out the window. He won't be needing this any longer. Driving slowly, 40 to 60 minutes, a long, long time for any one of those guys to change the course of everyone's lives. But they stuck to the plan, finally stopping, pulling David out of his own vehicle, walking him into the woods with a sweatshirt and slippers on. I wonder how he was able to keep those slippers on.

Maybe he thought he would need them. It wasn't an easy to it wasn't an easy walk through snow, trees and brush. David's life, thoughts of his parents, his future, his friends, his mistake in deciding to go hang out for a little bit before going home Jesus Christ um yeah the group stops David looks up I see feel hear the click of the trigger instant noise and searing blackness with white dots David's soul is no longer in his body he might be watching these guys run off he might see his his slipper that came off his foot at that point. Then again, the blackness, the loss,

the vacancy of his body laying there in subzero weather, light snow falling. This is fucking heartbreaking. Unbelievable. She's really good at, Oh, she's a great writer. You feel it.

Jesus Christ. She's pouring her heart out. I think she's a good mom. Yeah. I mean, fuck, I would feel this is what everybody, people less eloquent would be like, this is what I want to say.

Yeah. She should help people who are less eloquent write victim impact statements because she's great at it. Get the emotion out. And it makes sense. So, yeah, she goes on to just say, you know, their lives are completely shattered and, you know, everything. They say our lives are in two parts, when David was here and when he's not now. That's it. So she says, I condemn the murderers.

I do not support any type of early release, whether it be discretionary parole, furlough, and it's my preference that the community be kept safe from such deranged and heinous crimes. There is extreme condemnation from across this land for these crimes. Our safety, security, and trust have been derailed. The defense attorney, this has got a different thing here. Craig Howard is his name and he's a dipshit. He said, I'm saying this young man

has a moral compass. Having said that, his moral compass was frozen for a couple years. He said that he kind of gave a boys will be boys type His moral compass was frozen for a couple years. All right. He said that he kind of gave a boys will be boys type thing, too. Yeah, that's what that sounds like. That is a crazy thing to say. He said, when I was a teen, all I had to worry about was stealing my dad's condoms.

It's a bad thing to say in court. He said, this kid can't even buy a Playboy. You know, he said, well, today, teens are exposed to much darker elements on social media that their parents don't know about. He said they were all bad kids, but Austin Barrett is now remorseful and understands that he did something very bad, but it wasn't pulling the trigger. He said, quote, with murders, some homicides are a one time deal. They happen to normal, regular people. A person should be given a chance. It just happens sometimes. Why is Craig so focused on sex being a deviant?

He's just... I was stealing condoms and jerking off into my dad's Playboy. That's what I mean. That's all I cared about was he said... I think he's trying to say all I had to worry about was jerking off and maybe trying to finger a girl in the backseat of my car when I was 16. These kids have it much... They live in Alaska.

They don't. Stop, man. Yeah, exactly. And he murdered somebody. What are you talking about? He went on for 45 minutes talking about how, you know, he said that the case affected him deeply, the lawyer. Now he's not even talking about the client.

He said that it's affected him so deeply he had to throw away his slippers because they're the same brand that David had worn. So he couldn't wear them anymore he's isotoners anymore this is from the newspaper here with a trembling voice incomplete sentences and jerky motions howard referred to the novels lord of the flies and the oxbow incident which he had reread recently the former book reminded him of the dystopian youth involved in the murder of grunwald and the latter book reminded him of how the pursuit of justice can go awry. In another moment, he described his own father as the original Great Santini

and recalled how much he had disappointed his father by not going into the military and how he thought his dad had died prematurely because of that. He described trying to resuscitate his own child once and how hard it is to be a defense attorney. This has nothing to do with you. He just had a, he said, he broke,

he said, he broke it. He said many of his colleagues have succumbed to alcoholism, lost marriages and killed themselves because of heavy burdens of the work they do. He said, quote, I can't believe I've made it this far. It's like he's being accused of murder he's like i'm gonna

go home and shoot heroin into my cock tonight this is enough he then described the psychic damage he suffered from being a defense attorney this one broke this is a program he said this picture of david grunwald will live in my mind forever. At one point, he said that he, Howard said, he also went to Sunday school as a kid. He said he prefers the New Testament to the Old Testament. I don't know, a little more hope, a little less stoning. You know what I mean? He said, he says that he doesn't have the religious faith that the Grunwalds have. He says, sometimes I get it, then I lose it.

At no point did the judge go, what is your fucking point here? Are you going to give a recipe for macaroni and cheese next? What are you doing? Craig is sitting seven years later now in a chair, just going. Yeah. He also said that unlike what people have said,

he's not in cahoots with the defendant. He said, I, and that i am uh complicit i'm not complicit in the lies he said i don't see how anyone can say that um then he goes on to talk about a friend of his from high school who ended up being shot in vietnam causing the lawyer to wonder what death meant this is fucking ridiculous it's fucking crazy of his head. It's fucking crazy. He then goes on to say, I've read hundreds of statements of victims, and I tell you, it's usually just black and white.

But Colonel Grunwald's statement, I could not read it. I kept having to put it down. The pain just oozed through it. The grief. You are a defense attorney. None of this is helping your client. You are sinking this child. Yeah.

He said that Edie was the chair of the parole board and inferred that her current position may influence future proceedings. Oh, fuck. Yeah, don't kill the son of the head of the parole board, probably. Never do that. He said the Grunwalds are victims, but the elephant in the room here is that she is also the chairman of the state parole board. So. Okay. Now. Well, it's not a conflict of interest yet, man.

Just fucking get on with it. Defend the man. When you hear how long he's in there for, you may fuck off 45 years plus. Well, it was 65 years with 20 suspended, but he'll be eligible for parole after 15 years. Oh, I think he will still have plenty of energy for this shit. And you betcha. she might not work there anymore but she's definitely going to show up and go oh i got to say my piece too motherfucker and that's which i mean that's her right you know she should be able to good for her dominic johnson

here his defense um you know they argued that he's not the trigger man what are we talking about here johnson's a good guy he's okay he He said Johnson then apologized to Grunwald's parents there. And, um, you know, that's how it goes. Uh, but before the sentence is handed down and before Johnson gives a statement, the parents Grunwald's parents leave, the dad says, we're not staying. I don't want to hear it. Any lies, any BS. I don't want to hear a word out of his mouth. I don't blame him. But Johnson said he was sorry for the pain he caused the family and said, I wish every day I could go back and do things differently. Okay.

That's how time works. Not how it works. The judge said, quote, there was something off in all four of these young people. That's a good way to put it. I don't know what motivated him to do it, but it was not normal and it was flat out scary. You, sir, may fuck off 99 years for you he went to trial right he didn't plea so 99 years idiot almond dinger is convicted as well of murder kidnapping arson all that kind of shit um yeah so they went to trial too he went to trial

too absolutely uh david's dad by the way said i didn't come here seeking justice today i come here seeking punishment oh give a fuck if it's fair or not i want this kid fucking don't know what's up motherfucker's head spin yeah the prosecutor said he's repeatedly violated jail rules he's been caught with a homemade knife and he's already been fighting with an inmate already yeah eric said he wasn't asking for leniency he said he doesn't have excuses he said i claim full responsibility for dave dying he was my friend he was a good kid and i killed my friend that's what happened i killed somebody's nephew i killed somebody's son i destroyed somebody's family he said i'm sure the words

coming out of my mouth are irrelevant to them meaning the family but if it means anything i'm sorry i'm sorry for what i did i I'm sorry for what I didn't do. And the judge said, quote, Mr. Allmendinger was the only one that really knew David. He knew him as a friend. As he stated, why would he turn on a friend is beyond me. I really don't understand it. He had done nothing wrong for whatever reason he chose to turn on him. You, sir, may fuck off.

Ninety-nine years in prison. Again. Feels like Alaska's maximum. 20 years suspended. So 79 years in prison is what he's going to get there. Okay. And a bunch of fines as well. Yeah, but without Dinger, this doesn't happen.

That's fucked up, man. That's the point. He's the key to all of this. Pre-trial, Brad Renfro, after he ple pleaded not guilty grunwald's parents are out there and he fucking put his chin up to them and said quote what are you gonna do are you kidding me is that right come here i will rip this bench off of the fucking ground and beat you to death with it that's what'll happen you're gonna find out and he said uh quote then this is a quote from a reporter nearby so he looked at him and then he paused looked at them

again and said do something yeah he was all the invitation i need motherfucker he wants out though yeah rip your head off yeah that's what he wants though he wants to yeah go ahead then he made a gesture with his hands indicating some kind of physical challenge. Like, let's come on. Let's go here. Wow. His mom said he has no disrespect for the Grunwalds. I swear to God.

Okay. Yeah. The judge says to walk someone in the woods and execute him. It takes a darkness in these boys. You, sir, may fuck off. A hundred and five years. Renfro got the worst. A hundred and five years. Ninety years with 30 suspended 10 years for kidnapping

five years for tampering he'll be eligible eligible for parole after 35 years when he's 51 the judge did something yeah fuck you um devin peterson he is the accomplice there he was sentenced to six years for tampering with evidence and hindering prosecutions because he hid the gun used in the crime as well as help torch the vehicle. What the fuck, dude? Uh, now currently there is a Facebook page called justice for David Grunwald. It's still very active and the mom will put updates about stuff. And I think she's the one posting. I'm not sure, but, um, it seems it's a nice little thing.

There's a lot of pretty active. Now, David's murder here apparently freaked everyone out in the whole community. People didn't think of it as like an idyllic little place anymore. Oh, my God. Your kid can't go out and hang out with his friends. Fuck. So after this, too, the community came together to honor David. So after this, too, the community came together to honor David.

A memorial scholarship was established in his name to help support students pursuing careers in the fields of mechanics and engineering. Hell yeah. And a memorial run was established to raise money for the scholarship. So that's really nice. And we'd like to donate to that. That's pretty cool stuff. That's very cool. Oh, man. That's Palmer, Alaska, everybody.

Unbelievable. Just a sad story, man. Just a nice kid who wanted to smoke some weed, man fuck yeah heartbreaking gut-wrenching the almond dinger family too a lot of people started coming after them and it was a but i mean it was one of that happens you know what i mean but there you go everyone if you like the show tell everyone about it get on whatever app you're listening on give us five stars tell your friends post on social media follow us on social media at Small Town Murder on Instagram, at Murder Small on Twitter, at Small Town Pod on Facebook.

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