Small Town Murder - #429 - A Clean Cut Serial Killer - Manhattan, Montana

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

This week, in Manhattan, Montana, a series of disappearances don't seem to raise any red flags for the local police. Finally, after the fourth victim goes missing, the FBI decide that it just may be what will soon be known to them as a "serial killer", and put together their first ever criminal profile, which turns to fit one particular person, perfectly. Will they be able to get him to confess, using many different tactics? Along the way, we find out that Montana is very into potatoes, that being "a little bit odd" is reason for suspicion in Montana, and that some people hide their bloodlust better than others!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Manhattan, Montana, a series of seemingly random disappearances lead to the FBI's first criminal profile, some awful discoveries in a freezer, and a very, very

sick serial killer hiding in plain sight. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yeah yay indeed jimmy yay indeed man sound like you were in a hole like we had to save jimmy he's in a hole refused to leave me that was uh jimmy's in a well everybody we're gonna record this from in there we're trying to get him out so hard and it would not come difficult my name is james petra gallo i'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Down in that hole. Thank you so much for joining us today. We have a wild case for you. A case that is not something you hear about.

It's not a case you hear about all the time. And it's a serial killer, which is very strange. And literally the first criminal profile that the FBIbi's behavioral sciences unit put together so really yeah wasn't bundy no not at all this is years before it wasn't manson not at all no manson they didn't have to put a profile together for him jesus i knew it was going on there so that said it'll it's a crazy case we'll get into it but first of all we have to tell you a few things first your stupid opinions the new podcast that we're doing here it's out any all apps all podcast platforms listen right now where we talk about dumb reviews from the internet and god is it fun boy do i love it it's so much fun

we can't wait also listen to crime and sports which is also fun and funny and great do i love it boy do i love it there's we've had a lot of murder lately and stuff too, so check that out, definitely. You also want to head over to shutupandgivememurder.com to get your tickets for December 2nd, Dallas. All the other shows are sold out, but that one has some tickets left and Small Town Murder Live

and then also, let's say you can't make it. Maybe you're not around Dallas. Maybe you're in Australia or, you know, New Hampshire. Either way, whether you're in Australia or, you know, New Hampshire. Either way, whether you're in Australia or New Hampshire, get ready for October the 26th, the virtual live show for Small Town Murder, just like a regular live show, except you don't have to leave your house. It's beautiful. Anywhere in the world that has, you know, internet, you can get it.

It's available for a week after the 26th, all through Halloween. We'll wear costumes on the show. It'll be a Halloween spectacular, an extra creepy Halloween case. It's going to be so much fun. We can't wait. Shut up and give me murder. That's the website. Dot com slash virtual live is where you get those tickets.

So get those. We can't wait to see you. You also need Patreon. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all the bonus materials there's so much and anybody five dollars a month or above a mere cup of coffee will get you'll either get a cup of mediocre coffee or a couple hundred back episodes of bonus episodes to binge and new ones every other week come on guys i think we're competing well in the marketplace here i think we're crushing it for your fivemit. For your $5 here.

And for crime and sports, what you'll get, which you'll have access to, we're going to talk about BS High, which if you're a murder person and not a sports person, you should watch this documentary and all around it, because this guy, I'm pretty sure he's going to kill somebody someday. There's going to be bodies in his wake, for sure. There already

are careers in his wake. Oh, he made a fake high school and had them play against these kids that are much better than that. It's a long story, but we'll get into it. It's a bonus episode. It's not a bonus episode-length story. And then for Small Town Murder, we're going to talk about Joey Buttafuoco. Oh, boy. And Amy Fisher and that whole mess that happened in the 90s.

And if you don't know anything about it, I'll just say this. The man's name is Joey Buttafuoco. Don't you want to know about that? You do. Trust me. There's a shooting involved and weird sexual stuff. She didn't kill a woman, but she certainly killed her future. Ooh, it's crazy stuff.

That is patreon.com slash crimeandsports. And you'll get a shout-out at the end of the show. Jimmy will mispronounce your name terribly while trying his hardest to get it correct. That said, disclaimer time. Yeah. Quickly, we're comedians. We are. This is a comedy show,

but it's also very, very real. That's the thing here. This is the balance that we do here. Everything is real. Nothing's made up for comic effect or anything like that. It's scarily real. It really is.

So the only way to do this is what we don't do is we go out of our way not to make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Why, James? Because we're assholes. But? But we're not scumbags. See how that works? There you go.

It's nice and clean and it's all good. And trust me, there's a lot of dumb stuff to make fun of when someone decides to be a murderer. So we'll check all of that. We'll talk about all of that and more, all this murder stuff i think it's time everybody to yeah to sit back you know if you think true crime and comedy don't go together maybe go away or just don't complain later but for everybody else let's all sit back i think it's time to clear the lungs and let's all shout shut up and give me murder

alright let's do this Jimmy let's go on a trip everybody what do you say we shall we're going all the way to Montana this week and not a ton of Montana episodes we haven't really done so yeah Montana's a letterman yeah I guess he's out there a lot of people have

like ranches in montana that's where people that's where you go to quote get away from people so that tells you a lot about the state yeah i go there and there's no beard and no people for five miles they don't see my beard it's great so manhattan montana manhattan just like new york that's how it's spelled newton that It is not a metropolis. We'll put it that way. It's a very small town. It absolutely, 100% already existed. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, definitely. This is in southwestern Montana. And that's like the third thing they called it, by the way. That's the other thing. They went through other names first, we'll talk about. Yeah, sort of with the Bronx. Oh, man. Yeah, they were like, Queens?

No, that's not going to work. So it's about an hour 20 to helena montana about 25 minutes to bozeman so that's the nearest place here and about an hour to butte montana which was our last episode the dance of death which was a very fun crazy weird express episode this in Gallatin County. And area code 406. And the motto here, again, we see this. Half the towns are either a great place to work and live and play and all that bullshit. Or the heart of Gallatin County. Yeah, it's always the heart. The heart of.

Well, what isn't the heart? Does no one ever says the liver of so-and-so county? The pancreas of Gallatin County. Or really the kidneys of Maricopa County. I would appreciate that if somebody said that. You know what I mean? I would. Phoenix, Arizona.

The real small bladder. Yeah, the bowel of. Our small intestine. Yeah, that'd be nice. The left ventricle of Gallatin County. Small gallbladder, that'd be nice. The left ventricle of Gallatin County. Small intestine and gallbladder. That'd be nice. History of this town.

In 1865, it was established as the first town in the area here. It was called Hamilton back then. In 1868, they established a post office under the name Hamilton. OK. In 1868, they established a post office under the name Hamilton. And it was described by 1874 in a newspaper. It was described as a typical Western town, one store, a blacksmith shop and a schoolhouse. Just a real little tiny one street little old West town. You can buy food and then go to school and learn how to be a blacksmith. Yeah. High noon fucking high noon shootouts and that sort of thing.

I'm better blacksmith than you. No, I am. 1883. By then, the Northern Pacific Railroad was like a mile north of there. Sure. And so then they decided, well, that railroad came through. And one of the people who worked for the railroad was named Moreland. So we're so happy that there's a railroad.

Let's change the name of our town to the name of the guy who worked for the railroad. Okay. So they do that. They name it Moreland after him. And then, yeah. So they also kind of moved the town since there was only a couple things to move. They just kind of moved Main Street over. It's crazy they do that.

The general store moved. The John Potter's General Store moved in 1883 during the winter. And they moved the structure with, how do you move a structure back then? There's no 18-wheeler. How do you move a store? Do you do it with horse and carriage? A team of bulls pulled it. Wow. Which seems like you'd get like, it'd go real fast for a minute then slow down and that was a real jerky

ride that seems like right and in the snow too oh yeah it snows like a motherfucker here montana yeah this is heavy snows this is a lot so jesus it's crazy 1890 they renamed it manhattan at that point they're like you know what let's name it after a city with the most people that were not what do you say use the shit out of people let's confuse people why not population then was 150 okay not a lot going on real manhattan yeah that's by 1892 the uh manhattan malting company came in to make beer. Oh, okay. Got it.

And then Prohibition came around. They closed down. Ruined that shit. That wasn't good. By 1904, they had a lot of ranching and agricultural stuff going on, and blacksmiths were coming from everywhere because there was a lot of livestock, and so there's just blacksmith shops all over the place by then. So by 1912, they got their water system going and all that kind of shit.

1925, though, everything's looking good until a series of earthquakes fucks up over half the shit in the town. All the houses are all destroyed. A lot of structures. Earthquakes in Montana. Is that right? They will find whatever we tell our towns, a fire, an earthquake, or a flood, or a tornado, will find it. Every one of these towns we do. Here's some reviews of this town.

Okay, here we go. Reviews, five stars. So, perfect. And most people like this. There's not a lot of negative reviews of this town. Is that right? Very hard to find anybody with anything bad to say. Five stars.

This is the better than bozeman town down the road oh they're competing with bozeman these people apparently very affordable very lovely some exclusive properties in grr i don't know what that is but the area is not spoiled binger all capital so it's gotta be a but the area is not spoiled by them as one would expect. And Sir Scott's Oasis, what more can one ask for? Sir Scott has an oasis. I have no idea what any of the things that person said meant. That's a lot of local references.

Those are just local references. That's like a bad comedian's opening set where you're like, you're not from that town, you're screwed. That's a guy coming to New york and just telling montana jokes yeah he's like i'll tell you what you know what i mean when you step in a pile of horse shit when you're stepping up in front of the general store you gotta know what i'm talking about i told the guy this ain't sir who's oasis sir scott's oasis no where the hell you think you are sir scott's oasis listen fancy pants this ain't sir scott's oasis over here why don't you head on over to grr this here's a blacksmith shop

i'll take kindly okay five stars yeah obviously there is crime and is is capitalized like you know emphasis but it is pretty minimal and non-threatening around here. Most people take care of themselves. Okay. Okay. Five stars. We have the best recreation anywhere by my standards. Okay. Yeah.

We don't know what those standards are. Yeah. They don't list what they are after that. They just go, I have a special rating system and I've rated this the highest. Thank you. And they walked away. See you around. See you.

Here's four stars manhattan is a very small country town where you can smell cow manure almost all the time oh that's nice yeah because i assume there's probably more cows than people because there's we'll talk about not a lot of people i don't know but i've never been on a road trip smelled cow manure and stopped the car and was like take it in everybody hold on everybody that's the worst part of the trip who wants to stop and get a burger everybody we'll eat alfresco what do you say i'm hungry can't wait you know what man is there is there a jack-in-the-box around here um but it does have an amazing community and some pretty fantastic views of the sunrise and sunset well i would assume so. You can see it in each direction all the way straight to the sun.

It's big. It doesn't. You got a goddamn problem. No shit. It also has nice places to go take a swim or float down a hot, sweltering day in the river. In addition, it has many beautiful places to fish. Okay, yeah, it does have a lot of water, good outdoor stuff. Nighttime is especially amazing.

When the sky is clear with no clouds, the stars peek through and it's just a whole new atmosphere. I do love that. This person's this close to writing the Montana anthem. When the stars peek through, it's a whole new atmosphere. it's a whole new atmosphere there is something about being out away from city lights and when it gets dark that it's it's fucking mind-blowing how many stars there really are pollution yeah it's when you can actually see it all it's fucking staggering like at my house if you look south you can't see shit because the city is 80 miles away and And if you look north, it's like, you know, you're in Vermont.

It's fucking amazing. You're like, this is awesome. Yeah, I love that. That is cool. So, yeah, nighttime is especially amazing. Even the cold temperature of the atmosphere cannot put out the warmth you feel inside looking at the burning stars millions of miles away. Okay. Now we're too deep.

They got all poetic with it it just the stars are pretty at night you can see a ton of them thanks crazy how many you can see weird shit over here three stars this person's the only one that's like a semi-negative three stars safe community great for raising children but there is not much to do when it's too small as kids grow up good location right outside of the hopping bozeman oh bozeman's known for being a real metropolis i'll tell you that right now i've never heard of somebody saying this summer we're gonna go party in bozeman oh man you know what spring break this year fucking bozeman yeah tits out everybody it's bozeman time you don't hear that often it's surprising but i don't know people in this town 808 or 1884 right now that's tiny

1884 where our when our story takes place at 800 so it was oh boy real minuscule uh 58.8 percent male here is that right yeah because you got a lot of ranching and things like that. Yeah. Watch out, ladies. Jesus. I'm telling you, 41.2% female. That is dangerous. So if you're a female and you go to a bar, you never have to take a dollar with you because

The amount of free drinks is crazy. As soon as you sit down, the bartender puts 17 drinks in front of you and he's like, All right, this one here is from Bill over in the corner this one's here's from gary he's at the end of the bar my advice in this town bottled beer ladies do not buy mixed drinks it's gonna be yeah someone's gonna be drugging you somewhere median age about 41 and a half couple years older than the normal tons it's weird too because a lot of kids that are 5 to 14 years old okay tons of those and then a lot of people 35 to 55 sure like rancher types i guess family here 60 almost 65 married so it's a you know it's families you're not it's not a single swinging kind of a

place you know what i mean a lot of people married with children single with with children, 1.1%. Crushing it. Crushing it. 1.1%. It's the lowest I've ever seen. It's normally 10%. Some of these towns we see 30 and we're like, hey, swinging times. Race of this town, 94.1% white, which is kind of what you'd expect in southwestern Montana. 0.0% black, 0.0% Asian, 2.1% Hispanic, and the remaining is two or more races. So there you go.

It's only 0.6% Native American up here. Is that right? Yeah, I'd expect more. Religion in this town, only 33% religious. Huh. Well, when you're looking up at the stars, you go, you know what? There are the heavens right there. I see them.

Or you're like to there's no way there's a jesus that's too much work for one man yeah i've been working on the ranch i can't even get to all the cattle there's no way he did no way one man did all that and it's mixed around a little bit there's a lot of other christians a couple of uh mormons a presbyterian here there some lutherans a methodist. It's all mixed up. 0.3% Jewish, which is more than I would expect. Yeah, more Jewish cowboys than I expected, honestly, out here. In the...

You know? That's a Woody Allen fucking... What is it? Jesus Christ. Annie Hall. Annie Hall. The old movie, Annie Hall. Oh, okay.

That's the joke. That's from there. Gallatin County, Montana. Last election, 52.2 percent voted Democratic, 44.6 percent Republican, 3.2 percent independent. So Manhattan here, unemployment rates about 3 percent, which is slightly lower than the national average, which is like 3.8 percent or something. So it's low. But you don't go there if you don't have a job. What are you going to do?

Just hang out and look at the stars? I imagine there's always something to do there anyway. Yeah. You know what I mean? To get paid for anyway. There's poop to clean. Anyway, nothing else. Median household income here is about $60,625 a year.

That's not so bad. Which cost of living here is high, actually. Really? As you might imagine. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere. Oh, land and houses. Yeah. Housing is high, actually, as you might imagine. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere. Oh, land and houses, yeah. Housing is the high one, though. Median home cost here, $559,400.

Median home cost. That is expensive. Of course, a lot of the places, there's not a lot of third-acre little lots with houses next to each other. It's a big lot of land here. Here we go. And if we've convinced you, damn it, to look at the stars, we have for you the Manhattan, Montana real estate report. The average two-bedroom rental here goes for $1,630 a month, which is well higher than the national average.

Oh, my God. That's high. Yeah. And then I found here's a house here, three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,728 square feet. Yeah. Not on a big lot, just your basic family house. It's our dead grandma special of the week. Grandma died.

She's lived here for 50 years. Yeah. We got to sell the house and split that fucking profits up. Special of the week. Grandma died. She's lived here for 50 years. We got to sell the house and split that fucking profits up. So there's some real old like fake wood shit. It looks like it's from the 70s. It hasn't been touched in 50 years. The carpets look filthy like all the furniture. You can see where it was.

$475,000 for that though. Now I see why they're calling it Manhattan. Yeah. Real estate. That's what I mean. calling it Manhattan. Yeah. Real estate prices are outrageous. They absolutely are. It's close. I'm telling you. Here's a three-bedroom, three-bath T-bowl for each and every b-hole, obviously. 3,085 square feet.

And it's on 19.89 acres. So about 20 acres. That's amazing. Big place. And it looks like exactly a Montana house. A lot of wood, a lot of welcome to the ranch signs. Oh, boy. Things like that.

On one, there's a shower curtain. And on it is written a slogan on the shower curtain, Live like someone left the gate open. Wild horses references. I like it. $1,599,000 for that. You don't like it so much anymore, do you? Yeah.

That just choked you. I'd run away, too. Oh, shit. Four-bedroom, five-bath, the next house. Again, T-Bull, for all your b-holes here. 6,492 square feet. I can't afford this, and I already know it.

It's a massive house. 22 and a half acres. Oh, God. On a hillside. It's like got a mountain behind it. It looks very nice. It is very ugly, by the way. Not a nice looking house,

but it's big, and there's a lot of land, and it's $3,500,000 for that. David Letterman did this. I guarantee it guarantee it's always been like this here there's really here the places in idaho where you can ski places in wyoming where you can ski aspen vale that shit any of these fucking western towns they really are expensive things to do here the man the man had your mortgage and that's it work really hard because you got a lot of mortgage to pay a lot of house babe wow manhattan potato festival shit yeah i didn't know that montana was potato industry i mean idaho's right next to it so i was yeah

spill this is western montana too so okay yeah spill over it's close it says everyone's favorite down home summer festival celebrating the farming and ranching heritage uh heritage that honors our montana way of life and then in all capital letters it says it's more fun than you can stuff in a tater sack oh boy let's see more fun than you can top a tater with. Top a tater. There's a fireman's breakfast that goes on here. I don't know if you eat with the fireman. The tater tot grand prix trike races go on after that. Tater tots. The potato fest parade happens.

Senior center baked potato fundraiser is going on, of course. Mini sumo wrestling. Oh, what? Are those tiny sumo wrestlers just fat kids? What are we doing? The door's wide open, James. We got the two fattest kids in town. We left the gate open.

I don't know what's up with that. Spud baby contest. Okay. Dress your kid up like a potato, I think. The Rubber Duck Race, which you have no control over that. That's just luck. A Puppies and Ponies Show. Okay.

Just cute things. Come have your kids see cute things. The Chord Rustlers Quartet will be playing. Okay. I don't know. They're rustling up some chords for y'all. Yeah. The Bloody Mary Bar is going to be open the whole time.

Oh, yeah. The lawnmower races will take place at some point. Yeah, let's get vodka drunk and race lawnmowers. Fuck, yeah. Now, that sounds fun, actually. I want to buy a couple lawnmowers just so we can do that. I don't know that that's safe at all, James. It's not.

We're going to crash, but we won't be going that fast, so we can't. Then again, normal cars don't have blades that chop on them also. Then there's the Spudfest family hoedown, dancing in the dirt with the outlaw country dancers and a drive-in movie. Holy shit. Dancing in the dirt. Dancing in the dirt. Dancing in the dirt.

Crime rate in this town. What we're interested in here. Property crime about half the national average. Is that right? Very low. Everything's so spread out. I mean, they'll see you. If you steal something, someone will see.

There he is. Hey, come back here. I see him a half mile down the road, that sumbitch. Don't you break their windows. Do you know how much we had to pay for ours? The poor bastards. They can't afford it, neither can we. Nobody can.

You know how much this house costs? Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and, of course, assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime is less than half the average as well so okay it is safe here that said let's talk about a time when things were certainly not safe at all and this whole this tiny town of 800 people at the time was in an absolute shit panic i mean this was a holy shit this you know montana oh they it was like you know son of sam ted bundy's on the loose all rolled into one except they didn't even know it was one person which is the craziest part this is crazy let's talk about some murder uh first of all a lot of very specific things that were nowhere else except for this book coming from court records and such a book called shadow

man by ron fransell so that's out there and i if you're interested in this story i do recommend the coming from court records and such. A book called Shadow Man by Ron Francel. So that's out there. And if you're interested in the story, I do recommend the book because there's a lot of information in it and it's good stuff. So let's go back in time, everybody, a bit more than we usually do.

We usually keep it semi-modern. We go to the 90s, 80s, that sort of thing. But if a case is crazy enough, we will definitely dip back a little bit further. And this case is going to start in 1967. Oh, boy. We've only had a few cases that have gone back this far in time. But trust us, this is well, well, well worth going into the black and white archives for this one.

Terrific. So let's talk about a young man first off here. There's a young kid named Bernard Pullman. P-O-E-L-M-A-N. Pullman. Oh. He's 13 years old at the time. Yeah.

And he goes by Bernie, by the way. Another Bernard. We keep coming up with these. In the last Crime and Sports and Small Town Murder, in the last like three weeks, we've come up with so many Bernards. It's not even funny. I don't know how it happens. Prior to this show, I may have heard of four yeah it's so strange so he is the son of mr and mrs henry pullman at the time here 1967

and on march 9th 1967 young bernie goes out or march 19th 1967 i apologize he goes out with a friend of his named richard neil hotzelell who's 12 years old and they're going out you know going and doing stuff kids do back then they're going out and swimming in the at the swimming hole and going over here and just doing rural kid shit sure you know Opie Taylor and it all the way so

this day he is climbing they're climbing the supports of the Nixon Bridge that spans the West Gallatin River outside of Manhattan. Yeah. So they're climbing up on this bridge and they're jumping in the water as like, you know, like a rope swing type deal. Yeah. So on that day, he sits atop the bridge's highest beam and gets ready to leap.

This is Bernie. He's all ready. His friend Richard Neil Hatzzel is over somewhere else around there too they can kind of hear each other but they're not right next to each other and so they said his friend uh richard he goes by ricky is saying you know hey come on yeah do a do something cool when you do it like he's telling him you know do a flip or do something awesome whatever so at that point bernie out of nowhere grabs his chest oh clutches his chest like a 50 year old guy having a heart attack and he says something out loud that ricky can't be

sure of what he said okay doesn't know what he said he just he shouts something he's like i don't know he said something out loud but he can't't be positive. And then Bernie plunged down. It's only 20 feet into the water. Okay. And then he appeared, according to Ricky, once he fell, he appeared to be swimming for a moment. And then he went under. Oh. And that was that.

He didn't see. He didn't come back up. Never saw him again? But it's a river, so there's a current. And the current must have taken him. And he never popped back up again, and Ricky freaked out. He said, holy shit. I mean, if you're 12 and the current just took your friend away and he's underwater, you're going to shit yourself.

So Ricky turns and hauls ass a half mile to the nearest farmhouse. That's how it's rural. So think about the times. He didn't jump in after him. No, all the current in the river. He didn't know where he went. I mean,'s all the current in the river. He didn't know where he went. I mean, he's not going to find him. He's 12.

So he ran to the nearest farmhouse, which it's so tough. Because think about if someone needs medical attention, you've got to run a half mile to the nearest farmhouse. Half a mile. Then they got a call. You've got to hope they have a phone. Then they call. Then you've got to wait for someone to drive all the way out there. In a 1960s car? Jesus. You're in a lot of shit. Yeah, you're in some shit here. So they call then you got to wait for someone to drive all the way out there so in a 1960s car jeez you're in a lot of shit yeah you're in some shit here so he called they call

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

Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people.

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

You should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So they searched this and the river's moving pretty fast too. And they keep searching for him and they can't find him. It's hard. They can't find him. Yeah.

So it's, it's crazy. He, you know, was a kid who was going to school in Manhattan. He lived there and he was just, they're just playing on the bridge with his friend. in Manhattan. He lived there and he was just, they're just playing on the bridge with his friend. And, um, the first report came in about 3 PM Sunday. That's when the sheriff's deputy showed off, uh, showed up and they had a water rescue unit of the sheriff's posse. Cause there's a lot of water like activities around there. So they have a special, special unit for that. Highway patrolman came volunteer searchers game. I mean, they all hands on deck. There's a missing 13-year-old that went there. They put a net across the river at Logan, Montana.

They just put one across the river to catch anything. Oh, to catch everything. Just catch anything that goes by. Wow. Yeah. And the search has been between that, the Logan, and the Nixon Bridge is where they're searching there. They found his glasses in the water. Oh, wow.

They found the glasses in knee-deep water near the bridge. But not him. Near the bridge he went in at? Well, the bridge he went in on, yeah. So, yeah, it's a wire net they put across about five miles downstream is what they did here. They set up searchlights on the shore. downstream is what they did here they set up search lights on the shore and all the volunteers sat there all night look staring at the water waiting to see something hoping we catch him with the search lights no bernie no no just can't find him so they they obviously hadn't found him

yet but at this point they're presuming that he's probably drowned yeah if he goes in the water doesn't pop back up he's probably not having a malt somewhere he's probably yeah you know he didn't he didn't get out the river a couple miles down say i'll wait for him here yeah yeah i'm gonna go to the casino for a while i'm bored i doubt that's what happened find me there yeah she'll know what's up you know it's all good so the local parish priest conducted a memorial and a big mass for him and everything else and all this shit. And they haven't even, that's a few days later. Um, there wasn't a lot of Catholics here. So there's one little Catholic church that was like kind of tucked away like, Hey, you know,

it was different back then. And then, um, but the whole town showed up anyway, though, even though they weren't Catholic and kind of looked a little bit askew at the Catholics back then too. So, yeah, a lot of people showed up. Bernie's father would walk miles up and down the riverbank every night. Days are going by, and that's what he does all night. He walks up and down the riverbank with a flashlight looking for his kid, which, I mean, who wouldn't? You know what I mean? I would do that too.

What else are you going to do? Go sit home? Yeah, I know where he's not. too. What else are you going to do? Go sit home? Yeah. I know where he's not. Exactly. He's not in his room. So men in boats dragged the channel with no luck. I mean, they really, this is everything.

They said everybody, all the Manhattan high school, every kid in the high school all got in and canoed all the way around and looked around for him. And this was everybody in town that was able-bodied was looking for this kid. And it's just all anybody was talking about. He was in junior high and all the kids were talking about it. And they're asking his friend about it, what happened, and newspapers talking to his friend. And, you know, kids traumatized from the whole thing. So they said this was, they understand. This is funny because they talked a lot about in the newspapers that kids back then, and especially in Montana where you have a lot of cattle and things like that, they get death. You know what I mean? Yeah, we've seen that.

That happens all the time. Yeah, but not a lot of 13-year-olds get killed. That's a different story. So it's a little weird for them. So this goes on for three weeks this boy just disappears with the most like frightening questionable circumstances like a kid grabs his chest he shouldn't have a heart attack at 13 oh jesus too much fucking i shouldn't have had all those mcmuffins in the morning

i knew nesquik was bad i just kept drinking it i keep telling her stop with the butter you're gonna kill me jesus christ so i don't understand it so three weeks later finally um on a wednesday night yeah bernie ends up in the wire net they caught they caught him five miles down how long four days three weeks later oh jesus three weeks so for three he must have been caught on something in there under the water and then maybe it rained and as we know you know the water will flow and then it moved and then he ended up in the net three weeks the worst way oh find your kid who's been in the water for three weeks in a net. That is horrific.

So they pull him out of the water, and they bring him into a medical facility and have him looked over, an autopsy. And they see that his wristwatch stopped at precisely 3.20 p.m. Wow. Probably, they see it's still on his wrist. An autopsy showed, though though that he'd been shot he was not there was no heart attack no he was holding his wound hot shot through the heart with a small caliber probably a 22 they said wow yes sniped on the bridge sniped off the bridge hitting the i mean no one knew they were going to be there no one there's no way anybody could Wow. Yes. Sniped on the bridge. Sniped off the bridge. I mean, no one knew they were going to be there.

There's no way anybody could have set up to. It's just a weird thing. It's crazy. No one can understand it. Like, you'd have to have a guy who just happened to be somebody who just happened to have a gun pointing at the bridge. And then, oh, a kid's climbing up. I'll shoot him real quick. It just doesn't make any sense. And got him in a way that he would fall off the bridge rather than, like, you know what I mean, crumple into a heap right there.

Yeah. Yeah. He was standing there. So they sent the bullet for ballistics testing in Washington. You have the FBI looking over and everything because they didn't really have the facilities up there. It's the 60s. 60s. Yeah.

Hardly anybody did unless, you know, probably. The 60s in Manhattan, Montana. Yeah. It's probably new york los angeles there's probably like eight cities that had ballistics testing back then that could do it quickly they just got tv yeah they're like oh man this is crazy lucy's funny i know i know it was 15 years ago that she came on but shit i'll tell you what she really gets into trouble every time boy ricky spanks her that's funny boy i'll tell you what

so the uh yeah they send the bulls bullet for ballistics testing and nothing of value comes out of that though sure so they bury him and they don't know what the hell happened they're just they don't know what happened everybody's confused people everywhere in town at the cafe at the you know the bar anywhere where people gather that's all they're talking about is yeah theories of what the hell happened here how did this happen um they said can't be you can't lean on stray because it hit him in the fucking heart that's on purpose well also they said that there's never any murders here but it also wasn't hunting season they said if it was hunting season then maybe just because the odds who knows they're astronomical but it could have hit him just right i mean that happens so in the fucking heart that's on purpose yeah they said

maybe that uh finally everybody came to the conclusion that he must have been killed by an errant bullet from someone who sucks at shooting, either at a shooting range or someone trying to shoot a prairie dog from a distance and missed it in the angle of it and ended up going off. That's wild. That's what everybody, that's what they all figured. Because they said, well, it's not like someone was waiting. I'm going to wait all day in case a kid climbs up on a girder and then I'll shoot him. Like, who the fuck knows when that's going to happen?

It's strange. So they said they said you know who knows they've said the guy who did it probably doesn't even know he did it he has no fucking clue probably so dumb accident things happen oh well you know what i mean poor kid damn that poor family that's on everybody moves on wow yep they say oh well what are you gonna do and a man has to go about his life saying, my son's dead, probably from an errant bullshit. What? Probably. He was hit rather than a prairie dog, I believe, is what he could say. And he's got to go to bed at night thinking that.

Yeah. That's all they have. Every night he walked up and down the riverbankbank and now he knows while he was doing that his son was in the water probably in front of him at some point he couldn't find him these are the things that would eat you alive as a parent you know may have walked past him yeah that's fucking crazy that would eat you alive as a parent so now they get to sit here and have really no real explanation just a basic you know anecdotal this may have happened type of shit so now we go to early may 1968 so that was 67 this is the next year and let's talk about another young man here uh michael rainey r-a-n-e-y okay michael rainey uh he's 12 he is at the headwater

campground here remember that name the headwater campground he's a sixth grader and he's out on a boy scout trip yeah there's about yeah do getting not tying badges and you know fending off scout match master badges that's a good one when you get that one the butthole defense badge yeah that's a good one that's where you gotta have that one so um there's about 200 boy scouts around hopefully all earning that badge the welded lips badge that's the good one there's a documentary on netflix right now that's it's disturbing it's about all breaks my fucking heart all the documented shit over the years all the lawsuits they settled all that stuff it's the boy scouts are near and

dear to my heart and it fucking crushes me that any piece of shit uh preyed on boys in that organization it drives me bananas it's like sports it's the same thing could be great for a kid unless the guy's an abusive guy you know It's the same shit as we found out. Gymnastics for girls. Same shit. I was just going to say, it's gymnastics. It's the Olympic stuff that Mandy Maloon went and testified about. It's all that stuff.

Destroys me at my fucking core. It's horrible. Yeah, yeah. When kids are trying to do something good and that's going to help them and then somebody ruins that. The trust. They take that trust and flush it down a toilet along with the kids everything else indignity jesus so he's with 200 other kids okay yeah and uh this is where lewis and clark discovered that the jefferson madison and gallatin rivers merge to become

the missouri this is where they say oh shit that's where the missouri comes from but you look at this look at this three rivers going one. That's why it's so full. There's three of them, you guys. Damn it. Guys, can you believe this shit? So the scouts had two-man pup tents that were arrayed in line, very close. It was like a fire festival, basically. They were on top of each other. FEMA tents.

Yeah, it's FEMA tent time. So they're all in these tents in close ranks. It's a two-acre grassy area, and the tents are no more than three feet from each other. Okay, yeah. That close. Very close, yeah. On purpose. Yeah.

So it's about midnight. All the kids are finally to bed. Imagine being responsible to get 211 to 13-year-olds to get to bed. To go to sleep away from their parents. I don't have to listen to you. To go to sleep away from their parents? I don't have to listen to you. Wow. That's what I'm saying.

He's got his tent mate here is Kenny Summers, who's 11 years old. Okay. And everybody likes him, and they're having a fun time. And they finally get put to bed, and I'm sure they're in their flashlights. Yeah. Reading comic books or titty mags or something. I don't know i was gonna say hand puppets on jesus hopefully yeah yeah i guess at 12 we were pretty fucked up by that someone whipped out a playboy at 12 oh i want to see that let me see that shit i want to take a

look at least i'm curious here so their tent is only 30 feet from the scout master so that's not very far at all so there's no real hijinks as the tents go farther out the kids get to fuck around a little more but if you're in one of the tents in a closer area to the adults then you kind of have to be quiet because they can hear you so um the troop leader ordered all the scouts to the tents everybody went and um the kids are tired actually michael and kenny are tired, actually. Michael and Kenny are tired. They were riding horses and doing all sorts of shit all day. Cutting down dead trees, gathering firewood, all that shit. Who knows? Yeah, looking at berries.

I don't know what they do in the Boy Scouts. That's a lot. Their sleeping bags are on rubber air mattresses. That's comfortable. Oh, wow. Not bad. Wow, that's some glamour shit there. Howdy-do.

Yeah, wow. Good for you. that's glamping wow not bad jesus uh their heads were toward the back of the tent yeah and they fell asleep pretty quick because they were exhausted yeah so it's it rained a little bit that night couple of drizzles that night but um nobody didn't didn't wake anybody up or anything like that um you know they everybody slept well. There's a passing train. The kids slept through it, all that kind of shit. So Kenny Summers, Michael's bunkmate, or I should say tentmate, he wakes up at about 5.30 the next morning, soon as daybreak happens.

Early rise. Yeah, once that sun comes up, there's nothing you can do. You're awake. And it's hot in that tent, too. The sun hits that tent, and it makes it hot, too. And so it's just starting to get sun sun rise outside you know he sits there and uh he's waking up you know you are when you wake up you're groggy and he looks like oh shit i'm in a tent that's right i'm here looks over i had a lot last night drank a bunch last night you know who's this next to me hey too much ovaltine i'll never do it again man jesus

i'm hung over from that shit so he looks over and he sees michael's face is covered in blood covered in blood blood all over him so he went oh shit and i guess he had a friend that got bloody noses all the time and that happened in the night sometimes and he'd bleed and roll over on he'd wake up with blood on his nose he's like oh shit he probably has a bloody nose or something so he was waking he's like hey michael michael he's trying to wake him up and he can't wake him up yeah so he starts yelling for the troop leaders hey help help help help yeah so he tells the the troop leader here that he's you know he nothing happened i didn't wake up at any point in the night or anything like that and i just wake up and there's this so they can't wake him up either they try well we'll get in there i'm sure you shake like a pussy we'll do it you know so then they drag him out of

his tent feet first after that they pull him out like you know just dragged him out of the tent they pull off a sleeping bag unzip it and pull away, and his sweatshirt's all bloody too. Oh, boy. Michael's breathing. Oh, shit, he's alive. He's alive. He's breathing heavily. He had vomited on himself as well in the night.

Sure, yeah. So what the hell's going on here? At that point, one guy was trying to help him put his head down on something, on a pillow. He found a big lump above his right ear. Big lump and dirt in his hair. So they're like, what the fuck? So they thought, they asked Kenny, they're like, did you guys go out of the tent and fuck around and wrestle and stuff in the dirt last night? And he said, no.

I didn't fucking, we fell asleep at midnight. I just woke up. I don't know what you're talking about. So Michael, at this point, mumbles something incoherent they can't understand what he's saying so the troop leaders go okay obviously this is we got a problem yeah so they throw him in the car and they drive him to the nearest phone which is in three forks how far is three forks who knows here uh but i do know after that they called a hospital and said we're bringing a kid in who's we don't know what's wrong with him so get ready

for this kid and then they went to the hospital in bozeman which is a half hour away holy shit so time has gone by and god knows how we have no idea when this happened in the middle of the night how many hours he's been bleeding and sick. So the doctors, once they get him into the hospital, the doctors examine him and they find a small stab wound under his right armpit. What? Yeah, a small, very little stab wound under his armpit. The lump on his head said that he's been hit with a fucking very small but hard object and bashed in the head with it and stabbed. So that's interesting.

Back at the camp, the deputies, now they're investigating this because it looks like somebody did something to this kid. They find the back of the tent. Remember, their heads are toward the back of the tent the back of the tent had been sliced open and looks like somebody may have reached in and stabbed him through the sleeping bag wow it's like a slice the tent open and just stabbed him in this through the sleeping bag and took off and hit him in the head with something which makes no sense the head trauma is why he threw up huh yeah that's exactly why so on the right side of the tent which was pitched near a parking uh parking lot was slashed

near the uh near the rear from almost the top to the bottom as well wow they said a second slash was made in the tent apparently um apparently um yeah he was though he was the only one who sustained a wound in there. They said it's possible the act could have been the result of vandalism, the tent. And they might have stabbed. The cops said they didn't know anything at the time, so they said they might have cut the tent as a vandalism thing and stabbed him by accident on the other side.

They stabbed the knife through to cut it, and he was over there. But then how do you explain the head wound? Man, Montana cops are so fast to try to turn this shit into an accident. It must have been an accident. Boys will be boys. Because they're thinking, who's going to come in amongst 300, 200 people and adults are right there and murder a child? Try to murder a child. That makes no sense at all.

Why pick him? There's a hundred tenths. There's no reason to pick him, too. It just doesn't make any sense. So the sheriff asked anyone with information to call and help us because we're pretty useless here. So nobody

had seen anyone moving around the night before other than a few scouts on the other side goofing off. They were nowhere near. They were never seen anywhere near here. So it doesn't make any sense. So they know there's been a knife now. There had to have been a knife. He were nowhere near. They were never seen anywhere near here. So it doesn't make any sense. So they know there's been a knife now. There had to have been a knife.

He's been stabbed. Yeah. None were found in the immediate area, like on the ground, discarded, thrown in a bush or anything. But they had all the knives that all the Boy Scouts had, which is every Boy Scout is always prepared. They always had a knife. So. They're Swiss Army. Hundreds of knives they have to gather. Oh, yes.

The mall. Yeah. So they gather all the kids knives. And over the next few weeks, they administer lie detector tests to every single kid and troop leader in the camp that night. Over 200 lie detector tests. 13 year olds. 13 year olds. And yeah.

And all of their knives are tested. And everybody passes their lie detector tests and none of their knives are tested and everybody passes their lie detector tests and none of their knives come up with anything suspicious jesus so they're like okay this is this is fucking weird now um so they're investigating reports that maybe young people who are not members of this scouting you know party sure they heard possibly there'd been young people in the area harassing the boy scouts earlier in the day 17 year olds it's 67 smoking a joint drinking beer going hey you fucking pussies yeah your mom told nice outfit yeah you know why don't you get out of here we're trying to have fun yeah i'm trying to fuck we're trying to have unprotected sex over here. Come on.

Get out of here. I'm trying to get my blowjob badge. Get out of here, kid. Yeah, trying to get my receiving blowjob badge. So they said that Michael's troop, this is how deep they're going, trying to figure it out. Michael's troop that day had won a trophy from another troop in a contest oh so their theory is possibly maybe one of the losing scouts from the other troop was seeking revenge that's a vicious boy scout you lost a boy scout contest in all these movies where there's like a camp and one camp versus the other camp there was never a stabbing afterwards ever though the the camp would the camp versus the other camp there was never a stabbing afterwards ever the the camp

would the camp of the cool kids would have more respect now actually for the box you gotta get you gotta get fucking street cred for this so strange so they said but this is so they talked to the scout leaders and they said we do these contests all the time. We do this stuff. It's like there's like five. We did five of them that day. Like we'd have there be no scouts left of people killing each other over this. Nobody gives a shit. Yeah.

They said nobody ever even gets upset to the point of like it's not even that big of a deal. It's never ended up even in a fist fight. So it's. Yeah. So they someone reported hearing a little boy yell in the middle of the night. Yeah. So they someone reported hearing a little boy yell in the middle of the night. Yeah. But they don't know what the little boy said. They said it was either help, help or Dale Dale. Oh, not sure. And they're not sure how old the voice was either.

So they heard a voice in the middle of the night say something they didn't know, which is really not helpful information. Singing a Beatles song. So they said, hmm, there's only one person left to look at. Yeah. And that's little Kenny Summers here, or his little 11-year-old tent mate. Oh, you vicious little bastard. It's got to be him. He had a weapon. He had a knife.

He was sleeping next to me. He had all the opportunity. He's the guy. But they said, why would this little 11-year-old Boy Scout stab his tent mate? That would make no sense. Why would an 11-year-old cut his own tent open? And they said, too, what kind of a diabolical little fuck would, he's in fifth grade, this kid, would stab his tent mate up, bash him in the head, carve up the tent, then go back

to just lie down wait till dawn and then pretend to find him and yell for help this is like been married for 20 years behavior yeah this is you know i'm gonna lose everything and yeah i'm not taking this anymore that's an inside traitor thing yeah this is certainly not that so they're like that doesn't make sense and the kid passed a lie detector and he seems like a nice kid and he doesn't have any you know it's not like oh he's has behavioral problems where you know he coughed up his knife he coughed up his knife and he has nothing to hide he's been totally forthright so they don't know what to do so this hits the newspapers and people one thing people like to do in small towns they

all feel they all have a theory and they all feel like they want to tell you it so what that theory is but you get a a group of children in a in a camp scenario one of them comes up murdered oh boy is that like the most frightening thing on the planet to these people jesus they all do this that's what i mean and the people and the people back then would send their kids out and expect them not to come back with holes in them right you know right in the late 60s you could that was go outside don't come back till the sun comes out you know nobody expected their people hitchhiked and thought it was safe back then and this was a different a fucking different time we can't even put it in perspective a stranger blindly and especially back up here in the middle of nowhere you know this isn't brooklyn this is fucking manhattan montana you're right

it's not brooklyn it's manhattan that's what i was getting to i said this is manhattan montana this is not so they're probably 20 years you know back as far as all that goes too so think about it it's it's probably considered very safe but tips start pouring in now pouring in these tips uh one guy saw a green michael's still alive by the way he's holding on at the hospital at the hospital oh my god One witness said he saw a green Studebaker. Another witness said he saw a 1959 Ford. And another guy said he saw an old Jeep. So that's not helpful.

Obviously unreliable. Those are all three. You could get very different cars. Those are completely different cars. You can't confuse one for the other, ever. So, not helpful. That are completely different cars. You can't confuse one for the other, ever. So, not helpful. That's fascinating, yeah.

Yeah. Another one, people saw a guy and girl drinking beer. Okay. Another person said they saw the night before in the area a guy with a knife on his belt. Okay. Which is every guy in Montana, I'm sure. How big was it like a crocodile dundee or like a like a pocket knife um another one called it and said that she has a boyfriend and she's afraid he did it because quote he hates kids so i don't like kids i'm gonna go find 200 of them and then stab one of them

covertly and then run away yes i'm dating a man named anthony jeselnik and i'm afraid that he might be a murderer i was gonna say if it was chris talia you'd be like he loves kids what a what a hilarious phone call oh that's fun as shit a uh one one person reported that one of the troop leaders was quote peculiar okay don't know what that means i saw him reading a book without pictures in it and i'm tired of that shit it wasn't about ranching or ranching related activities and i'm worried um none of these people they all had alibis or passed lie detectors, or nobody saw anything else, nobody knew anything else, nobody knows shit. So a few days go by, and Michael dies. Oh, Jesus.

He dies from, think about that, a small stab wound and a blow to the head, three days in the hospital, and he dies. A hospital can't save him over three day period that's uh that's some bad wounds that's bad at the autopsy yeah oh yeah it's horrible three days he wasn't really conscious for those three days the coroner found the single knife wound it was a small one it was the slits only an inch wide. Wow. Not a butcher knife, not a big horror slasher movie knife, and it hadn't punctured his lung either. Originally, they thought it must be his lung. Yeah, it just kept bleeding. They said the wound might have been inflicted with a pocket knife or by a very tentative poke with a larger knife that didn't go in very far.

But they said that knife wound is not what killed him by any stretch of the imagination. The blow to the head. The blow to the head. They found extensive brain damage from the blow to the head. God, whatever did it, it was a quarter size wound,

very small lump. That's what I mean. That's why they were like, it's super small, only a quarter size wound, uh, on the side of his skull. But it,

and it hadn't fractured the skull either but caused a concussion so violent that it from the autopsy it said it literally killed a fist-sized chunk of his cerebrum turning it into pudding basically what a fucking puncture it's a quarter size thing it's a puncture or is it just it's just a just pressure on the skull yeah like a ball peen hammer or something that's a small thing so the cause of death was not a stab wound which is what everyone expected but just a whack on the head oh my god smashed brain what the fuck yeah this is crazy shit right i don't know yeah this kid's sleeping internally in his head his brain just died his brain just died yeah wow after three days

so this is the second weird death of a child yeah young boy around the same age in manhattan which is that's very much strange and this is a the bernie pullman thing you can go okay that's an accident a prairie dog somebody sucks at shooting nobody accidentally smashed this kid in the head and stabbed him cut up his tent nobody did that yeah they missed the prairie dog real hard this is super on purpose yeah this they were trying to stab it from across the street or something so they said that everybody again when they gather at the town centers they all decide i love how the town comes to a conclusion and then they all go all right i guess that's what happened and walk away prairie dog shooter for michael for him they figured horseplay gone

too far are you playing around one of the kids and they smashed him on the side of the head and you know and it's slashed up tent and they said they said also these shitty cops and deputies messed up the investigation by screwing stuff up and you know they probably didn't lost evidence or didn't find it it's probably just kids messing around and they haven't found the right evidence because they're stupid that's literally what people said i wouldn't be able to sleep. That's it. They said, that's it. Oh, well, no shrug. What you gonna do? Welcome to the small town of Chinook where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when

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

Join Wondery in the Wondery 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. With a touch of humor.

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

app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

So, June 24th, 1973 now. Five years later. Five years go by by quiet times in manhattan okay five years and think about that time from 68 to 73 what's going on at that time too in the country vietnam war going on and that's when the bulk of the people are sent there and killed there and all that kind of shit what's happening all sorts of stuff what happened from 68 to 73 in this country super quiet real laid back yeah nobody was shot and assassinated we didn't have any wars we had no problems and watergate was just as secure as it could be and everything was good so june 24th, the Yeager family here. These nice family here, they're going out.

This is William and Marietta Yeager. And they have five kids. Yikes. And they're heading out with four of them. Okay. That one's a problem. Yeah. It's probably a baby, I would assume.

Yeah, it's probably a baby. Leave that with the grandparents or something. They set out on June 17th. They are, by the way, from Detroit. Okay. So not from around here. Okay. So on June 17th, 1973, they set out in their mustard and white Chevy van.

God, it's 1973. Gotcha. Yeah. That's vanning everybody right there with a red trailer for a month's vacation out west. They're driving to spend a month in montana that's the goal here with the kids and we're gonna fish and we're gonna see the outdoors and people used to do this back in the day a month in a van though that's a lot a month in a van with four kids fucking wow or go to work i'll go to work thank you yeah yeah i will work all day every day rather than spend a month in a van with four kids fuck that i'll work on the

railroad all the live long before all the live long day yep i will i'll build the railroad a month fuck that so a month so the relative relative said they reached here and they met up with Marietta's parents who all met them out there. William, Mr. and Mrs. William Lipton. And he's a they're retired and they've been traveling around the country and they said, oh, yeah, we'll meet you up in Montana and all that sort of deal here. here uh william jaeger is a tool and dye maker okay he's taking his month vacation all the kids uh he is employed by mcdonough engineering company of detroit and this trip has been planned since last fall this is everything to them this is six months in the making and they mapped it out yeah this isn't for the kids this is for dad dad. Oh, yeah. They got the family truckster, and this is vacation here. It's exactly what it is, National Airport style. So now the woman who lives near them in Detroit, Kathleen Rudberg, said her children are the ones going to feed their hunting dogs, Bo and Otto, while they're out of town. And they said the Yeagers bought two new tents, two motorcycles, hiking boots for

the whole family for the trip. I mean, they've been preparing for this trip. This is everything. She said it's normal for them to go on trips, not for this long, which she said they go out all the time hunting or just tramping through the woods. Okay. They're outdoorsy type people here. She said that the two tents they bought had been set up in the jaeger's backyard for two weeks

before the trip and that all the neighborhood children took turns sleeping in them and roasting marshmallows and pretending they were camping awesome so yeah they're having fun that's so much fun that's good shit uh their youngest of the children they do take so maybe their oldest they left home he's probably you know he's like yeah you guys go on i'll be fine here i'll hold down the fort here he's calling people up he's like, yeah, you guys go on. I'll be fine here. I'll hold down the fort here. He's calling people up. He's like, bring the weed over. They are gone for a month.

Holy shit. I'm going to finger everybody. This is amazing. That's what a teenage boy would think. So their youngest is seven years old. Yeah. And that's Susie. Little Susie Yeager.

Okay. And yeah, she's going to, you she's about to enter second grade next year. So that's the baby here. And their oldest son, I guess, their oldest son comes. I don't know what kid doesn't come, but they have their oldest and their youngest. So I don't know what's going on here. Is this the oldest of who came with them? I don't know.

It's their oldest son. Anyway, his wife, I guess, Yeager, said he, his wife, and their oldest son, Dan, were sleeping wife i guess jaeger said he his wife and their oldest son dan were sleeping in the van on monday morning so they're sleeping in the van the grandparents were asleep in their trailer they had their own trailer okay and then they had the kids sleeping in a tent right next to them on their own because the kids wanted to sleep in a tent because that's the fun of camping for them until you're older and're older and you go, Jesus, I need a bed. This hurts. I just did it, and I'm never doing it again.

It's over. No shit. At 4.30 a.m., they find Susie gone. Oh? By the way, they're camping at the Headwater Campground. Oh. The same exact place Michael Rainey disappeared from. The Boy Scout camp.

The Boy Scout camp. The Boy Scout camp. They're actually right in the same area that the Boy Scouts were camping, as a matter of fact, right there. Same exact place. So Susie is gone out of her tent at 430. She's seven. Maybe she, who knows, what a seven-year-old would wander off to do when she feels safe. But they are a little bit worried when they find a big circular slash

in the tent alongside her sleeping bag. Oh, boy. So that doesn't look good at all. Yeah. Obviously. They said that they talked to the other kids. She had talked briefly with an older sister about two hours before a train whistle

had woken them up. And that's when they found she was missing. So they said somewhere between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m that's where when she must have disappeared enough camping fuck camping never you need a tent that i can't believe i did it like a car this is so frightening i don't mind you know what this is perfect because i have no there's no way to secure myself i'm gonna sleep and there's no one you know there's nothing close enough to even hear me scream so this is great this is perfect i you know i've always i've always wanted to just serve just serve up a murderer you know

what i mean just good like in volleyball just that soft touch that's or a bear maybe or a bear maybe anything that wants to destroy me i'm just gonna put it in this soft coated fucking candy wrapper for them i'm just gonna wrap myself in nylon and then sit in the middle of the woods like a fucking present and then i'm gonna get good and fucking drunk take a xanax and pass right the fuck out so i definitely won't wake up what the fuck is happening why do we do it at all why you never gone camping james well you just described it this doesn't make any sense to me i don't get it i'm gonna pollute my body in the woods for fun and then i'm gonna fall asleep now this is there was four kids in this tent including

her two older two older brothers and her sister so apparently they did bring all the kids one kid in the one kid in the one kid in the van four kids in the tent so that's it and they're older too so it's it's so weird they said a 20 inch hole had been cut in the tent with a razor or a very very sharp knife and then her sister heidi who was 12 found her gone when she woke up at four um her teddy bear and stuffed reindeer were on the ground outside. Oh, God damn it. That's fucking so sad right there. So police said that the Yeagers pitched their camp just a few yards from the exact spot where Michael Rainey was kidnapped.

Is that right? Or was stabbed and bashed in 1968. It's right there. They're like, you are 10 feet from it right there. They're like, you're 10 feet from it right there. So the sheriff put they put together a 15 person search party and said, there's a strong possibility we have a kidnapping on our hands. Really? What made you think that? Is it the fact that there was a kid here last night and there isn't one today?

They think she cut her way out and busted out like fuck this reindeer and teddy bear. I'm out. I'm out, bitch. Threw him on the ground and fucking what? Joined the Navy? Like, what do they think she did? What's going on here? The Bozeman FBI office takes over direction of the search for the next day.

They're like, we know what happened last time. We're going to, we got this one here. So they search for Susan or yeah, for Susan here and um they think that she's been kidnapped from her campsite the sheriff's deputies dragged the rivers again in case she might have been either someone killed her and dumped her in the water she wandered into the water she ran away in the dark we have no idea um it's just a mystery so her great grandma they talked to she's 77 years old and um she said she got a call to that was from her you know uh grandkids to tell her that the susan was gone and so she said i wish i could do something but you can't do anything she describes susan as a quote timid child who

wouldn't just wander off if she had to, she would have awakened her sister. Okay. She's the baby of the family. I mean, a lot of times it's like that. A neighbor, the same neighbor who's watching the dogs, describes Susan as friendly, but she would never go anyplace by herself. She's a normal kid, afraid of the dark, and so on. She's a seven-year-old. Yeah.

She's not going to wander off by herself. So they said that, you know, this is two days go by now. No Susan. The FBI and sheriff's deputies continue their search, and they want to put a special lookout at gas stations, they said. Look out at gas stations because they said that they've received quite a few calls about children who look like the Yeager child, look like Susan. The FBI has got a ton of calls, but they don't. None of them have panned out so far.

They said they're going back over their clues a second time to make sure they haven't overlooked anything and, uh, all sorts of shit like that. But they say that the FBI set up a nationwide alert at gas stations for the child with all the gas station clerks. Like they send them all a sheet or whatever i guess that's a good point because at least i mean if somebody's got her he's got to get fucking gas at some point exactly the family member said they figured if she were taken in a car the driver would have to stop for gas at some point yeah at some point and yeah you probably take the seven-year-old in with you so she doesn't run away outside or start yelling at people that she's been kidnapped. Yeah. So they search. It's an intensive search and they fail to turn up any trace of the girl here in a few

days. They can't do it. They use the FBI had planes, boats, people, searchers all around three forks, the headwaters of the Missouri River. The spokeswoman for the FBI said six agents and sheriff's deputies are working 14 to 16 hours a day checking out any and all information, too. So they have like an office squad that's following up all the leads. They have people on the outside. It's a seven-year-old girl.

Yeah. You don't get any more, hey, let's all fucking get on hands on deck than a seven-year-old girl. I mean, that's the least most defenseless thing you could think of is a small child. Right. It's scary. So they're possible suspects. What are you going to do here? Check it out.

So they're looking around. They compile a lengthy list of what they call known sex criminals, which I love how they used to call them that. Sex criminals. Sex criminals sounds way funnier than sex offenders. Yeah. Sex offenders sounds legal and dirty. Sex criminals sounds like they always have their sex offenders. Yeah. Sex offenders sounds legal and dirty. Sex criminal sounds like they always have their dick out. Yeah.

Just always. Eh, just jerking it. The UK still calls them sex pests, and I enjoy that as well. That's fun, too. That's really good. I like that, too. I like that, too. They also use the word molested to mean, you know, if someone annoys you somewhere, you've

been molested, they've been molesting you, which is fun, too. Which is one of the definitions. It is annoying. It's fun. So they get through all this list of known sex criminals in western Montana since 1958. So for the last 15 years, they're going over the list. More than 100 names on 11 sheets of paper they get that come out. on 11 sheets of paper they get that come out. So they range from peeping toms to fucking literally trench coat opening flashers,

people like that, to rapists and child molesters. I mean, it's the whole range of scum in one place you can find. That's a fun folder. Here's your scum folder. Yeah, we got your folder of scum right there. You might want to put some gloves on while you look through that. It's dirty. The crazier part.

I mean, I get that. That's, that's a logical conclusion to come to. Yeah. But that's what they would do today too. Yeah. Yeah. But the two that the two before, if they're even drawing a link, there was zero sex involved. Oh, they're not. They're not even just looking for considering who like like can you fucking believe from the same place they disappeared

that's all they say wow so they can't find it and that's the first thing they do now too or even for years and years i remember the david simon homicide book uh latanya wallace that case yeah which is a crazy case if you look that up she was murdered and she was an 11 year old girl and the first thing they did was say round up every sex offender in this fucking neighborhood. Anybody with a if they've ever touched a tit out of turn, they're coming in and we're fucking talking to them. It's the first thing you do. Yeah. It escalates.

Yeah. So they get all these. One of the people was an elderly former Episcopal minister. Yeah. He was a descendant from a Boston Tea Party revolutionary. Is that right? Yeah. And then shamed the family.

And then was a little creepy. Yeah. Another was a World War II Purple Heart recipient. Really? Which is hero until he was busted following young girls around. Gross. Which is not heroic. around. Gross. Which is not heroic.

Another was what they called a, quote, dirty talking 12-year-old boy who made obscene phone calls to his neighbor ladies. Basically, Bart Simpson is what they have here. Did he have real spiky hair? Rode a skateboard all the time? Slingshot in his back pocket? Slink my shorts a lot. He's a cowabunga

did you hear out of him? Okay, that's the guy. Yeah. So, there's another guy who'd been busted for for fondling women's clothes at a local department store not women he just goes in and feels up the clothes and rubs them on himself is that is that illegal i if you rub it on your dick anything's illegal that's illegal yeah i think you have to buy something before you rub it on your dick correct i don't know i think if if it's a, I don't know. You can't, in the 60s in Montana, you couldn't just walk into a woman's clothing store and like, you know, rustlers in cowboy boots pick up a dress and start rubbing it on your cock.

I feel like they'd call somebody for you back then. Now they probably wouldn't care. It'd be fine. But back then, that's aberrant behavior. I don't know. It doesn't feel illegal, but it don't know it doesn't feel illegal but it doesn't feel legal but they wrote it down and they got back with it it's hard to make a connection between rubbing a dress on your dick and fucking cutting a hole in a tent and stealing a seven-year-old girl out of it but if it was long enough ago those things do escalate and you never know these flashers turn into we know flashers turn into yeah they turn into bad things later so

who knows but nothing panned out i was really rooting on the dress guy doing something just it's a long shot one landlord who had a tenant here um suspected this mother and son who'd left their apartment that he rented to them in shambles. I didn't return it. I know a couple of dirtbags. I didn't return it. Nothing to do with anything else. Security deposit to these people.

They did it. Never. He didn't say because also they kidnapped a girl one time or the son. None of that. Just I know a couple of dirt they left the place all dirty they they could i mean obviously they're capable of murder i think 15 years ago they moved out of the apartment and left imagine being married to that man he doesn't forget shit no he's been holding a grudge for 15 years.

He's gone through like seven tenants in that apartment since then. He just goes, those ones, sons of bitches, who left the oven all messed with frozen pizza cheese stuck to the bottom of it. Those bastards. What a jump. What a fucking jump. someone fucking murderers these people they must be someone called up the fbi to go i know who did it oh it's my neighbor he writes poetry about sex guilty holy montana they just considered that weird hippie behavior you must be a kid fucking person he writes flowery shit about vaginas flowery shit about beautiful things a rancher told the FBI that

the new owner of the next ranch over didn't know anything about cows wink wink yeah so obviously he said that's he's obviously hiding something probably a little girl yeah so he bought the ranch he planned this all out bought a ranch kidnapped a little girl to take to this ranch so he could put her there and pretend he's a rancher with cows that's quite the all ranch no cattle all ranch no cattle. Another rancher said he suspected his neighbor because he's the type of guy who's not real clean and has, quote, junked cars all over the place. Yeah. See, I don't trust him. He's driving down the property value. Another circus worker snitched on a carny.

You got to be kidding me. I'm not believing either one of those people. Liar and liar. A circus worker snitched on a carny. You gotta be kidding me. I'm not believing either one of those people. Liar and liar. Fuck out of here. As a matter of fact, you've done something, I'm sure. Both of you have criminal records. Fuck you both.

Get in the car. Yeah. Oh, my God. He said that this guy is a guy who could have done it because he stole my act. So I know he's a known thief. Yeah, he stole my act. And then when we were in New Orleans and he traveled through Montana this summer. So if he's an act thief, you know, he's a hack. So obviously he's probably a murderer and a kidnapper as well.

Somebody arrest Carlomancia immediately. ASAP. This is just people settling beefs over time and they're like i want that guy to get arrested for stealing a seven-year-old girl that'll learn him i don't think he did it or nothing but shit carlos mencia has been raping little girls across this country if he steals the joke he's a rape and murder rape and murder um wow a woman at one point called saying that her ex-boyfriend who cheated on her yeah once told her that his prostitute mistress that he used to go to um that he wants i guess okay he told her one time and then told this woman that he

told her that, that he fantasized about sex with little girls. Okay. Which is not a good sign. That will take serious. But he hasn't been around in a long time, so. Okay. But that's a guy who she knows. Well, look.

Another, a mother said her son, who used to be in a reformatory, he probably did it. Why is that? He was bad when he was a kid, even though he hasn't been around in years. But he could be back. She doesn't know. A 26-year-old lady, or I'm sorry, a 76-year-old woman

reported that her foster brother had molested her when they were kids in Michigan in 1906. Okay. molested her when they were kids in michigan in 1906 okay he's in his 80s now yeah yeah he's probably out there on the lake kidnapping kids she said she lost track of him 20 years ago but the cops should check out his two sons wherever they are because they're probably child molesters too because it because it runs in the family. It's in the blood. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. A hitchhiker told FBI agents that he took a ride, hitched a ride with a guy who bragged about being able to cut meat well because he's a butcher.

Okay. And that he had a bent toward bestiality and that a well-honed boning knife could slice a camp tent like it was lace. Okay. That's something. Yeah. At least there's a tent and a slice and that all well-honed boning knife could slice a camp tent like it was lace. Okay, that's something. At least there's a tent and a slice and that all makes sense. They interviewed 26 workers on a railroad section crew who had come through the area at that time. They were in Chicago. They interviewed them.

Interviewed college kids from Bozeman, fishermen, carpenters, ranchers,ers people are pissed off at their exes fucking people anyone who was in an asylum in the last few years anyone who's an art literally artists because they're anybody in a north face sweater anybody a north face sweater by redheads also no good people who like kale you know there's a lot of suspicious anybody fucking fao schwartz we interviewed them all anything uh traveling salesmen anybody any artists in town they're swinging so wild now anybody who because they had no they have nothing um it was basically who's weird let's talk to them are you are you a person let me talk you. Yeah. There was a guy named Dr. Malin Shaw, who was a retired professor in Pontiac. And he was a guy who, I guess he stopped for a female bicyclist and offered to take her as far as she wanted to go.

Okay. And so they said, well, that might be it. That's a bad guy. When they talked to him, turns out he just said he was 80 years old and his wife died a few years ago. And he likes to pick up hitchhikers so he has someone to talk to. Just for the chat? He goes days without having anyone to talk to. Oh, my God.

He's just very lonely. And also, like, frail, too. He wasn't a guy. Jesus Christ, my heart. And then there's a guy named Brule Reed. Brule. Like, cruel with a B with a b okay brule reed he was uh 72 and he was the caretaker at the headwater state park okay so a couple of the

campers reported that ranger reed over here was a little too familiar with some of the kids not in a sexual way but he played with them and stuff and talked to them. Okay. And didn't ever take them anywhere or do anything weird, but he was nice to kids when they were around. What a fucking monster. I would think a qualification for being the caretaker of a park that constantly have kids at it, you know?

So you hate kids? Perfect. Hired. He had a sunny disposition? What a piece of shit. You bet. So if you're nice to kids, you're suspicious. If you hate kids, suspicious.

Sex poetry, suspicious. You can't win for losing around here. Nope. And this wastes a lot of time with people's weird, you know, fucking atavistic fucking fears of anybody that's different back then would screwed up a lot when they could have been concentrating on Occam's razor here and figuring this shit out so they uh they there was him they didn't like that uh they thought he was creepy he submitted to a lie detector test and passed um but they also say that he failed to satisfy his state bosses about why he allowed a homeless disabled war veteran to camp in the park beyond the 10-day limit and was fired anyway oh maybe because i have a heart for homeless fucking war veterans felt bad for a guy who just got back from nam and

was missing missing his leg below the knee sorry let him catch a trout and cook it on a fucking coleman fucking stove you monster my bad uh there's a guy named dav David Meirhofer who was a 25-year-old kid. He just came back to Manhattan from Vietnam and worked odd jobs at local ranches and stuff like that. They said that he was friendly enough, but he didn't talk much about the war or anything else. Well, you tell me he didn't want to relive it? Weird to come. So strange. Everyone else loves to

come back from vietnam and they're like let me tell you about this battle oh it was wonderful i lost five friends and fucking it was great a lot of people are quiet about that world war two vets vietnam vets not a lot of those guys talk about it. Yeah. Oh, shit, man. The rancher said that around there, everybody had something to say, even if it was nothing. But David was a hard worker who knew how things worked. And they said, but he was just odd. Something about him was odd. Perhaps the war.

Another guy, Joe Hunzinger, who is a 70-something-year-old guy who lives in a trailer in Winston, Montana, an hour and a half away, which isn't very far in Montana, but still. They said it was close enough for him to come in, snatch a child, and go away. Problem with him, though, when they got to him, he was mostly blind from cataracts in both eyes. So not a good night driver. Not great at night driving. he's not a good night driver he's not a great not great at night driving uh he did do a hard time up at the state prison in deer lodge for trying to rape a little girl he bought in mexico to be his wife he bought a child in mexico let's just hang on to him for a while still that's a cataracts or not i mean you can't really get around much but jesus put a fence around his house or something you know what i mean fence it off put a sign out front i don't know

run a lot of trip wires around his property so he just trips a lot fuck him jesus oh god um they there was a family who locked their mentally handicapped child in his room um so they wanted to talk to the mentally handicapped child for some reason and they said no we lock him in his room and they were like oh good and they left literally they're like oh good he's all locked up that's nice what the fuck is happening in montana how are there this many fucking it's 1950 basically 1973 is like 1950 in montana and this was what it was who's weird who's different who dresses different acts different

music how many people exist there that are just so fucked up so weeks go by three weeks go by and then a call comes in oh yeah it's a call here

received and they said they put out a press release saying their call has been received asking for ransom and the money is being collected now. That's what they said for Susie, for Susan. Yeah. The statement issued by the office said we would like the person who called the other night to please call again. Please call back. We're getting together. We'd like to trace where you are. So if you call back so to please call again. Please call back. We're getting together. We'd like to trace where you are. So if you call back so we can catch you.

Please call back. The phone lines have nothing to do with any of this. Yeah. They put that in the paper. Use the same identification procedures of the girl that were used last time. The family is prepared to negotiate. That's what it says. This is fucking crazy.

Wow. So they have been staying in montana this whole time just waiting to see what happens a detroit newspaper announced a three thousand dollar reward for any information which that's a lot of money in 73 a lot of money now but a lot lot in 73 that was like half a yearly salary back then um it's uh sponsored by the detroit news um they said to call your tips into bozeman montana uh they're wondering whether they'll call back they said they have no new leads which is obviously terrible they said there's been no contact with the mail caller who telephoned a ransom demand um he said there was no way to tell whether the call was a hoax but

they don't believe that it is okay um they said that the yeagers are um close to being forced to abandon their vigil at the campground they said quote they are still there and will remain until the end of the week and then as far as i know they're pulling out they have to go back home at some point yeah they have the dogs back there and all that shit i mean you have a responsibility to make yeah yeah the kids have to go back you know do their shit so um william yeager requested an extension of leave from his job as a design consultant in order so they could stay there and search for the girl it's a mess another call finally comes in okay all right um the gallatin deputy ron brown takes the day shift in the operations command center and um they said

his personal camp trailer was parked at the headwaters as well where the two kids were taken okay um and he has two young girls too so he's like hey you know i want to find this case his wife um was home alone and all that sort of thing um and his wife jane answers the phone at home. And a man just says, Sheriff Brown. And she's like, he's not home. So the guy said, the FBI must think I'm a crank. I'm raising the ransom to $50,000. Oh, boy.

Put it in a suitcase and small bills at the end of the stall of the men's bathroom at the Denver bus stop. Oh. And get rid of the, quote, Negro shoeshine boy. Don't like that. Who's in the bathroom there. Then he said, I've got the Jaeger girl. Okay. To prove it, her first fingernails are humpy.

Oh. Okay. So Jane asked the caller to repeat himself so she could take a message like anybody like any other time and he said calmly repeated everything he just said and then hung up so she radios her husband gives her a radio because it's easier to get a hold of him that way he reports the call to the fbi who fired off a teletype to the denver office and the special agent in charge said he was going to review all recent calls that might have come in about the Yeager case and to immediately because he said the FBI must think I'm a crank. So they assume he called the FBI immediately post surveillance in the main bus terminal in Denver.

And since the Yeagers don't have fifty thousand dollars to pay, the Denver office began assembling a suitcase full of dummy bills for the drop. Yeah, let's fuck with a man who has no child. I was going to say, how about we put the $50,000 together, and when you catch him, take it back. How does that sound? He's not going to take it. It's not like he's going to go spend it.

He's not going to take it because you're going to take him. What are we talking about? The kids, even the Yeager kids, cut up blank paper in the shape of dollar bills. They made it like they enlisted the help of the children to do this. This is crazy. Wow. On the assumption that the kidnapper was watching, the plan was for Bill to leave the campground like he's rushing out as if he were collecting the ransom money at a bank and then go to Denver. That's what he's doing. a bank and then go to Denver. And they're like, that's what he's doing.

He's going to go to Denver. But the caller didn't leave any other details such as the time and date of the exchange, none of that shit, where he would leave Susan, none of that. So they installed a tap in Ron Brown's phone in case the caller calls again. So, yeah. So they asked, he, finding out this info from the wife who took the message, asked the Marietta and William here, the parents, Susan's parents, is there anything about humpy fingernails this guy said? And they said the mother gasped. And she described every scar and birthmark and bump, everything.

And she said in the beginning when she went missing, she forgot to mention that she has bumps on the first and her fingernails on the first fingers they said biting them yeah they said they noticed that in the delivery room that her index fingers both ended uh in sharply pointed oddly clubbed fingernails almost like dog's claws oh wow weird things so they said the obstetrician wasn't worried, although they said little Susie would probably have them for the rest of her life. It's not a bad thing. It's just a weird thing.

She's got her dick claws. Yeah. As she grew, her fingernails didn't, except to expand width-wise with her fingers. And at first they were prominent, but then people stopped noticing, and nobody really noticed it anymore, and she didn't give a shit either.

It's fascinating how a defect in your hand goes unnoticed i'm missing a fucking finger and nobody notices it unless i fucking say it's like a third of a finger that's why it's it's a pretty big chunk it's a third so it's not it's not a whole finger but it's a pretty good there's not a fucking nail there. But like at a glance, if you're talking, you could have it bent. You know what I mean? I suppose. But the hand is fucking mangled. Nobody knows that ever.

No, no. They said they forgot all about it and hadn't mentioned it. But now they said that's fucking true. That's our girl. That's real. You know what I mean? So they know it's real now. So they want to get you know all the

information they can and try to figure that out so they're like that that little deformity could save her life you know what i mean a little whatever defect in her finger that nobody doesn't matter anyway so they start a big fund the susan jaeger reward fund and you know they're really trying to do this it's three and a half months into this now. Oh, my God. So it's a lot. They get $8,000 in public contributions in addition to the newspapers putting up money. They're getting a lot of money here. Then the Yeagers get a call.

Oh, boy. What? On September 24th. Oh, Jesus. Months have gone by. Marietta picked up the call. I'm sorry. She didn't pick up this call she had

gone to pick up her son who was stuck in a downpour and missed his ride home so he had she had to go get him yeah so she goes to do that she put her son danny in charge and took off she comes back 10 minutes later and danny's hanging up the phone and he doesn't look right. Oh, boy. It was a collect call, and it was less than two minutes. But Danny got all of it on the Radio Shack tape recorder they had. Nice work, Danny. Fucking Danny. Good job, man.

So the man asks, now, you're Susie's brother, huh? And Danny said that he was an adult but not old didn't sound you know anything like that had a westerny accent okay you're in detroit you can hear a montana accent or a western accent and danny said yeah and the caller said you like you like to know where she's at oh boy and he said yeah i would and they, you're going to have to wait a while, the caller said. So Danny said, why? Good question. And they said, you've had too much police and FBI activity.

You may think I'm a hoax, but I know something about Susie that nobody knows. And he said, oh, why don't you tell us? And he said, okay, fingernails of her first fingers are humped. And Danny said, I know that. I meant, why don't you tell us where she is oh we get it yeah yeah i'm not playing games with you motherfucker i'm not dicking around here and the guy said because i can't hardly do that it's a pretty dangerous situation you know and the kid says well can't you just drop her off somewhere and let us pick her up like what the fuck dude and he says you want to come west quite a ways and the kid said no problem there yeah we'll go to

afghanistan if we have to it's a fucking it's my sister we'll get her so he said the caller said well we'll make arrangements one of these days but for right now you're gonna have to wait a while the kid said why do we have to wait yeah and he said because that's the way things have to be somehow this has turned into every conversation with a 12 year old yeah right also i'm impressed that danny is such a mature kid that he's like why do i gotta wait where am i going where do i need he's not afraid of this guy he's not scared that's what i like he said because that's the way things have to be in the callers that's the guy said and danny said why i mean you're not answering any question i have satisfactorually here the guy says well

because a person does things like this he can't get caught he's got to figure out ways not to get caught and danny said just drop her somewhere a day ahead of time and just leave that place yeah we don't give a fuck about you i'm gonna tell you how i think you can get away with this easier i don't care if they catch you i I want my sister back. So the caller said, yeah, sure. I don't want to drop her for nothing. I don't want to just drop her for nothing. Anyway, I just want to tell you to wait a while. You'll be contacted. It may be another

week. It may be a month or two months or so, but you'll get contacted and hung up. Wow. So, yeah, this is crazy. So now a month later, Mountain Bell, which is a phone company there, found a toll ticket for the call. I don't know what that is. A toll ticket?

I guess you get a receipt. I don't know. If you called from a pay phone. I don't know what it is. And reported it to the FBI, which had red flagged the Yeagers number for phone companies and operators all over America. They were to report any of these calls. The particular number belonged to a three pump truck stop and greasy spoon outside Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Three pump truck stop and greasy spoon. Shitty little place outside Cheyenne. OK. They said that it sat across from it's called Woody's sat across from an oil refinery and had three pay phones. So he's staying local. This is Cheyenne. He's not going very far. Two were outside its front door and the other was on the pump island a few steps away.

They said whoever called the Yeagers had used the phone between the pumps. But by the time the FBI technicians got there weeks later, there'd been countless fingerprints on it. So they couldn't do anything. No useful prints could be lifted. But the callers, but they do believe now that this is the caller and they're called. This is our guy because they know about the fingernails. Eight months go by. Get the fuck out of here.

Eight months go by. Still no word. Okay. Let's talk about somebody else now. Oh, boy. Sandra Dyckman Smoligan. Yeah. S-M-Smol-E-G-A-N.

Okay. That's her name there. That's her married name. Sandra Dyckman is her maiden name. She is 19 years old at this point in time. Yeah. So she, her parents are john and betty dykeman and she graduated from manhattan high two years ago uh did very well in school she's got long

dark hair she's very pretty she was a cheerleader sure she dressed very nice um she wanted a career in fashion design that's what she was interested in. She wanted to get out of Montana and have a career in fashion design here. So there's four boys. They have four brothers and her. That's the family. So they said she never missed Sunday dinner even after she moved out, and she'd usually join them for their nightly prayer hour. Nightly prayer hour.

A whole fucking hour. It's a lot. Wow. They said she's a terrible driver okay she uh the manhattan high school driver ed car she destroyed it by plunging it into a canal that's awesome that's hilarious into a canal destroyed the fucking thing just they had to save her life she barely got out alive god she's awesome that's cool as fuck that's so cool she uh her dad gave her a ford cortina you ever see those such a little car such a piece of shit nobody's ever heard of it it's a little kind of two-door

kind of coupe is it like a like a chevette it looks like it's a It looks like it's made for England mostly, I believe. Oh, really? It's like a British-looking car. When you look it up, you'll go, oh, yeah, that looks like a car. I want to see it. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, see what I mean?

It looks like a car you'd see in- It's adorable. Driving around in the 70s in London. It looks like a cartoon, yeah. Yeah, it's exactly what it does. And she loved it because it was cute. It's a little two-door thing. When she was 16, she backed into a neighbor's tree right away.

It didn't matter. She thought it was cool, though. She thought it was very European, even though it's a Ford. Because she said it felt very European to drive it among all the farm trucks. That's what she likes. She's a different kind of girl and wants to get out of here. You can tell, obviously. She meets a boy though oh when she's still a senior a young carpenter named jack smalligan on a blind date he's a few years older yeah um but they hang out they hang

out by the fireplace in the bunkhouse where he lived what's a bunkhouse a bunkhouse is a motor home kind of book no i don't think so well a bunkhouse is a place where a company will set up for their hardened ranch hands to all sleep in the same room together oh jesus that kind of bunkhouse yeah it's a that's a interesting place to to hang out and have a date one night they parked over at lover's leap which is above the gallatin river and he asked her to marry him oh really yeah that's the place where i felt where you felt my tits come on i think in montana that's you go up there instead of feeling each other's tits and dicks you ask them to marry you you take the leap i think it's different yeah i think the time is different there she said

yes and as soon as she graduated she married him on her 18th birthday june 15th 1972 okay simple little ceremony she wore her mother's wedding dress very small town they honeymooned in the at jackson hole then they moved into a two-room walk-up apartment over the manhattan machinery company which is a local farm implement dealer. Wow. Okay. It's only $150 a month. Wow.

And they previously rented it to, like, Bachelor Mechanics who work downstairs. But her dad was the shop foreman and a close friend of the owner and got the daughter in there. The owner's name, Clifford Meyerhofer. So they said this will be a good place. It's safe. It's right in Main Street, right in the main town there. Sandy fixed it up because it's a bunch of dudes that have been staying there. So she made it nice and warm.

Things are going good. She and Jack play in a little gospel folk band together. Is that right? That's cool as shit. Yeah, they're having a good time. Jack builds houses and Sandy waitresses at the cafe inside the bowling alley.

Okay. That's what she's doing. Now, they said they love her. She's the star of the bowling alley. Always happy. Sunny knows everybody's names. Having another cup, darling? Okay. She's one of those. She's good. She made them feel good. She does have a miscarriage around this time as well. Yeah, that's tough of those. She's good. She made them feel good. And she does have a miscarriage around this time as well.

Yeah. Yeah. That's tough on her. But Jack also, he her husband here has what he does is hard on her. He has an affair with his mixed bowling league partner. Oh, boy. If you're going to fuck somebody, try not to hang out with them at the place your wife works maybe meet somebody somewhere else so less than a year into the marriage they break up

already because he does this jack told her parents about what happened and her dad punched him in the face it was awesome and very montana and he deserved it yep they didn't actually get, but they just separated because, you know, no need to do the paperwork right this minute. They were done, though. It wasn't happening. But Jack moved out, but he still had a key. And he was, everybody said, his friend said he was eventually wanting to work his way back to winning Sandy back over again. Maybe, but at this point it wasn't happening. So she was a little bit depressed for a while and her friend said,

get out there and start dating people. Okay. Get out there. Forget this guy. Let's go. But she said, it's hard because I, every time I go out,

I see Jack cause you know, he's right there and we live in a tiny town. There's no one else here. You go down on main street, you're passing everybody. We go. The only place to go is bowling and he's there with his mixed fucking bowling partner. Yeah, that's hanging out, laughing it up, drinking pitchers.

Having a great time. He came in for dinner at the bowling alley sometimes. Oh, that's romantic. Nice bowling alley dinner. Just by himself, just to see her. She would go away. She sold some mary k cosmetics sometimes too she was a mary k girl and would drive her cortina out to the country to try to sell it to the farm ladies pink cortinas when's the last time your husband fucked you well i got some eye shadow that's gonna have a dick in you by nightfall let me tell you

something she started going out again though and uh finally meets a guy named bob harrison he's a family friend he's five years older he's tall muscular handsome blonde and a hot rodder oh likes hot rod cars he drives he drives race cars x is gonna be furious right this is the There you go. You're fucking that guy? Of course that's what you get now. God damn it. Yep. He was in California for a few years, which everyone thought he was like worldly because he just came back.

He's got blonde hair. And he's heard of Von Dutch. Well, not then, but he probably knows a guy named Von Dutch. That would have been in the 70s, right? Yeah. I have no idea when that horse shit came around. What horse shit? It wasn't douchey then it was just pinstriping in like paint and like amber crombie and fitch was an outdoors they had fucking canoes and shit in the 60s well this shit

was never that this was subculture change yeah so sandy here um he's known as kind of a playboy around here but that's okay because he's a young, handsome guy. Nobody minds back then. So they hook up and they would hook up and then kind of ran hot and cold. She casually dated other guys while they were together, but more in a friendly way. She was kind of only romantic with her, but a lot of guys liked Sandy. Sure. Yeah. A lot of guys liked Sandy. Yeah.

Some were, you know, a lot of guys asked her out. One of the guys that asked her out was her landlord's son. Oh. The owner of the place's son there downstairs, David Gale Meyerhofer. Uh-huh. He's born June 8th, 1949. Landlord's son. Nice enough guy. He's a few years ahead of her in high school you may

remember him from he was the guy who uh was a little bit odd so people called the cops and said maybe he kidnapped a little girl because you know he didn't want to talk about his vietnam war stories so he's quiet about the worst part of his life he asked her out a few days before christmas and they went out um but it wasn't really a good fit just didn't they didn't click really he's five years older and he knew bob well so she's like the boyfriend she was trying to get away from she's like another thing too uh she thought his eyes were just a little unsettling and just didn't wasn't comfortable around him but he was her dad's boss's son and so he was a nice guy he didn't do anything to cause this though he sent her roses and chocolates and she thought yeah it was kind of cute that he was so conventional

about courting she thought that was kind of cute because it wasn't like what she's used to um she thought that was kind of neat so he would would repeatedly ask her out, but she'd always say, oh, no, I'm doing this or I'm doing that. And it was friendly. Finally, after a while of this, after almost a year of this, she told him, as kind as can be, that we're probably not going to go out again. Like, I just don't think it's going to work, and we don't mesh, and, you know, whatever. You're a nice guy, and you'll find somebody great. And so he stopped calling.

He just said, okay, that's fine. And Sandy, though, one night, she's going to the high school basketball game because they were going for, like, a state championship or something. And she didn't have a date that night, so she sat with her parents. Yeah. So Bob was also there, her ex-boyfriend. But he was off chatting up some high school girls in the bleachers. What a weirdo.

He's like 24, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Chatting them up. At halftime, Sandy went over and talked to him, and one of the girls overheard their conversation. She told him, well, you know where the other key is. Come on by after the game if you want. Oh.

So girls heard him inviting her heard her inviting him that night the tigers the local team here their high school won their game and became montana's winningest basketball team in 1974 how about it for them um it's a big deal here so sandy headed back to manhattan with her parents they dropped her off at the apartment over the implement store there it was after 11, but Sandy said, oh, she's still a lot of energy after watching the game and cheering and stuff. So she promised her parents, I'm going to go

have one or two drinks down the street here. I'll walk and then I'll be home. Don't worry about it. So she changed her clothes, put on a white sweater and dark slacks. She had a long red cashmere coat and walked in her snow boots about a half mile over to the american legion bar you betcha look in the balls too yeah great outfit she would really said she had these

like nice she was she wants to be in fashion so she's she dresses different than the other girls around here too which also makes you stand out overcoat and black slacks a red cashmere coat oh red and a white sweater. Oh, get out. Hot shit. Jesus. It's hot shit right there. So she's going to the American Legion bar where everyone dresses up for. Yeah. And they said, that's the rowdiest place you can get in Manhattan on a Saturday night.

Literally. That's where it's all happening. The bar was jumping. 70-year-old war stories. Yeah. Well, back then it was young guys who just got back. Yeah. That was the difference.

Those guys still go to that when we were doing comedy shows in there in 2013. yeah well back then it was young guys who just got back yeah that was the difference those guys still go to that when we were doing comedy shows in there in 2013 it was still the same vietnam vets from 40 years earlier was the problem and to them they're having a great time and this is rowdy for them but when you walk in you're like this is rowdy oh my god oh boy don't hurt you right jesus they're she's hanging out she knows all the people in there she's chit-chatting doing Oh, my God. Oh, boy. Don't hurt yourself, people. Right? Jesus. She's hanging out. She knows all the people in there. She's chit-chatting, doing all her shit.

She's flirting with guys, doing everything here, hanging out. Her ex-husband is there. Jack's here. Sandy and Jack made small talk. He was coaching Little League, and she's still working at the bowling alley. They hugged politely and said, okay, see you some other time. They're done. So a few minutes past midnight, Sandy walks out of the bar. So she did only stay for an hour, a couple of drinks.

She waved to a friend who was also leaving. And then she stepped off the curb and the door closed behind her. People saw her step off the curb as the door swung shut. Nobody ever saw her again. Wow. Disappeared, gone. Off the curb as the door swung shut. Nobody ever saw her again. Wow. Disappeared. Gone. Off the face of the earth.

What the shit? Half mile down the road on Main Street, no less. So the deputy here, Deputy Bill Slaughter, appropriately named, here. Yep. They get a call from John Dykeman, her father, and he says Sandy hasn't answered her door or picked up her phone since he dropped her off Saturday night. Her car isn't here. Her little Ford Cortina's missing.

He called some of her friends. No one's talked to her. No one's seen her. He said Sandy could have taken off somewhere definitely and hadn't told her parents because she likes to do shit like that, but they were a little concerned because she could have done it, but it's not normal for her. And she probably would have just said, hey, I'll be gone for a couple days.

They said, so they went back and forth. Maybe she ran away for some reason. Maybe she's with her boyfriend or maybe she met some other guy and they got along and they're eloping in Reno right now. Who knows? You know what I mean? She's a 19-year-old chick. Maybe her husband knew something.

Maybe you should talk to them. I mean, they went through everything. So, um, they said the father suggested local deputies kind of just keep an eye out for her. Maybe not put out like an APB or anything, because she might just be doing something else.

But if you see her, tell her to call her dad, you know what I mean? Just, yeah, just do that. No press releases, none of that stuff though.

By the next morning though, they still hadn't heard anything from her and no one else has either. Now they're worried. Yeah. They use a spare key to get into her apartment where they couldn't find two blue suitcases that they know she has, an overnight bag and a slightly bigger overnight bag, and one of Sandy's favorite white suits that she has. She's packing heavy. Yeah. They said they went in everything.

Nothing else seemed to be missing. Just Sandy and suitcases and some clothes. So they asked the sheriff's department. OK, now fucking find her. Put out a press release. We're scared now. Call the local radio station, newspapers. Tell everybody.

Let's do it. So white female, 19, five foot two 5 foot 210 pounds hazel eyes brown hair keep an eye out they send their investigators and a bozeman detective to interview the dykeman's more um they talked to her ex-boyfriend there harrison they talked to her ex-husband uh jack they talked to 60 witnesses wow um and they even they searched sandy's apartment looked it over make sure they examined the spot at the bottom of the alley stairs behind the the the store the spot where she would have parked her car looking for signs of a scuffle or blood yeah or you know peel out marks anything like that nothing there the door at the top of the stairs

showed no signs of forced entry although they knew the family had already been there. So whatever. Her apartment had a little kitchenette, a cheap dining table and a sitting area from a you know, it's a studio. But she kind of, you know, makes a little room out of it there. And she definitely came home because all of her shit's gone. That's what's weird. And apart from her unmade bed, they said everything else was clean and and neat and it looked like the one cop called it a neat girl place looks like a girl apartment you know girl stuff everywhere they said unopened mail was neatly stacked on her tablecloth

they looked through it just to make sure it was just bills and junk mail though nothing there um a jacket was draped in the back of her kitchen chair the same one she hadn't been wearing at the cafe oh where she ate lunch where he had seen her eat lunch this cop because he had seen her before um they did what struck slaughter that's the guy's name slaughter as odd as he spotted a half empty glass of beer on the headboard and he one good thing about a small town is when the cops are investigating someone who's missing they actually know that person yeah and he knows sandy and knows she doesn't like beer she doesn't drink beer doesn't like it or drink it so he said maybe she brought somebody home from the bar or

had a you know somebody came over at the last minute somebody stopped by she had a you know met up with somebody could be nothing but he kept talking to the sheriff's department about it no one took the beer thing seriously they were like you know it's fucking beer who cares so they never collected it as evidence what even though he said we need to collect the beer they were like it's not evidence and just dumped it and poured it out so interesting they question her boyfriend ex-husband a fat hippie as they describe it who was in the bar that night various a fat hippie they describe him as nice nice a fat greasy hippie as they describe it who was in the bar that night various a fat hippie they describe him as nice nice a fat greasy hippie or they described him as different admirers people she went on one date with friends uh what they describe as local perverts oh he's one of our local perverts yes

you know you know the local pervert we used to call them sex criminals yeah in some places they call them the neighborhood pervert but here we call them the local perverts just terminology uh bob harrison the current boyfriend bob harrison here was their number one attention target of their attention he's a popular guy and uh she's a popular waitress and all that kind of thing. So they said everybody knows her. So everybody's kind of a suspect that, you know, they didn't know what to do. So her disappearance was they said it wasn't a low priority, but it wasn't all hand hands on deck either because there's no signs of foul play. Yeah.

So they don't know if she ran away. The the sheriff drafted up a couple of city cops to kind of chase down some leads for him and then the fbi in that area was busy with this the jaeger investigation still little susan jaeger so that case had gone cold but it's been they're still looking at it so it's a mess man it's a lot going on so six days after sandy was last seen then everybody's like okay this is fucking bad here yeah everyone in town knew her they knew her parents and people started looking for them and they said we're not waiting for the dipshit sheriff department to fucking yeah fix

this she spent no money and her car is missing she would have had to get gas by now yeah we have two missing girls of different ages this isn't good so they set up a command center in the fire hall of Manhattan, and they had city deputies and cops and county deputies and trusted volunteers. Sandy's brothers, Ron and Doug, fanned out across town. Jack was in there, her ex-husband, searching around too. But he stopped hunting when he considered how fishy it would look if he actually found her. Imagine he's the guy who finds her dead. Guys, she the woods he'd be fucked and he knows it so he stayed home that's probably smart somebody said something to him somebody told him they had to somebody

what are you looking man what if what are you gonna do when what are you gonna do when they find go to prison probably they've already they already think you did this no shit so there's a bloodhound they get that went from garage to you know house to this to that and people search they search park cars gravel pits culverts the dump everywhere found nothing not a goddamn thing not a shred of evidence not a sign of foul play nothing a. A week after this, investigator Ron Green is searching Horseshoe Hills, which is 12 miles west of the campgrounds where the two kids had their

problems, when he saw a pair of women's underwear dangling from a fence post. Kind of like a guy would hang a tie on a doorknob just to tell his roommate he's banging somebody. They said it almost looked like a signal, like it was hanging there on purpose yeah they said nearby was the was the abandoned lockhart ranch so it's an old abandoned ranch it's got a weather beaten shitty barn and they said the door

was fastened with nails newer than those on the other buildings there oh everyone has all the nails are the same level of rust except these nails look brand new in this fucking barn okay so they pry the door open oh god and in there they find under a big pile of straw the ford cortina oh it's in there um no signs of sandy though just the car just the car. Just the car, which is crazy. So they take the underwear to her parents to see. Oh, God, Jesus. Do these belong to your daughter? Of all pieces of anything to identify. And they said, yeah, that's my daughter's underwear and our daughter's car. But there's no clues anywhere.

but there's no clues anywhere so they the one investigator green sifted an open fire pit near an outbuilding at the lockhart ranch and got some charred bones and several human teeth out of it oh shit further sifting uncovered 1800 bits of human bones 1800 that's a lot they were sent to the smithsonian institute for analysis okay nearby was another pit with about the same amount of bones in it oh shit these from a smaller person no less of them smaller bones so yeah they said um they're working around the clock. At this point, after this happens, the sheriff told the newspaper, we assumed she probably was killed. Yeah. Or we presume that, not assume, presume. He said, though, there's been no positive identification on the bone fragments. We have no way of knowing that's hers.

No way of knowing it. Maybe in a few days. So they said, yes, they end up finding out that it is her bones and someone else's too yeah they do the the bone studies and x-ray x-rays confirm within several days that it is her um that she was essentially cremated on this abandoned desolate place they said though there's another body or human, haven't figured it out yet, burned at the ranch as well. And obviously the speculation is we hope it's not Susan here.

So they had this cause the FBI to intensify their investigation into the Susan Yeager case. But a spokesman said, we have been working on the Yeager case right along and we see no tie in at the moment. Like, we don't see any of these things going together. Yeah, we don't see a through line. No through line, yeah. It's a young girl.

It's a teenager out by her apartment after the bar from the campground. Yeah. But what's with the panty flag? I don't get that. Why would he do that? Because they always give us – there's always some clue to why they – it's weird. They want him found? They subconsciously want to be – they want him to be found because then they can read about it and get another rush.

That's the thing. Yeah. What fun is it to just leave someone and have them not be found? So they said that there's also a small ring of burned vegetation that marks the spot where they believe at least one victim was burned. They said that piles of old scrap lumber were used for the cremation, obviously, here. Yeah, it's bad. They said the bones were either chopped up or subjected to intense heat, or both. They don't know.

The one cop said, I picked up a piece of bone and a chill ran up my spine. Jesus. None was greater than two inches in size. Most were burned or charred. A little flesh there was was also charred. They said the remnants were what appeared to be human teeth as well. They said a partial lower jaw seems to reassemble dental x-rays of Sandra. That's how they figured that out.

Wow, this is fucking crazy. They said it's in a narrow gulch about six miles north of the community of Logan and was, you know, when they were searching around, they said there's no evidence of violence in the car because the cortina is there. The one cop said, I think it's about as far as I can go. I can't say anything more. Obviously, at the time, they said they're looking around. They said, please, please, please do not indulge in rumor mongering.

Okay. I mean, you've given us nothing. Yeah. The cops said the harboring of rumors and spreading of rumors is not helpful. They said they have no suspects. They said they have no evidence to indicate it was satanic or ritual slayings. Yeah. Because people are like, it must be.

Indicate it was satanic or ritual slayings. People are like, it must be. So special agents from the FBI now put together, they presume him, they put together the first profile that they ever do, the behavioral science unit. They say he's a subtle combination of possibly schizophrenia and sadistic psychopathy, probably with some kind of sexual component, almost certainly our mother or father issue. They said, quote, Susie was,

this is the FBI profile. Susie was probably dead within two days. This is what they say. After the golden hour, one after, after an hour, after a disappearance, the likelihood of death becomes exponentially higher. Considering the likelihood that Susie's bone shards

had been found at the Lockhart East Ranch last February, it was not a question of whether she'd been murdered, but when. The unsub was probably a white man in his mid-to-late 20s. His race was a low-risk deduction. Basically, a black guy in the campground would have stood out because there's not a lot of black people around there yeah so what's it's the it's the when the same thing they did when they were looking at wayne williams right and they went to investigate when a white guy gets

out of the car everyone in the neighborhood like you hear a record scratch like and everyone turns that motherfucker ain't he didn't kidnap black kids. Everybody would have seen it. So they knew that. So they said that he was, Gallatin County is almost exclusively white, and the psychotic killers that they studied had mostly started their killings in their 20s and 30s. So that's what they figured. He was at least moderately intelligent. The kidnapping shows a highly organized thinking who anticipated every investigative move. There's a remarkable level of planning and organization.

The unsub took her to another location instead of dumping her, which would have been easier. He had a stronger, more developed fantasy. He brought a knife and was able to move around in the dark. He drove an inconspicuous vehicle and knew exactly where to park, far to be unsuspected, but close enough for a quick getaway. Even worse, they said for the investigators, the unsub had already picked a place to take her. Right. Almost no chance of discovery. Right.

Just like now, where do I go? He knew what he was doing. He's a loner, unmarried and probably has little experience with women. And when he did, it didn't last. So short relationships hasn't been like you know with a chick for two that part fascinates me how they know the relationship and of women with them it's it all goes back it's all in there if you read like john douglas's book they talk about it makes sense they said in fact his whole history of heterosexual relationships would be

defective they presumed he was such a sophisticated psychopath that he'd never trust anyone long enough to have a long term or married relationship. That's how much of a fucking psycho he is. They said, sure, married perps have twists and kinks too, but it was good. It was a good chance this unsub wouldn't be interested in real marriage. But they didn't have any evidence. They also said he had

military experience. They said there were three other children in Susie Yeager's tent. Her parents were in a trailer a few feet away, other tourists camp nearby. This abduction had required extraordinary stealth, patient reconnaissance and boldness under the cover of darkness. He had to be fit enough to carry out a struggling 50 pound child as he ran through a dark park,

keeping her quiet the whole time. They said that he, they think he's more of a combat veteran than a peeping Tom, probably. They said besides all that, if he was young as they thought, draftable during the ongoing Vietnam War, chances are that he probably did serve in the military. They said he'd thrive in solitary jobs

where he needn't interact with other workers. They said everybody has three different lives, professional, personal, and secret. Deeply disturbed criminals work hardest to protect their secret lives. The unsub would have been most vulnerable among co-workers and bosses who'd constantly watch him, possibly detecting clues

about what a fucked up person he is. So he'd keep that to himself. They said he had likely stumbled on the tent in the campground where Susie was snatched, but quickly began planning his next move, probably savoring the risk it might require. They said he lives in the area. In fact, he was well known to local folks, but regarded as odd. Had to be.

They said the unsub had to know the park's layout and the places he could hide Susie. His boldness suggested that he didn't fear getting caught by local law enforcement, whom he knew well enough to regard as Keystone cops. In other words, they don't know what the fuck they're doing. An outsider wouldn't have been so confident. Also, the possibility that Sanders' disappearance almost eight months later was related

made them think an unsub didn't look like a stranger to locals and who thought they knew everybody. It had to be somebody local. They said that socially, the unsub was friendly but never truly companionable. While not genuinely aloof,

he would inject himself unnecessarily into any social situation. So ones that you don't want him in. He'd float around the edges of any group. He probably didn't even realize that people considered him odd. Wow. Interesting.

The unsub had probably killed before. The snatching of Susie Yeager was too sophisticated, too flawless for a skittish beginner. Yeah, too brazen. Too brazen. He was an experiment. That's ballsy. Truly. Three sleeping kids right next to her.

Her parents 10 feet away. Parents right there. don't they're from detroit you don't know what they're capable of and you're gonna snatch that little girl you snatch my seven-year-old i'm not from detroit and see what i'll do what if dad had to take a leak and he came out and saw that he would have fucking beat to death for christ's sake knife or not i mean you can knife a guy but yeah if he's trying to get a seven-year-old daughter away from him he's gonna take a few blows what he's trying to get a seven-year-old daughter away from him, he's going to take a few blows. See what he's capable of.

He said he wasn't experimenting, and when he killed, it was to maintain his control, superiority, and dominance. His mother was domineering, and his father was absent or unknown. Ed Kemper, who shot his grandparents and later slaughtered his own mother, decapitating or cutting off her hands. We know the story here. That was kind of the model for that they said he'd make them believe that uh he'd make them believe that every psychopath was damaged uh he'd made them believe that by one or more of his parents in some way obviously that's kind of how it goes a lot of it seems to be not all the time though that we we know now he was fascinated with body parts they said it was becoming increasingly common for these killers to retain pieces of their victims.

And they even told the FBI agents, told the local cop, if you ever find this guy, you're going to find ugly souvenirs taken from the corpses. He's going to have pieces of them. They said they said why. And they said power and control. He keeps a piece of him. He owns them. Basically, they said he'd find a they said power and control if he keeps a piece of him he owns them basically they said he'd find a way to insert himself into the investigation he wanted to know what the cops knew and that's why they do that love to they like to see it they like to see

it and it's even more of a rush that they're talking about it with him you know and they want to know how close they are to him yep they said and turned him on. They said they know that why else would you do what he did unless that part of it was Risk. They said there also might be a God element. It might show up as a twisted zealotry or distorted religious anger or it might not. But they said that Unsub probably grew up

in the area which they probably went to church a bunch. You know what I mean? They said here and they said he was very emotional. This was a very emotional crime for him mean they said here and they said he was very emotional this was a very emotional crime for him they said his intense connection to the abduction and to suzy meant he meant that he'd reach out to the family which meant that this meant something to him they said he's still deriving pleasure from it he wanted to mock and torment the family as a celebration of his cunning yeah um yeah so the f attached a better FBI tape recorder to the home phone of the Yeagers so they can get somebody, hopefully more.

So now Susie's been missing over a year. Oh, Jesus. And there seem to be these strange murders, but no one thinks they're related, except for the FBI. Except for the FBI because they have fucking bones and shit. Yeah. So they said no trace has been found for her. The telephone calls came in and all that they're talking about. But they say the police say they have no evidence to link the Rainey and Smalling in cases to each other or to Susie's.

Susan's parents refuse to believe their daughter's dead. Mom said, I have nothing to go on. I just feel she's still alive. I can daughter's dead mom said I have nothing to go on I just feel she's still alive I can't give up hope until I have proof a boy was snatched or beaten in a tent a few feet away from where a girl was cut out of a tent and we're not

calling those connected at all because of the sexuality of the two it's what I mean it's so weird sex of the two gender there it is there you go it's so weird sex of the two sex of the two gender right there it is there you go there's the words you're looking for that's what we're that's the difference mrs jaeger said she and her husband want to return to montana without the children to search for susan perhaps just by wandering through towns oh nothing they have

nothing else to do what else can they do longer. Well, that's what they do. These poor fucking people, man. That's horrible. So the Smithsonian reported that the first batch of bones came from a female, 18 to 22, between 5 feet and 5 feet 4. Okay. That sounds exactly like Sandra, obviously, here. That is the second set of bones came from a girl between the ages of 6 and 8. That's 7, right in the middle. That's seven right there. So now they're thinking, OK, now we know they're connected because they were burned next to each other.

Yeah. Two separate killers didn't find this fucking ranch accidentally on their own and burn their victims and be like, oh, my God, can you believe I've been burning people here, too? You're running to each other and fall in love. The same idea. Oh, my God. So people are they have to chase down every lead. And now people are calling in about every one of their, quote, funny feelings. Yeah.

There was a trailer park guy who skipped town mysteriously, just took off a runaway tenant who left a lot of woman's clothes behind. A teenager who was, what they said, looking at Sandra kind of funny at the basketball game. The teenager going, oh my God, they go that big? No shit. A guy who borrowed an extension ladder from a friend that night. That's all, just an extension ladder. This guy guy took my ladder didn't bring it back neither for something no he brought it back oh okay um another guy who rented a floor scrubber from a hardware store the next morning always question them that's always every time yeah totally um a

one guy who had no job just he's unemployed go talk to him a a short order cook named willie pickle who had one eye and was considered very weird yep i'd question him too one-eyed willie pickle one-eyed willie last name pickle willie pickle yeah my willie pickle right here go on and flick my willie and a ridiculous that's too much dick it's too much question that man every time so then they go back to their other suspect that they've always kept having on the table david meyerhofer uh-huh remember him yeah vietnam vet didn't want to talk about it courts women the nice way they said if people just keep saying he's odds he's odd you know they said. You know? They said, you know, characters were around here.

The one guy said characters are acceptable, but oddballs are fishy. That's from the Shadow Man book. I want to get that tattooed. He was socially awkward, had no real friends, never drank or smoked. Okay. Yeah. Now we've got to talk. I'm already suspicious.

I'm very suspicious of anyone like that. And remember when I had my thing, if you never curse, you absolutely molest children? That's my, yeah. I've always said that. In groups, they said he kind of made himself invisible and kind of blended into the woodwork there. They said that people felt sorry for him and wary about him. Why? But the one cop, the Dunbar guy, said his gut told

him David wasn't a serious player in this whole thing. He's not the killer. Yeah. They got their top suspects and arranged polygraphs. Bob Harrison. They said that his uneasiness and evasiveness in their initial interviews didn't sit right. So they had to talk to him again.

Detectives found his palm print on Sandy's front door. Oh. Maybe that was there when he forced his way in. Or she comes over all the time and it's her sort of boyfriend. So that's also a way. His fingerprints were all over her vacuum cleaner. Okay.

They said not especially implausible for a boyfriend who spent a lot of time there. But what if the vacuum had been used to clean up the crime scene? Or just was a nice guy and said hey i'll vacuum while you do the dishes one time um harrison also married a different girl two months after she disappeared oh yeah what about that her ex-husband um two they're always philandering ex-husband's always going to be the guy here a couple of people who didn't quite add up. Some sex deviants, like we said. None of the top suspects are super guilty. They really think Bob Harrison did it, though. He fails his first polygraph test because he comes in drunk.

That a boy. Next day, his results are inconclusive. They said, though, the examiner was a deputy with only a couple weeks training on a polygraph. So this is useless. That guy determined he lied on several questions, and the examiner suggested that he should take a truth serum test at the state mental hospital. And the guy agreed. He said he would do it. Truth serum.

Five days later, he called this cop to say he wouldn't do the sodium amytol in Warm Springs after all. His wife and friends at the bar didn't think it was a good idea. Yeah. So he didn't do it. The cop told him if he doesn't submit to the test, nobody could be absolutely certain he didn't do this to Sandy. Okay. If he was really innocent, the truth serum will remove all doubt. This is ridiculous.

And also the truth serum of that is completely not it's not anything that's reliable so jesus christ they said that he never showed up in warm springs and um he wasn't under arrest and they have no no evidence on him or anything like that jack the ex-husband passed everything not a lot of people who are excellent suspects here one guy was a tough guy railroad guy who'd raped a woman several years back. It was now on parole. Jesus. The cops came back then when he got arrested for rape.

The cops came in his trailer to arrest them, and he tried to stab them with a hunting knife. Oh, boy. Jesus Christ. While the cops were waiting for backup backup he threw his wife on the floor and raped her while firing his gun indiscriminately out of his window while he was raping her while the cops were there cops outside he decided to there to arrest him he decided he'd rape his wife and shoot at them out the window as he did it he was trying for suicide by cop right i would imagine so.

Jesus. And when they stormed in and arrested him, they found several five-gallon cans of gasoline strategically stowed around the trailer. Oh, my God. He was trying to end it. Later, he told them he intended to light him up and incinerate him and his wife and their kids

if the cops came to him. Wow. He went raping first, so that happens. The other one one there's a paroled child molester who raped a little girl and he kept hundreds of dolls in his house most of them without clothes you're telling me both of these people are free both of these people are innocent in this case unbelievable um so they said that they kept coming back to meyerhofer just because of his oddness.

The Dunbar guy said he knew David's mother from high school and thought that's not her son. But he's got to rule out suspects. So let's find out. He's got no criminal record. He's been candid, even helpful by suggesting new leads. Oh. Every time he was questioned. Redirecting the police?

Even helping out, being very helpful. That's weird. No evidence against him in either case. He'd refused to sit for a polygraph after Susie's disappearance, but he said it was on principle. Oh. So this cop Dunbar said he did his homework on David, said he didn't have any friends. He worked hard and did good work, though. A childhood accident left a small scar on his chin, which made him very self-conscious.

though a childhood accident left a small scar on his chin which made him very self-conscious he was a beloved you know beloved by his family although one time he shot his brother in the head with a bb gun so he was mad at him for that and as a kid he set fire to the family garage while playing with matches i know several people who did that apparently in first grade he made a construction paper mother's day card for his mom in which he hand printed somebody else's sentiment that he copied. I don't know what to say to this bitch. What do you got? That's fucking funny. What do you got?

That's amazing. His favorite movie was, guess what his favorite movie is. 101 Dalmatians. You're close. Sound of Music. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Sound of Music. Very childish. He loved to sing. Very're close. Sound of music. Oh, is that right? Yeah, sound of music.

Very childish. You love to sing. Uh-huh. Very childish. Exactly. Very childish. For his mom's 47th birthday, he recorded himself singing the Broadway show tune Mama a Rainbow and some of her favorite songs on a cassette tape.

And his mother called it the best gift anybody ever gave her. Oh, my. He's a mama's boy. He's like Norman Bates. He reminds me of this guy. Yeah, this is creepy. Or Ed Kemper, one of the others, but I don't think his mom's mean here. I don't think Kemper – I guess he did want her approval, but she refused to give it.

Oh, she was mean since he was a kid too. He also was a Marine sergeant in Vietnam. Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, a leader of ranking so then dunbar the cop was like he's a marine sergeant in vietnam this guy couldn't have done this he couldn't be fucked up in the head he couldn't possibly be really good at being under the cover of dark man they said even when he was away in vietnam he would write home regularly about being homesick and all that sort of thing. When he was on R and R one time,

he ordered some fine China to be delivered to his mother. Yeah. That's what he did with his time. Didn't go find ladies and, you know, me love you long time and all that shit. He goes, I need to buy fine China for mom.

Wow. She only uses it on special occasions. He's known as a quiet loner, but bright, articulate and well-groomed as well, obviously. A few days after they found the Cortina hidden at the ranch here, they came over to his carpentry workshop in Manhattan. And he was working at the time, and they knew each other, the cops and him, and everybody knew each other. He led them on a tour of his warehouse, which was covered, you know, was almost a whole block, David's warehouse. He came in and told them, you know, yeah, they said he came home from the Marines, self-employed carpenter, sometimes a ranch hand.

He needed a place here to store his construction stuff. He renovated old houses and took out occasional contract work from the town council when he's not delivering farm machinery through his first father. He kept his place tidy and well organized. They looked in the back of his two-tone 1972 Jeep Gladiator and saw nothing. Jeep Gladiator. Yeah. And saw nothing. Sorted cuts of lumber were stacked on the walls with various shop tools.

A friend rented one corner for his car repair business, and another rented a stall to store some personal junk. David had walled off a back end where he had a padlocked door. He said he apologized profusely that he didn't have the key right now on him, so he can't get into that back room, but he'd bring it to the federal building later so that you can go in there and check yourselves he said it's a mostly empty room that uh he stows some hand tools and building materials back there that's it so um they did everything he had said he had nothing to hide he said they told him he's not under arrest he doesn't

have to answer any questions he said i'm happy to answer questions no problem you know all that stuff he was uh they said that you know he'd been questioned before but had you learned anything more about uh about the suzy yeager disappearance in the last eight months and they said he was offended meyerhofer that he would even ask that he was like no he said he resents being constantly harassed by the cops about this they said well you were the only one who refused to take a polygraph examination so if you want to take one now we'll get it over with and he said nope not doing it okay they asked about sandy you know or he said yeah i dated her one time before christmas and it never got off the ground the relationship and he said i didn't know anything about her disappearance or anything about that.

He said, I hated what happened to Sandy, but he and she had truly been two ships passing in the night. That's all. Hadn't talked to her in a month, although he'd seen her at the bowling alley. They noticed that he showed no signs of anxiety or evasiveness on the subject. He wasn't hesitant to talk about Sandy. Everything was fine. They said, so take the polygraph. Let us take you off the list. That on the subject. He wasn't hesitant to talk about Sandy. Everything was fine. They said, so take the polygraph.

Let us take you off the list. Yeah, what's the deal? Finally, he says, okay, fine. He said, if that'll make you stop coming around, then fine, I'll do it. So he signed all their stuff, acknowledged that he could end the interview at any time, and permitted the polygraph.

And he said, I'll do it, I'll do it. He kept saying he had nothing to hide. So,une 25th 1974 after midnight it's one year since suzy went missing the phone rings at the jaeger house okay mom wakes up stumbles over to a school a stool hello they said is this suzy's mom and she said yes it is and um he said well i'm the guy who took her from you exactly a year ago to the minute he called on the anniversary just now so she said you did and he said yeah they said where is she now and he said i i can't hardly tell you that

now the phone tap she's hoping is working here. She says, is she still alive? And he says, yes, she is, ma'am. She says, can we have her back? And he said, I can't hear you. She said, can we have her back? And he said, well, I'm kind of in an awkward position to do that. I've actually gotten used to her.

What does that mean? And she said, I can't believe you that she's still alive how can you take a little girl and he said well how would you take care or how can you take care of a little girl and he said well how do you take care of a little girl and she said i have a home and i'm here all day long and he said i do also and i probably have more money than you have oh my god holy shit what kind of thing is that to say he she said how can you support her and how I do also, and I probably have more money than you have. Oh, my God. Holy shit. What kind of thing is that to say? She said, how can you support her, and how can you take care of her and go to work?

And he said, I don't have to work, ma'am. We have covered the West pretty well, just sightseeing. Me, I've gotten used to her. So this poor mother's crying now, and the phone went dead out of nowhere. So she's crying, and then the phone rings again oh god damn it and he says hello ma'am we must have cut off hey there uh bad connection wow she says why can't we have suzy back she's our child she belongs to us we'll pay you any amount of money you know and he says i realize that ma', but I'm kind of in an awkward position. Well, once I've turned her over to you, she can identify me.

And the mother said, not in court. She's too young. They won't put a child in court to identify someone. Yeah, they will. He said, I know better than that. I don't need to be in court anyway. Right now, as it is, I'm pretty safe because they have no suspicion of me at all. Haven't been contacted because I'm pretty smart for them. Wow said i don't believe you really still have her you're trying to play games

with us like so many other people and he said nope i'm not playing games and she said can you tell me a particular piece of identification about suzy and he said i can tell you lots of things oh god and yeah so he goes on to tell her the fingernail thing again prove to me that you have her is what he says and he said okay alright first of all it was I who called the Denver FBI

on Saturday June 30th late in the afternoon it's also I who called you I'm sorry I who called you who called Mrs. Brown on July 2nd, sometime after 1030 at night. It's also I who called you on September 24th early in the afternoon and you weren't home later on, a relative of yours who spoke with me. And finally, I talked to your oldest son. And if that's not enough, you are waiting, aren't you? And she said, yes. And he said the nails of her first fingers are fingers

are hooked and she said she said all right what else can you tell me you're a little late with your call because it's been leaked all that stuff so you know whatever he doesn't tell me anything and he says as far as i know it hasn't been leaked and she said tell me something else about her if you've been with her and traveling around with her she's still really alive with you then you must know a lot of things about her has she talked to you about us what she told you about us surely you must talk and he said well the thing is i've kind of been working on her mind almost got the most i almost got most of the memory of you your home and your other children wiped out of her mind through psychotherapy uh-huh she she's dead and she knows it now

wow um she says how are you qualified to do something like that i don't believe that's through psychotherapy. Uh-huh. She's dead, and she knows it now. Wow. She says, how are you qualified to do something like that? I don't believe that's possible. She has a good home here. She's loved very much. She's treated well. I can't believe you can erase those kind of memories. And he said, you better believe it.

And she said, how did you happen to take Susie? How did you know there was a little girl in our tent? Had you seen her earlier? And he said, I came by the tent during the night and I heard her and her sister talking, but I waited until they fell asleep before I took her. They said, where'd you take Susie when you were traveling? How'd you keep her hidden? And he said, I took her to Disneyland,

then the San Diego Zoo. I only had to keep her hidden when I was at home. The rest of the time, she's just a little girl with her father. Did she mention the pets we have? Did she say the pets we have did she say the things we used to do and he says look if you don't believe me you just as well hang up because you'll never hear from me again mother says i want to believe she's alive the whole year

has gone by and you're saying she's still alive i just want to know if she's still alive basically and he says that's why i called you to tell you that she is so wow um he says I expect to get her back to you one of these days like I said I've been working on her mind and I want to get her I want to get her to wipe me out of her mind just like she has wiped you out of her mind they said have you been good to her and he said yes I have why did you take her he said well it's kind of a long story i always wanted a little girl myself ew god jesus oh my god and um he said she said did you ever have a little girl of your own of your very own and he said no she said are you married and he said not now she asked have you been has she been abused have you hurt her and, no, just that first night I had to choke her some.

And it comes out when she came out of the tent. I grabbed her around the throat and all of that. And she said, how did you get away? No one could figure out how you possibly get away. Then he says, are you recording this? No, dummy. She said, no. And he said, are you sure?

She said, how could I record it? And he said, with a microphone on the phone? And she said no and he said are you sure she said how could i record it and he said with a microphone on the phone and she said no and he said you're lying to me just like how dare you you're a fucking kidnapper what are you talking about um she said in the middle of the night i should put a recorder on my telephone no i'm not but i'm concerned about suzy if you could tell me something to prove she's really alive, I want to know this. So they go back and forth and all this type of shit. It's fucking weird. At one point she says, where's Susie?

And he says, up in my cabin sleeping. Up in my cabin. She says, where are you? And he says, I'm not that far. Jesus Christ, man. Fuck, man. She says he said, we won't tell anyone if you just bring her home. He says things like this just draw national attention. How could you let me go scot free? Once the FBI finds that Susie's home, they'll come right after me. That's why I'm doing the best I can to keep from being caught. I have some things to prepare, like how I do her hair. They said she's had a birthday. And then he said, yes, and we had a very nice party for her, too. Then the mother said, what was the date?

Yeah. He said, I'd like to give you the date. I'd like to give you the date, but if I give you everything I know about her, if I call again, there won't be nothing left. I've got to have something to fall back on. Wow. So that was a nice sidestep. But she had him there and she got him. Yeah.

He said at one point, quote, she said, please bring her back. And he said, I'll see what I can do, ma'am. You seem like a very nice person. Yeah. And then he said, I'd love to have this burden off my soul is what he said which is interesting um yeah then there's a bunch of clicks on the phone and he said who's listening who picked up the phone i heard the phone click did you do that and then he said he apologized for calling so late and um you know he said he'll take he's

take suzy to places where she can play with other children. He said he's a teacher and schooled her at home and showered her with affection. And he promised to call again soon. Not another year. So I'm hanging on to her because I don't have a child of my own. That's what I wanted. Yeah. I'm just pretending to have a daughter.

So now they do a voice test they bring in five anonymous people including david who would call the yeagers on a lineman's handset tapped into ralph green's jerry-rigged phone wire which is where they found out this phone call came from a fucking lineman thing basically the callers identified as one through five would recite the same four-page script just what we read you there and on the other end they would monitor the call um and record them so they would have that as the anniversary call yeah because they had that tape too and they're going to compare those so they had marietta and bill the two parents listened in different rooms too unable to communicate so they there wouldn't influence each other into making mistakes here so um a bunch of the people agreed here to do it david said that one of the it. David suggested one of the callers be a guy he knew whose voice he believed sounded similar to his own.

Maybe even the man they were hunting, he said. So, they convinced David's father, brother, and uncle to participate in this, too. So, they do all this shit. One by one, they uh david was number two for almost two hours they did all the things and you know is this suzy's mom is this blah blah blah blah she did everything and listened to everything and um they had a hard time figuring it out at first but they said it was strong feeling about the voice was the same one so they had bill said he has one voice that he thinks is the right person okay uh number two yeah which is david yeah so uh everything's leading to david meyerhofer and even the dunbar guy who thought he was fine

and knows his mom now thinks he's probably fucked up so the profile lines up. Everything lines up, man. It's not good for David here. So they said, how the fuck could he, you know, how could he do this shit? So how could I be wrong about all this type of thing? So they get David and they're going to want to talk to David, obviously. And David, when they when they tell him they want to, know talk to him they said he protested he told him the Yeagers identified his voice from the calls and he's the prime suspect

and they said his voice rose an octave he said he never called the Yeagers he knew nothing about their daughter and he sure as hell didn't snatch her or know where she was now and it's unfair of you to waste your manpower to fucking get me in here they said we'll come in and talk to you

so they do okay they talk to him they sit him down with an fbi agent and uh holy shit it's very fucking interesting they find out too the words he uses are words he uses it's all linguistically it works uh can't hardly tell you that like that shit is very specific it's yeah it's it's fucking interesting so it's it's wild they end up uh bringing him in and uh also the yeagers come into the office followed by all these agents and everything like that they say they think we found the guy um they see him um i guess mary they they introduced the families which is crazy what they introduced the jaegers to david oh okay oh wait to david or to uh so they have them in the same room they meet in the same room and um it's fucking weird and she just she's the mother said it wasn't

anything like she expected um he's only five four david really which is about her height. She was like, that's, I didn't expect that. She said he was decent looking, not a classically handsome. He was trim, well built. When he spoke, he sounded intelligent and friendly and all that kind of thing. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's fucking ridiculous. Uh, obviously. So there was, she's like, not what I expected. You expect a drooling monster monster yeah monster with teeth that are gonna

bite the kid's face off or some shit so um they talked all about it the plan was basically they said you come in and talk and then they had the the family in there the jaeger family and they said david will crack when he sees you guys yeah he'll know he's caught and he'll crack but he doesn't he said i'm really sorry mrs jaeger i wish i could help you but i don't know anything about your little girl i hope you find her and he fucking took off really so now they gotta get a plan b and that is to confront david away from his lawyer where he might feel more vulnerable and respond differently which is gray area of legalities here so uh the u.s attorney for montana had warned them though that david's attorney must know the FBI might approach his client. So who knows?

So anyway, that night they call his home phone. By the way, Marietta, the mom, calls David's home phone. And David had just come home from bowling. For 84 minutes, they talked again. She accused him of doing it. He said, I don't know where your girl is back and forth oh my back and forth yeah hour and a half they said would you meet me one last time she says face to face just the two of us me and you the mother and you no cops no lawyers no tape

recorders anywhere you want mama it's like a call for a file kick your ass in any parking lot in this country he agreed he said i have nothing to hide they agreed to meet the next day at the city shop where david was building a float that the town council had entered in manhattan high school's homecoming parade that's what he was doing so there's various cops in civilian clothes all over the place just in case he made any aggressive moves or anything like that. So down the street, Bill, the husband, was kind of in a rental car watching as well. Marietta comes to his shop. He opens the door, but he didn't ask her in. He just stood there.

He said, are you wired? And she said, I'm not wired at all. She asked him about Disneyland tickets, her necklace, the lipstick FBI agents had found in his house the month earlier. And they said did you kidnap suzy and to replace the girl you knew in california that you had taken to disneyland she just said that out of the blue he just said i wish i could help you she said i forgive you david and more than that god forgives you whatever you've done if you only will accept it. And he says, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know shit here.

So and this this all kind of fizzles out. So she gets more calls. She gets a collect call back in back in in Michigan from a guy who calls himself Mr. Travis. OK. And he said she said, Davidid and he said david who he said quote david who what are you talking about she said you know who i mean david and she he said i don't think so and he said yes you do or she said yes you do and all they went back and forth i don't know what you're talking about.

I don't know what you mean. I mean, him. Yeah. Can you prove it to me, David? She says. And he says, what? Why do you keep calling me by David now? What do you mean?

Why do you keep doing this? And they keep talking about it. She said, I've met you. We've talked. I know who you are. You're David. I fucking I know your fucking voice. You fucking asshole.

No, I don't know what you're talking about. And she keeps he she keeps he keeps saying oh yeah you know um he gets a there's a little girl on the phone man he puts a little girl on the phone okay they hear a faint voice like a mile away followed by a long pause then a little girl speaks into the phone and says this guy he's nice the mother said she sounded about Susie's age, but the voice didn't sound right. And the girl said, and I'm sitting on his lap. And that's when he gets on the phone. And the mother said, didn't sound like her.

And the caller said, oh, I'm sorry, but that's the only little girl I've got to give you. Oh, my God. And so, yeah, she she quizzes him more how long's her hair how tall is she all this type of stuff here man so um the smithsonian by the way they found a small vertebrae at the lockhart place a week before it was definitely human bone belonged to a child all that stuff that we talked about holy shit so they um they go in uh to they're trying to figure this out basically of how they can get david to fucking do something at this point they're ready to drop

charges on him though because they feel like all these identifications fuck it so they said um the cops said we're positive about it so let's just fucking arrest him and try you know what i mean so they do they call the yeagers and said that we're going to arrest him we're going to charge him with four crimes two of which were sandy's aggravated abduction and murder um they both carry mandatory death sentences now so if he's convicted by a jury and there's no mitigating circumstances the only thing the judge could do is hang him. So that's what they're doing here. He's arrested.

Here they take him in. It's after the parade and everything like that. They take him in and they sit him down. They said, David, you're under arrest for murder and kidnapping and you have the right to remain silent. He didn't say shit. They told him what he was arrested for. They told him we have charred bones. We have all this shit.

We think you did it. The voices all match. What's going on here is ridiculous. Admit it. Just admit it. Just admit it. Just admit it. They keep just telling him just admit it.

Then they said, this is what our search turned up. They ransacked his truck warehouse and garage apartment where he lived. The earlier search had just been a kind of a look and see. Now they ripped everything apart. They couldn't find Susie Yeager's turquoise ring, but hidden on a shelf behind some oil cans, they found a yellow and black telephone lineman's handset. Uh-oh. What he used to call that time.

They thought that might have been used to place the anniversary call. Wadded up in the back of a dresser, they found a homemade black mask crudely stitched from thin material like a woman's blouse with jagged eye holes cut out. What? Lying open on a nightstand was a Bible, one of several they found. As a deputy leafed through it, they found two passages underlined, and he read them out loud. Quote, and almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. I hand offend thee, cut it off. It's better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell,

into the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. So he's got that. Okay, they're talking about that. So they open up his refrigerator and look inside. They open up his refrigerator and look inside. Aside from the usual shit there, there is a plate of uncovered rancid steak that looked like he had intended to cook it and then he never cooked it. So they said it didn't look like meat or beef. So they asked a couple of the buddies to look at it. Deer, elk, what do you think that is? They said, I don't know.

It looks weird. They said he's known to be a hunter. He butchers his own game. Maybe it's him. Maybe it could be solved. They also opened the freezer compartment where they found a bunch of home-wrapped packages of meat stacked inside.

Meyerhofer had scribbled elk on some of them. Six were labeled deer burger on one side and one said SMDS in smaller letters on the other. They said maybe it stood for something meat and deer sausage, something like that. They said it also could be anything. Those are also initials. Yeah. That's her name.

That's Sandra Dyckman's initials. That's her middle initials. S-D-M-S? S-M-D-S is her initials. Oh, my God. So they don't like that. So that they don't like. They said they found a small chest freezer beside the fridge, more of the same white freezer wrap packages.

They said it was oddly shaped packages off to the side. They picked it up and squeezed it. It didn't feel like it was hardened, like a hardened bird carcass or a halved squash, they said. That's what it felt like, they said, which was odd because neither of those things would be frozen. Untaped the freezer paper to see what was inside. Inside? Jesus fucking Christ. Oh, no way.

Yeah, this is crazy. Jesus Christ, man. um yeah this is uh this is crazy just uh jesus christ man he three like threw it on the ground when he uh when he saw inside it was it pieces like the is it meat or is it actual fucking organs that's uh hands oh my god two small hands what the fuck um yeah um that's i don't even know what to say here uh this is fucking crazy and he's he's still gonna say he didn't do it oh no no um they went in here um they opened the freezer pulled out all these packages and they're showing them to all the fbi agents it was a human hand a right hand cleanly sawn at the wrist and shriveled like a witch's claw oh what the fuck they said it was strangely delicate with uh long nails painted red clutched in its palm were two fingers also with painted nails and they they one guy the guy who found it went ran outside

and puked in the yeah outside he's like it's fucking disgusting so he packed they packed the meat up in 20 ice packages and took all this shit they found all sorts of shit fingers different meats that were probably human yeah um yeah the six of the packages labeled deer meat contained human flesh mixed with deer meat good god um wow another contained long strips of human muscle tissue cured like jerky. He made human jerky. He's eating these people. He's fucking eating children.

What the fuck, man? Sorry if this episode's a little longer, but he's eating children. Sorry. The meat in one package contained type A blood, another type B. They said Sandy had never had her blood typed, but she likely had type AB. Susie never had her blood typed, but she likely had type AB. Susie never had her blood typed either. The fingerprints definitely match numerous latent prints lifted from Sandy's apartment. Yeah, that's solved.

The initials SMDS are Sandra Mae Dyckman Small Engine. What a monster. Yeah. People, there's an angry mob begins to form outside. They want to murder him. Yeah. People, there's an angry mob begins to form outside. They want to murder him. Yeah. Finally, at 3.20 a.m. on September 29th, 1974, he gives a full and complete confession. What?

I think we'll probably do a bonus episode and go through this confession. Because there's no way we could do it here. This confession would take an hour to go through. But it is fucking bonkers. Yeah, he says he fucking did it. They go through him, and they're going, yeah, we know what you did. They lay it all out.

And at one point, they said, do you realize that this one's for the record? And he said, yes. And they said, being very blunt, very truthful, cutting to the bare essentials, did you, on June 25th, take Susie Yeager from a tent there at the park? And he says, yes. Oh, God.

Did you cause Susan to be hurt? And if so, why? He said, yes, I had to choke her. They said she wasn't killed when she choked her, when he choked her, but he killed her a little later. Then they said, where'd you take her? And he said, it was about 100 yards north and then over the highway, 50 yards back

across the highway to the top of the hill where the monument is, down the road, on top of of the hill about a half mile to my pickup which was waiting alongside the river wow oh my god um he said he he walked her over a half mile back to his car yep he said did you throw her in the closet and nail the door shut he said no uh well i undressed her and then i I proceeded to feel her body, and she got pretty wild, and I guess I choked her, and she died. Oh, my God. They said, what did you do to conceal her body?

I cut her up. He said, where is it located? He said, well, not much of it left. Jesus. They said, what did you do with the pieces? I put her head in that outhouse behind the ranch and all the rest was burned. He saved her fucking head. In the outhouse, though.

That's so awful. In the outhouse. They said, where'd you spread the pieces? The main part of the torso, the upper torso, was burned along a culvert on the road between Lockhart Ranch and Menard. This is fucking disturbing as shit. Yeah, so he gives it all up. He says, yes, killed sandra as well um yeah that's what he did um he also stabbed michael rainey and he shot he shot bernie too

yep they said nixon bridge you did this do you know the boy by name they said yep they said like before what happened in your own words well i've been up in the hills and came down past the bridge and two boys were there. I seen them playing, and I went down the road and parked about 100, 150 yards and walked around with my rifle, 22 caliber, into the bushes on the other side of the river. Then I saw Bernie Pullman climbing up the pillar of the bridge, and I shot him. He said, did you know he was dead? He said, I didn't know for sure. He just took off.

He didn't give a shit. Wow. Yeah. He said, the other kid took off running. I went back to my truck. He just took off. He didn't give a shit. Wow. Yeah. So the other kid took off running. I went back to my truck and that was that. Yep. He said, this is all true. He gives extremely graphic details about everything.

You choked her and covered her mouth. That's Sandra. None of it was for sexual gratification. He insists that he didn't molest the kid or anything like that there's no way though right nope so they said is there anything else and like i said bonus episode on the rest that they said is there anything else and they said um nothing else and he said there's nothing else so they bring him into a jail cell six hours later um they find him hanged in a cell no way yep suicide he split his jail issue bath towel down the middle and twisted the pieces up to make a makeshift rope from his cell's top

bunk he tied one end with a simple overhand knot around the highest cross piece between the bars he looped the other into a terry cloth cloth noose noose that he snuggled around his neck like chris benoit what a chicken shit by the way he was a he was a huge boy scout that used to go camping at that love not campgrounds and all that he knows his knots and then he just plunged head first from the top bunk didn't break his neck because uh and he wasn't as tall as the drop so um there he goes he's once he passed, convulsed spastically for a couple minutes, and he's dead. 25 years old. Wow.

At least four bodies under his. Probably more. Probably more. And the questions linger. What the fuck? How many more are out there? You don't just stop doing that. No.

It's wild shit. So, yeah, he's dead um the jaeger said they have no they don't hold any hatred for him they said that he was a very sick man and i and they said that i'd hope maybe he could get the help he needs but maybe it's better this way now he stands before the only one who can truly judge him shocking absolutely 2005 the case is reopened why when a driver's license wallet notebook belonging to sandra is found when construction workers renovating a garage on east main street found it hidden in a wall oh my god the mother said betty dykeman said she'd like to have the things back sure betty died in 2019 oh my god so yeah that's how that goes and

um he hid the shit in a wall afterwards he had the shit in a wall afterwards yep so um bernie is buried uh at the fairview cemetery in three forks um susan is buried at the bozeman uh sunset hill cemetery and sandra's Meadowview Cemetery there. And so very fucking sad stuff. That's Manhattan, Montana. My God. That's a lot. And wow.

Sorry that had to be so gross and everything like that. And we will give you, like I said, that confession. It's a lot. It's raw dog. I mean, it's a guy giving it all up, knowing he's going to kill himself so nothing to lose giving it all nothing to fucking lose so there you go if you like that case tell the world about it tell everyone about it get on social media tell your friends get on whatever app you're listening on give us five stars please it helps a lot head over to shut up and give me murder.com slash virtual live to get our live show tickets virtual

live show tickets for october 26th available the week after that as well you can watch as many times as you want watch us wear stupid costumes and tell a crazy story you certainly want to head to shut up and give me murder.com get your merchandise tickets to dallas december 2nd get those tickets regular live show in addition to you certainly want to listen to your stupid opinions our new podcast it's on everything listen to it and it's goddamn funny also check out crime and sports because it's goddamn funny too and it's not getting the love it deserves so god damn it love it please also you want patreon.com slash crime and sports all your bonus episodes this week anyone five dollars above the whole back catalog

and this week we're going to talk about bs high yeah documentary about the crazy coach who invented a high school and then we'll also talk about um for small town murder we're going to talk about joey buttafuoco and amy fisher if you don't know that story his name is joey buttafuoco enough fucking said it was definitely it was awesome so definitely tune into that patreon.com slash crime and sports you do all. And you follow us on social media at murder small at small town murder on Instagram. You'll find us. And you also get a shout out at the end of the show. And Jimmy, I'd like to hear who these people are. Right.

Fucking out. Jimmy names of the people who would never, ever, ever kidnap us out of a tent and murder us and burn our bodies. Thank you so much. Hit me with them right now. This week's executive producers are Rad Barnert in New York City by way of Australia, but he was also born in Czechoslovakia. Rad, thank you. Oh, my.

That's a lot of different continents you got going on there. Very cool of you. Thank you very much. You made our year better, too. Thank you. Jordan Bennett, Doug Chimeric, I believe it's Chimeric, C. Merrick. Hey, thank you. Thank you very much.

Happy birthday, Peyton Meadows. Thank you for everything you've done over the years. Other producers this week are Liz Vasquez. Gary Friedman wonders how many books you read a year, James. Is it multiple at once? Yeah, I'm reading like six at once. Probably a good hundred a year at least. There you go, Gary.

You happy now? At least. Shanice Koblowski. Koblowski. Koblowski. All rightowski. Koblowski. All right. Joe Mitchell. Isn't that Uncle Buck's girlfriend?

It is. It is. Gary wrote it in thinking you'd get it right. Trying to sneak that in there. You beat him. Come on now. Joe Mitchell is a bitch. I don't know if you know that.

I just learned that today. Haystacks Calhoun's sweaty overalls. Oh, no. Those are pretty gross. There was money donated about those. Janice Hill, Rosa Martinez, Scarlett Horby's The Third, and Estevez Jones' wedding registry, James. They're getting married. It's beautiful.

Isn't that sweet? Wow. We made a love connection. I'm so happy. Eaton Cox. Congratulations on that one. Ian Elliott. Dale Crawford.

Kristen Beach. Tarpley. Willow with no last name. Damon with no last name, Danelle Minton, Haley Renee, Tommy Palmer, Tigafan89, Justin Fletcher, Fletcher, Fletcher? Zen. Zen with no last name. Latasha Lincoln, Heather Bruhl, Dylan Bourne, Stephen Davis, Sin1 or SinI, maybe SinL. I don't know. Sin. Somebody named Sin.

Sin. Ill. Ill Sin. Sarah Helland, David Kaye, Claire Weston, Jordy with no last name, Sarah Lake, Jennifer Brockman, Tyler Hurchler. Hey, H-E-R-L-O. H-E-R-L-O. H-E-R-L-O.

O-M-F-S-M. I don't know what any of that is. Do you know what that is? That's an acronym. O-M-F-S-M I don't know what any of that is Do you know what that is? That's an acronym O-M-F-S-M Yeah, I don't know Oh my fucking sad memories I have no idea

I'm not sure Naima Sanchez Maybe it's a man with big sad titties Muhammad Sheikh Sheikh Sheikh Kayla Jo Mackenzie Hill

Tim with no last name Logan Johnson Audrey Sirlelis Sirles Sirles Brooke with no last name, Tim with no last name, Logan Johnson, Audrey Surlalis, Brooke with no last name, Yaya with no last name, Kenneth Buckley, Joshua Ritchie, Stacey Haworth, Amy Sagan, Rachel Embry, Melissa Navin, like Johnson, Kaylin Campbell, where am I at? Morgan? Ocasin, uh, Kieran, Frile, Friel,

maybe Nicola horn, Nicola, Nicola horn, Nicola, Nicola, Elvind, Nyhus, Teresa Mendez.

Like that. Yeah. I felt like that was me. I'm trying to get me to say something dirty, but I don't know what a Nyhus is. Nyhus. That's a good name. I like that.

Teresa Mendez, uh, Blake Jones, Jennifer button. That's a good name. I like that. Teresa Mendez. Blake Jones. Jennifer Budden. That's Joe's daughter, I imagine. Tyler Kaya. Tyler Kia. Sonia. Sonny.

Sonny Zuniga. Oh, boy. I don't like that at all. Crystal Duck. Shannon Wilkie. Kymie. Kimmy. Kimmy.

Tracy Larson. Candy Eisen. Eastman. Christian Lee.ms, Rebecca Smith, Tish with no last name, Ryan Chambers, Hannah Walker, Jasmine Rusin, Rasan, Lacey Sonega, Sonega, all right, Loretta with no last name, Jakia, Jakia, Jakia, Ratliff, Laura Moth, Richard Winter, Bridget with no last name, Ashleyia, Jaka, Jaka, Jakia, Ratliff, Laura Moff, Richard Winter, Bridget with no last name, Ashley Bliss,

Ashley Spradlin, Derek Whitson, Nico Doza, Doza, Doazma, Doazima. Yeah, there's a lot of,

there's always a lot of Ashleys. That's a very popular goddamn name. Doazima, Doazima, Jericho Fellerer, Jericho Fellerer. Sound like you ran out of gas there.

Victoria Scott. Won't turn over. I need a jump. Ava Sundquist. Stoner. Sarah Stoner. Holly Phillips. Tara Bullock.

Joey with no last name. Will with no last name. Benjamin Pierce. Paige Cade. KD. Sarah Petrocelli. Leonardo. Leonard. Barkhead, Kimberly Kretzinger, Peggy Ballard, Ballard A, Kristen Miller, Andy Mullendore, John Hayes, Sarah Zilkastarki, Casey Fitzberger,

Josh Carr, STC, Matt Gabney, Jenna with no last name, Maria Bergman, Lillis Gold, Adam Alvis, Lady Love, Caitlin Davis, Brad Sparks, Isaac G, Melissa Persia, Austin Airstrike, a strike, a strike, Justine Nowicki, Austin with no last name, Joey with no last name. Kyla Blair. Nicole Weswick. Casey Schweiger. Valerie Hilliard. Michael Mitrick. Samantha Hall. Dakota Delaney. Ask Brant. McGowan Zach 88. Sarah Seward. Humphrey

Mouignet. Tracy Antinori. Rebecca Merritt. Teresa Shaddy, Tristan M., Colin Powell. Colin Powell. That's pretty funny. Crystal the Pistol, Regina Carlson, Travis Wallace, Megan Bodo, Beatriz with no last name, Ronald Stavnicki, Kathleenavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki, Stavniki,anda, Randa Creighton, Chris Gutro, Tiffany Schmidt, Scott McLaughlin, Zach Alvarez, Jeremy Armand, M.K. Ostracaucus, Morris Taman and Thomas Bollinger and all of our patrons.

You're terrific. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, so much from the bottom of our hearts. We appreciate the shit out of you running a little long this week. We apologize. The case was worth it. It's four fucking murders. What do you want from us? It's a lot. So thank you for joining us. If you want to follow us on social media, head over to the website. There's links

to everything right there. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with W 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.