Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 394 - Serial Killer Richard Byrd: The Las Vegas Strip Strangler

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Have you ever heard of disturbing serial killer Richard Byrd? He raped and strangled eight young women to death in Las Vegas between 1991 and 2001, but almost no one has heard of him, because he was arrested... the day after 9/11. And he took a plea bargain and never went to trial. Hear his wild story today... and never think about hair brushes the same way again.Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/2ndQSjHBWPsMerch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious Private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. And you get the download link for my secret standup album, Feel the Heat.

Richard Byrd, Las Vegas' forgotten madman, the Las Vegas strip strangler. Born and raised in the cowboy and mining town of Winnemucca, Nevada, where he seriously creeped out his classmates, and possibly if not probably murdered one of them, Richard would move to another mining town, Elko, Nevada, after graduating from high school, where he would quite possibly, if not almost certainly, murder a young woman there. He would also get married, and when his marriage ended in such a strange way, he would follow his now ex-wife to Las Vegas, where he will kill eight girls and women during a 10-year murder spree that lasted from March of 1991 to September of 2001.

And that is why you have very likely never heard of him. Richard Byrd was arrested the day after 9-11. Yes, that 9-11. While the world was focused on the 9-11 terror attacks, Richard was arrested and quickly confessed to eight murders and additional crimes. There was no trial, and even where the crimes happened in Las Vegas, there was almost no media coverage. The city was still too worried about being attacked in another terroristic strike. A forgotten true crime tale and what a tale it is. My god!

This guy's a weird one. Real weird. And I share his full disturbing story on another true crime. Feel lucky you never cross paths with this degenerate Sin City hair brushes and butthole edition. That'll make sense eventually of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday and welcome or welcome back to the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Kellmans. Suck nasty. Guy who would have never made it to the age of adulthood in all likelihood.

And Spata. A guy who will never make pronunciation guide videos for how to say Greek words in English. Guy who has never stood on a tree branch and beat off either. That'll pay off later. And you are listening to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, hail Lusifena, praise be to good boy Bojangles and glory be to triple M Michael motherfucking McDonald.

I just wanna say real quick before we dive in, thank you, thank you to all of those of you who have bought tickets for the wet hot Bad Magic Summer Camp 2025, September 4th through the 7th. Tickets are on sale now at badmagicproductions.com. Get them while you can. Holy hell.

It will be a blast. And that's it for today. And now, oh boy, what a story. Not a lot of setup before we really get into it today. Most of this episode will be a timeline that will start with Richard Byrd's birth and end with him in prison and then, well, you'll have to wait to see what happens to this dirt bag in prison. Before the timeline, since I will be referencing a fair amount of brothels today, as in legal

brothels, with them factoring quite a bit into the story, I'd like to share a bit of information regarding how Nevada is very different than the rest of the United States when it comes to sex work. Nevada is the only US state where prostitution is legally permitted in some form. Prostitution is legal in 10 of Nevada's 17 counties, although only 6 allow it in every municipality. 6 counties have at least one active brothel, which mainly operate in isolated rural areas. States most populated counties, Clark,

which contains Las Vegas, and Washoe, which contains Reno, not as fun to say, are among those who do not permit prostitution. It is also illegal in Nevada's capital, Carson City, an independent city. Despite this, the vast majority of prostitution in Nevada takes place illegally in the metropolitan areas of Las Vegas and Reno. If you ever spent time in the gambling centers of either city, like the Strip on Las Vegas, I doubt you are surprised. A lot of ladies hustling out there and there used to be a

lot more. Currently about 66 times more money is spent by customers on illegal prostitution in Nevada, primarily in Las Vegas than in regulated brothels. I would say that Las Vegas has to be the sex work capital of the United States. Sin City, baby! Las Vegas and Reno both had legal prostitution prior to World War II, but then in 1942 President Franklin D Roosevelt caught a bad case of gonorrhea aka the clap During an orgy he participated in at Katz pussy and penis pervert palace in Reno And he gave it to First Lady Eleanor and she was pretty upset about it

She apparently took a lot of pride in having a sparkly clean and shiny and STI free pussy puss So he issued a presidential order to shut it down. And that's not quite the truth. In 1942, though, FDR did issue a presidential order to suppress prostitution in their military bases, and that did affect the legal red light districts of both Reno and Las Vegas at that time. Then when that order was lifted in 1948,

some uptight Reno officials tried to shut down brothels as, public nuisances and that action was then upheld by some more uptight dipshits. At the Nevada Supreme Court in 1949, 1951 both Reno and Las Vegas closed their red light districts as public nuisances. But brothels continued to exist throughout other parts of the state. And because you just can't stop certain kinds of vice. There was even more sex work in Reno and Las Vegas after the ban than before. That's why I called those folks dipshits. Taking away legal prostitution will not end sex work. Kind of like how prohibition did not stop the use of alcohol. Right? A lot of people drink even more because now it was taboo and cooler and sexier getting all those gin joints Currently under Nevada state law any county with a population of up to seven hundred thousand

As the last census is allowed to license brothels if it so chooses Incorporated towns and cities in counties that allow prostitution may regulate the trade further or prohibit it altogether though This legality by the way has not created some explosion of brothels where sex work is just in your face everywhere you look like some seem to believe there is not a cat's pussy and penis pervert palace on every corner. As of February 2018 there were only 21 legal brothels existing in the state only employing a total of around 200 women at any given time. So that's not exactly rampant prostitution. In some locales, there exist multi-unit complexes of several separate brothels run by the same owner, including The Line in Winnemucca, where our story begins.

Mandatory HIV testing began in 1986 at these brothels, and a mandatory condom law was passed in 1988. A study conducted in 1995 in two brothels in Nevada found that condom use in the brothels was consistent and sexually transmitted diseases were accordingly absent. I picture a few listeners pausing the episode right now and buying plane tickets to Nevada! Let's go! Per Nevada law, sex workers in brothels must submit monthly blood tests for both HIV and syphilis and the state board of health requires sex workers to be tested for a broader range of STIs sexually transmitted infections either weekly or monthly depending on the county.

Finally brothels cannot employ sex workers until they first provide recent test results showing that they do not have syphilis gonorrhea chlamydia or HIV. So pretty damn safe. A better system in my mind than illegal sex work that no one will ever stop where there are no health guidelines and also no bouncers or security personnel nearby to protect sex workers from customers. The system though is far from perfect this system and women are still abused unfortunately primarily because legal prostitution Gives the very few brothel owners in any given area too much power There's not enough competition and some former sex workers have said that these brothel owners are actually worse than pimps

Hopefully that's not true currently, but I don't know now just a bit more about prostitution in Las Vegas Where a lot of today's story will also take place more about prostitution in Las Vegas where a lot of today's story will also take place. 90% of illegal prostitution in Nevada takes place in Las Vegas, the majority of it taking place around the strip where all the most of the big casinos are. Some 300 to 400 sex workers are arrested every month by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, but it's only a misdemeanor, so not a huge deterrent to stop doing it. And I can dive further into the morality of all of this and the legality of, you know, this situation versus that situation, which is better, which is worse, but again that's not really necessary when it comes to today's

story. I just wanted to provide a bit of understanding when it comes to why I will be referencing so much sex work, legal and otherwise to say. That groundwork now laid, let's tell this tale. Let's get weird, real weird, in today's Time Suck Timeline. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a Time Suck Timeline. On November 11th, 1957, Richard Henry Byrd, born in Winnemucca, Nevada, to a 39-year-old blackjack dealer, Harris Elijah Byrd, and a 20-year-old cocktail waitress, Phyllis Holden. Yep, especially rough 19-year age gap. And he is the couple's second child. Bit cringy.

Their first daughter Peggy Sue had been born nearly three years earlier December 14th 1954 when Harris was 36 and Phyllis was 17. And she'd gotten pregnant when she was 16 and he was 35 so that's that's super cringe. Technically legal but gross. And then the couple would have their third and final child Barbara Jane Byrd born February 16th 1960. Richard's father Harris had met Phyllis in Winnemucca where she had grown up early in 1954 after he had moved to Nevada from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Several years after his first wife Kathleen died of bacterial meningitis. Shortly after Harris returned home from serving in the army in World War II,

where he had been a bit of a war hero. At least that is the story he told Phyllis. She will find out years later that he was full of shit. Harris never served in the army. He certainly never fought in World War II. He had never even been to Spartanburg, South Carolina. Just thought it had a cool town name, I guess. Spartan-bug. He was married, though, just not to a woman named Kathleen. He was married to a woman named Jolene.

Didn't seem to have worked very hard to come up with a fake name for her. And he still legally was married to Jolene. She'd wait for him to finish serving what was supposed to be a 12-year prison sentence in Rayford Prison, down in Rayford, Florida, for beating a teenage sex worker nearly to death in Jacksonville in 1940 when he was 22. The girl, unnamed in sources, apparently spent a few weeks in a coma. She was not Harris' first run-in with sex workers or with the law. He had been arrested several times previously for solicitation of prostitution, and he had gotten caught stealing a car, robbing a liquor store, and sources referred to a litany of other charges going back deep into his childhood that are not specifically named. Harris was a bad boy, a naughty

little stinker guy, if you will. He had grown up in southern Georgia and northern Florida, born in the little town of Folkestone, Georgia, May 15th, 1918, and he bounced around a bit on the outskirts of Jacksonville. We don't know a ton about his childhood, but what we do know, not good. It seems he'd set out West after being released from prison in 1947 to start a new life for himself, but he never divorced Jolene Oliver. Why not? Not a lot of info on that, but based on what I found in some court records databases, it seems that they married while Harris was in prison, and likely he having a wife outside,

wife probably writing letters, I imagine, to court and prison officials pleading for an early release, is what may have gotten him out of prison five years early. But then he didn't actually want to be with her, and he split. He does seem to be a very manipulative guy. Probably just used her to get out early. Maybe something like that. Anyway between 1947 and 1953 before he made it to Winnemucca, Harris lived for unknown periods of time based on arrests and census records in Omaha, Nebraska, Bozeman, Montana, and Elko, Nevada. Solicitation of prostitution, petty theft were the crimes he committed while he bounced around the ones we know of, who knows what he did for work in each place and exactly why he left each place. Dick's mom, let's just call Richard Bird Dick now since that's the name he'll go by for the rest of his life.

Dick Bird. Picturing a real weird-looking bird right now. Real ugly, one-eyed, mostly featherless bird with a big old set of nuts. Can't believe he can fly, actually. Anyway, Dick Bird's mom, Phyllis Holden, she would never legally marry Harris because he was already married. He told her that he promised to only marry Kathleen and he just couldn't bear to get married again legally after she'd gotten sick and died.

Break his heart However, they still held some sort of small ceremony with members of her friends and family for the most part and and she would take His name in public weird. I know again Harris real manipulative shitty guy I'm sure he twisted everything around to make Phyllis believe that he was just so sweet. What a good boy She would not believe he was sweet a little bit later on But by then they had a kid that I'm guessing she felt trapped by this dirtbag. And Phyllis did not have the best life. Was not raised by a good dad. No one gave her a good template of what to strive for in a guy. And also she grew up in Winnemucca. I mean so that in and of itself, you know, pretty rough. It's been a long time since I made fun of

Winnemucca. It's overdue for me to do it again. I Googled, is Winnemucca a good place to live for my research this week and my laptop shut itself down. And then later, when it booted back up, Siri said, there is such a thing as a stupid question. Winnemucca is a shithole. You knew that, everyone knows that. Waste my time with dumb shit like that again

and I'll fry your hard drive, you silly cuck. Yeah, Siri called me a cuck. Not sure what that's about. Let me talk about Winamook a bit. Where little Dick Bird was born and raised before he before he flew the, flew the coop! Because he's a bird! I'll stop. I looked up home prices on some sites like realtor.com and for a 2600 square foot three-bedroom two-bath rancher built in 1963 on a half an acre lot right in town. The price right now was listed as police taken.

It's not worth the property taxes. No, I did find a three bedroom, two bath, 2400 square foot home on 20 acres just outside of town. This listed right now for 200,000 though new construction. Now nothing's been done on the inside of the home other than sheetrock, but still like it's plumbed in. 200,000 for a shell of a house on 20 acres is insane. They've won a lot of land for cheap. A lot of dry dirt, sage brush, lizard, snake-filled land. You should jump on a deal like that right now because these prices will not last forever or maybe they will. For real now

165 miles northeast of Reno and connected to Reno by Interstate 80, Winnemucca is the county seat of Humboldt County, Nevada. It's about halfway along the drive between on I-80 between San Francisco and Salt Lake City. It's also the only incorporated town in Humboldt County with a population of 8,431. More like four or five thousand. Back when actually I'll share the exact amount. I don't know I'm trying to guess right now what the population was when Dick grew up. I'll share that a bit. Some beaver trappers working along the Humboldt River first settled in the area in 1830. Soon the area became a trading

post known as Frenchman's Ford. It was named Winnemucca after Chief Winnemucca of the local northern Paiute tribe in 1863. Winamucca translated into English means fuck this place. JK again, no, it means the giver. While the town would not be incorporated until 1917, by September 16th, 1868, when the Central Pacific Railroad reached Winamucca, it was already a proper town. Train station was officially opened October 1st of 1868, along with what was the first transcontinental railroad.

And this made it a lot easier for people to settle in the area and the town grew. Many of the early settlers were Basque people from the Basque region of Spain and France who worked as sheep herders in the area and then many worked as ranch hands with cattle as well. Still today, Winnemucca holds an annual Basque festival. In late 19th and early 20th centuries, Winnemucca had a pretty vibrant Chinatown of about 400 Chinese settlers. In 1911, the community was visited by Sun Yat-sen, future Chinese president. Sadly, Winnemucca's Chinatown no longer exists.

Last building that was abandoned was torn down in 1955. In the 1870s, Winnemucca bloomed as a railhead for cattle driven to the loading pens from across northern Nevada and southeastern Oregon and southern Idaho. Cattle, mining, and potato farming would be the big industries around Winnemucca. All three industries continue to be big today. Definitely a cowboy farmer and mining town. Old west, wild west feel to it. Lotta, lotta, yeah, yeah, yeah. September 19th, 1900, famed outlaw Butch Cassidy's gang robbed the first national bank of Winnemucca for 32,640 bucks.

Currently, a massive mining operation and processing plant for what may be the largest known deposit of lithium in the world is being developed in nearby Thacker Pass, about 50 miles from Winnemucca. Estimated that the area has roughly $4 billion worth of recoverable lithium. So much precious metal in this area. Historically though, mostly gold, silver, also some lead have been mined around Winnemucca

over the years going back to 1868, primarily silver it seems. Circling back to cowboys, Winnemucca is still a cowboy town. Rough and rugged cowboy town, like real cowboys. Holds the largest ranch hand rodeo in Nevada every year. 30 teams competing for bragging rights and prizes and saddle bronc riding, steer stopping, wild mugging,

wherever that is, trailer loading, team roping, ranch doctrine, and team branding. Hi-ya! Winamucca's even home to the Buckaroo Hall of Fame and Heritage Museum. And a buckaroo is a real cowboy. Someone whose job it is to actually take care of cattle. Not swing dance with a large belt buckle at a bar in the city. Circling back to Dick's mom, Phyllis now. She was born in Winamucca on July 6, 1937. One of six kids, at least a few of them

girls. Her siblings not named in sources. And they were all born to Jack and Lois Holden. Lois was a homemaker and Jack worked at a big local business that sold agricultural equipment called Carter Agrisystems, and Jack was also a fucking dirtbag. He'll be arrested for the rape of a local teenage girl in Winnemucca in 1961 when he was 63 years old. Lois will divorce him when he goes off to prison for a 10-year stretch and she will leave the area and move to Reno rather than staying with Emukka and I guess live with that kind of stink around her name. There are allusions and sources that Jack very likely molested Phyllis and her sisters. Phyllis would drop out of high school either her sophomore or junior year after getting pregnant. She apparently either gave up the baby for adoption or had an abortion. Sources differ. There's speculation that she was

carrying her father's child. Out of school, she worked first as a waitress at a local cafe called Hoot's Cafe. Bet they made some mean pancakes at Hoot's. Doesn't seem to be around anymore. Then she got a job at the Sonoma Inn Hotel and Casino around the time she turned 18 in 1955. Population in Winnemucca at this time, I kind of referenced earlier, I don't know that I was thinking about guessing which was stupid, was about 3,000 people. Even though a fair amount of other people lived nearby in different mining camps, still a pretty small isolated area of miners, ranchers, farmers, and then of course people working in town at various grocery stores, feed shops, tiny little hospitals, bars, churches, school

system, a few small casinos and such. Winnemucca also had some strip clubs or gentlemen's clubs with the most popular called the Black Pearl. And as I already mentioned, Winnemucca had several brothels, one of which was the Pussy Cat Saloon and Brothel, which has been closed now for a few years, but had been open in Winnemucca since the town's very active bustling red light district kicked off in the mid-1800s, was open for over a hundred years. Seems as though while there are still legal sex workers in Winnemucca today, there are

no more proper brothels, the last few closing in just the past couple years. I get why brothels thrived in Winnemucca for so long. There have, you know, for a long time there been a lot of big cattle ranches in the area, a lot of sheep too, a lot of mines, like a lot of big mining operations within a hundred or so mile radius, and there's no other town of more than a couple thousand people within a hundred miles. Within over a hundred miles actually. The nearest proper town of more than a few thousand people is Elko, Nevada, 123 miles away. And Elko only has a little over 20,000 people in a big valley with a population in the surrounding area of about 50,000. So for years, excuse me, there have been all of these lonely male miners, male ranchers, right, traditionally very male dominated trades, working

in a sparsely populated, very remote desolate place without a lot of available women. I had a great uncle who worked in mining camps for years in northern Nevada and he talked about working with a lot of bachelors or guys who were married but their wives was far far away and they would send money

home. A lot of these mine camps, you know, they don't or did not have schools nearby, not exactly a good place to raise a family, not a place a lot of these mine camps, you know, they don't or did not have schools nearby, not exactly a good place to raise a family, not a place a lot of wives would have wanted to settle down. But these jobs, mine in particular, you know, paid very well. So for years, you have a lot of lonely guys making good money and not really any place nearby to spend it, living in these desolate high desert, real hot in the summer, real

cold in the winter country. It feels like a demographic, you know, built to dump a lot of money into sex work should it be available. And it was. There was for over a century. First, a booming red light district. And then by the time Phyllis was a young woman, a brothel district called The Line. Which is one person did own several brothels in The Line and then just the area surrounding brothels. Everything became known as The Line. And now let's reconnect with Dick Bird and his folks. Dad Harris is a con artist and criminal of sorts, somebody abusive towards women, at least towards sex workers, who shows up in a dusty remote little town where he can reimagine

his life and have, I'm guessing, a lot of access to sex workers, which is probably part of what drew him to town considering his interest in them. Dick's mom is someone who grew up in a dusty little remote Nevada ranching and farming and mining town full of I would guess More than its fair share of skeevy fucking creeps who see women as little more than fuck toys One of those guys was her dad Harrison Phyllis met in Winnemucca early 1954 when she was just 16. He's 35 so that you, you know, as we went over, super cool. She's a teenager. He's over twice her age and again he has a history of being abusive towards women and almost certainly of being sexually abusive

which she had likely been groomed to be able to receive, handle. I don't even know what term I should use there. Within just a few months she'll be pregnant. Sources aren't clear on the exact date of her wedding and since there are no records because they were not legally married I'm not sure on what date they had a ceremony. Guessing they did that just before the baby started to show which would have been kind of customary at the time but again just just guessing. We do know that by the time of their first child Peggy Sue born December of 1954 they had bought a little two-bedroom two-bath not quite 1,500 square foot home at 418 West 2nd Street. This will be the family home for

years. When Dick is born, he and his older sister Peggy Sue will share a room and they will keep sharing it when the family's third child, Barbara Jane, is born in February of 1960. Three kids in one bedroom, mom and dad and the other. When mom and dad are home for the night, both of them, which starts to become rare. At some point in the early 1960s, according to the main source we leaned on most heavily for this episode, Las Vegas's forgotten serial killer by Joe Eschenbach, Phyllis began working at a new strip club in town, The Black Pearl. Guessing she had a stage name? Or maybe strip clubs didn't have DJs back then? They had to, right? What the fuck kind of music? Would they be playing at a stage name? Or maybe strip clubs didn't have DJs back then? They had to, right? What the fuck kind of music would they be playing at a strip club? It went amuck in Nevada in the early 1960s.

Mashed Potato Time by D.D. Sharp. That was one of the biggest songs of 1962. Was this what they were blasting the Gentleman's Club? Is this what they were blasting the Gentleman's Club? It's the latest, it's the greatest, mashed potato, yeah Ladies and gentlemen, but probably just gentlemen since I doubt anyone's bringing their lady to the strip club. It's 1962 and we're in Winamaca. Please welcome to the stage the phenomenally sexy Phyllis. Get your dollars out gentlemen. Phyllis loves to dance for her money.

Pay her enough to make sure she rubs her hot little club of mashed potatoes on the pole. Keep your gravy in your pants. I don't know, maybe something like that? Or maybe, I don't know why it's so funny to me to imagine like women coming out and stripping naked to these kind of songs. Maybe her walkout song was Peppermint Twist by Joey D and the Starlighters. It was another another big hit in the early 60s. A little more upbeat. A little faster faster dancing happening here. Yeah, twisting around, bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu- bu-bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- bu- Get up into your candy loving faces! Come out! Make some noise! Something like that? I don't know.

Anyway, by 1963, around the time Little Dick Bird starts kindergarten, what an unfortunate name, mom is dancing a lot of nights at the Black Pearl and dad's doing a variety of shit. Dad's not killing. Dad has lost his job dealing with Blackjack at the Sonoma Inn Hotel and Casino. He was fired allegedly for running some scams with a few regular players. Basically, he would let them win and then they would give him a cut of their fake winnings. And I guess he just didn't expect where to get around in a town the size of Winnemucca.

He was not arrested for that, according to, again, the author of our main source, Joe Ashenbaugh. The casino handled the matter internally and Harris will now walk with a limp for the rest of his life. I knew the mafia was involved in other casinos like in other places in Nevada, most notably Las Vegas, but also in Reno where the mob also ranch it, but Winamucca, a dusty little ranch and mining town, a town that's never had a huge casino, just a handful of pretty small ones. Apparently the mob brought gambling to Winamucca in the 1920s, shortly after they brought it to Reno. Their first casino in the town was the Index Club. I was able to find an old match cover from this club from the 1930s on eBay.

On one side, there's a picture of some dude wearing a derby hat, smoking a big cigar, looking real cool. On the other, it lists the phone number. Just three digits, I love that. Just 104, just call 104, that's it. And below that it says, if a man takes a drink, that's his business.

If a woman takes a smoke, that's her business. This book of matches tells our business. Liquors, wines, beer with the lowest prices, index club, largest in Winnemucca, Nevada. Okay. Yeah, someone was happy about that and some guy originally from Baltimore Vinny Corby was the gangster who ran mob business in Winnemucca from the late 1920s all the

way until he died in the 1970s. It feels like he was being punished. Clearly not a top mobster if you're sent to handle Winamucca. Vinny, I have a job for you. There's a city in Nevada. I need you to run for me. Oh yeah, you bet boss. I'm ready for it. It's Reno.

Please tell me it's Reno boss. I love the mountains. No Vinny, it's not Reno, but it's not too far from Reno. You will see mountains, shitty brown desert mountains, some of which will be completely flattened by open pit mining. I need you to run for me, win a mucka. Oh, win a what a boss, I gotta get a map. I like to picture some dude named Mustang, Frank Caparelli or something, an Italian mafia

guy, in the 60s with slick back hair hair silk button-up shirt gold chain around his neck But also a giant silver and turquoise belt buckle Wrangler jeans cowboy boots Bolo tie over the top of his gold chain somehow just kicking the shit out of Harris behind the buckaroo bowling alley Busted his kneecaps with a baseball bat. Maybe a cattle prod Don't you ever fuck with Finney's business, you goddamn varmint. Act like a wise guy again. You'd be sleeping with the rattlesnakes. However it happened, Harris gets fired from the Sonoma Inn Hotel and Casino and will walk with a limb for the rest of his life and become more of an asshole. He's taking

various jobs now around town working as a bartender with a black pearl for a bit before he gets fired for pulling a gun on a customer. He does actually work at a place called the Buckaroo Bowling Alley for a little bit and at a place called Winnemucca Farms where he sells animal feed I guess. He also pushes Phyllis at some point in the mid-1960s into sex work. And for years when she is not dancing at the Black Pearl she is working at the Pussycat Saloon. And according to what Dick Bird will say later, Harris is now physically and sexually abusive

to her at home, usually getting pissed off due to worries that she's cheating on him with some guy at the Black Pearl or enjoying her work a little too much at the Pussycat. We've seen those assholes before. The guy who pushes his girlfriend, wife, baby mama, whatever, into sex work and then punishes her for making money the way that he has manipulated her into making. Just complete scumbag. This enrages Lusifena. And how is all this affecting Lil Dicky? Not well. According to what he'll say later, and Peggy Sue and Barbara Jane will also corroborate

this to various degrees, in either 1967 or 1968 when Dick is 9 or 10 and his older sister Peggy, Peggy Sue, 12 or 13, he gets moved outside to the shed. Why is that? You will find out why Dick gets banished to the shed right after today's first to two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for sticking around. If you don't want to hear ads, get the entire catalog ad-free and more by signing up to be a space lizard on Patreon

for $5 a month. And now let's find out exactly why Dick was sent to live in a damn shed. Well, he was turning into quite a little creeper peeper, a chip off a dad and papa's shitty blocks. First Peggy Sue realized he had snuck out of their shared room a couple of different times, late at night, and each time she would find him standing outside of their parents'

bedroom door, watching them have sex through the space between the door and the frame, which I guess was quite a bit wider than you would normally find on a door because it was not a great house. And then worse, Peggy Sue woke up one night to see Little Dick playing with his little dick while standing right next to her bed and looking down on her. She tells her parents and interestingly Phyllis not Harris will now be the shit out of him. Paddled him with a big wooden spatula so hard he truly could not sit down for a

few days and then his parents moved him not only out of his sister's bedroom but out of the house entirely. His new bedroom was an uninsulated shed at the back of the property. A shed room, if you will. And here it begins. Dick Byrd does not get therapy. That wasn't very common practice at this time in history, especially not in Winnemucca, Nevada. I'm guessing. Highly doubt that Winnemucca had a single therapist of any kind in the 1960s.

No one was talking to him about how perverse what he did was in a, you know, let's get to the bottom of this, you know, problem-solving kind of way. I mean, who's gonna talk to him about that? His fucked up dad? You know, his abused mom who's working at either a small town brothel or a small town strip club? He probably learned his lack of sexual boundaries from his dad. So he doesn't talk about it other than being told he is a disgusting pervert. He just gets his ass beat with the wooden spatula and he gets thrown in the fucking shed. I mean that won't certainly turn him into a serial killer or anything.

Living in that shed had to have been rough. Winter muck can get real cold and real hot. It's record high. All these degrees will be in Fahrenheit. It's 109. So it can get up to 109 in the summer and it can get as low as negative 37 degrees in the winter That's quite the range very very hot very very cold its average daily high for you July is 95 degrees its average daily low in December only 18 degrees imagine experiencing that in a shit a little dick was given a bunch of blankets, I guess and He was given an electric space heater and a fan, hopefully allowed to crash in the house on the couch or something on the hottest, coldest night of the year.

Once he started living his shed life, Dick will get more kinky. And that first big beating with the spoon, he'll later say, or excuse me, after that first big beating with the spoon, he'll later say that while he couldn't sit down for a while He could jerk off and he did a lot Getting spanked hard by mama right after sexually fantasized about his sister I guess really turned him on and that of course is not good Now he'll routinely sneak into the house and try and listen to his parents have sex or see them or catch his mom getting in and Out of the shower. Same for his sisters.

And if he gets caught, win-win! Bring on the beating! Bring on the spatula! Put your back into it! Smack my ass and call me Dicky! Woo! On more than one occasion, he will later say, when he got a bit older, he actually would come while his mom was spanking him with a spatula.

What the fuck is going on? His family, dear God. But he'd act like he really hated it. No, no, mom, please don't. I swear I'll never do it again. Just whack, whack, whack. Oh, oh, fuck this night. Oh, yeah, just like that.

Oh, come on. Oh, sexy lady. What did you say? I said, please no more smacks, mama. I cannot take it. Whack, whack, whack. Oh, fuck. That's going to do the trick.

If only Pegasus was here. Pretty deranged. I was back up a whack. Oh, fuck, that's gonna do the trick. If only Pegasus was here. Pretty deranged. Now let's back up a bit and see how Dick's doing in school. I'll give you a hint. Not great. Dick did pretty well in kindergarten, 1963 going into 1964 and first grade in 1964 going into 65 at the Winnemucca Grammar School,

or at least no problems were reported. But in 1965, when he started second grade, started get in trouble for being creepy with girls got a little handsy at recess he would accidentally grab their private parts also this year his parents had to come in and talk to the principal because he kept sticking his hand down into his pants in the middle class and squeezing and shifting his junk around like like that was a totally normal thing to do jumping three years ahead he didn't seem to get in trouble again until 1968, which would time out with his shed life and getting you know turned on by the wooden spoon beatings

by mama. He's now in fifth grade and he gets caught in the girls bathroom. He'd apparently hidden in one of the stalls and when the girl came in sat down on another stall started beating off. Then still beating off, doing a little walking jerk, he walks out of the stall. He walks around at the front. So he's like in front of the girl's stall, you know, that was next to his stall. And he's peeking at her in between the door and the frame, his specialty. And she saw him and she screamed, as one would do. And she screamed right as another girl walked into the bathroom and she screamed as well. So now he gets, excuse me, now he gets taken to the principal's

office, gets paddled again. He gets paddled by a dude though so he doesn't like it and his parents are called in and he's suspended from school for a week and threatened with expulsion. I mean if he had done that now he would be expelled immediately and probably have criminal charges filed against him I'm guessing. Back at home after getting suspended, his dad Harris now disciplines him. Severely. Harris whips him with a belt on the butt and back that night hard enough to draw blood. And this does not turn him on. Just really fucking hurts and enrages him.

His dad also locks him in his shed room for three days. No food and just a bit of water. At one point when he started screaming to be released, his dad came in and beat him with his fists and he did not scream out again after that. It's like they were trying to create a monster. For the next several years now, Dick seems to have straightened up. He did not straighten up but he seems to have to his family and people at school. Afraid that his dad will beat him half to death if he does something like get caught trying to watch his parents have sex again

or jerk off on his sister or peep on some girl and jerk off at school, you know, Dick now gets sneakier. He starts sneaking out of his shed room at night. I'm pretty proud of coming up with the term shed room, by the way, and looking for a new place to peep. And he finds a new place. There was a young lady who lived by herself, just a few properties away. One of his mom's co-workers from the Pussycat.

And she would bring back clients to her house sometimes, her boyfriends. And get it on late at night. And I guess she would leave the lights on and not always be real good about closing her blinds. Closing her curtains. So Dick later said that she didn't ever have lights on in the backyard. Near where her, this is so the backyard near where her window was. It was a nice little dark trail he could take from behind his shed room, through another backyard with no lights, and into her backyard. There was also a fair amount of trees to kind of camouflage him. There were no dogs to alert people to his presence.

So it was fairly easy to slip out of his place over to hers without being detected and then he climb up in this little tree outside of her bedroom window and you have a great view of what was going on in her bedroom and not really have to worry about being seen himself if he's quiet so he starts doing this a lot and apparently since he likes spankings but I've never heard of something like this but he but couldn't stand on a tree branch and jerk off and spank himself. You know, without really risking falling or being hurt. He did what was the next best thing.

He brought along a small hairbrush that he stole from his sister's room. And he would stick the handle of this thing up his ass and then jerk off on a tree branch. I'm not sure that that was the next best thing, but I guess it's what he did. Can you imagine if he would have been caught? Hey, what the hell are you doing, kid? And then some 11 or 12 year old boy just pops down out of a tree with his dick out, his pants around his ankles, and then just turns and like waddles away. And there was a hairbrush just sticking out of his ass.

That would truly be a sight you'd never forget. Also, before moving past this disturbing section of his childhood, one of this neighbor lady's occasional clients was his dirtbag dad, Harris, and Dick will admit to still beating off up in the tree, even when the guy he was watching have a sexless lady, you never knew her name, was his dad. Just beating off, as one does, just beating off on a tree branch. Or on a tree branch.

Went a mucka with a hairbrush and also stuck up your ass While you watch your dad cheat on your mom and fucking neighbor lady boys will be boys right what a childhood What a step Steph Cox for a scurvy child. I came and talked to him so distracted If you grew up in a shed room Cuz you got caught peeping on your mom and sisters and then got beat after death by your daddy for jerking off into girls restroom at school while staring at some girl on the toilet and then You start beating off in a tree with your sister's hair brush shoved up your butt watching your dad have sex with your mom's co-worker You might be a killer

Truly you are you are a killer Let's jump to the summer of 1971 now dick is 13 and his dad goes missing and Harris's body has never been found The local rumor mill said he ended up getting buried out of the desert After he got too rough with some girls at the pussycat saloon. Did I mention the Harris? Apparently would go to the pussycat saloon where his wife is working and he would use some of the money that she was making Fucking other dudes so he could fuck other women. What a life! And that brothel was supposedly connected still to the mob and Harris had gotten into debt with the

mob. Again this is according to the rumors, doing some sports betting and the mob no longer felt like they were ever gonna get their money back from him. So he was a he was a problem and you know what did they do to get rid of problems like this? Well they made him disappear. So likely executed and buried out in the desert somewhere around Winnemucca. And then when Phyllis reports him missing to the police, they dig into his records and that leads to her finding out that he was never in the military. Never fought in World War II.

Police ended up notifying Harris's wife, Mrs. Jolene Byrd, who was living in Jacksonville. Not sure why she never got legally divorced. Phyllis now realizes if he is declared dead, she'll never get any benefits. Jolene will. Harris was just the gift that she kept on giving. Phyllis now 34 years old, transitions out of sex work. She'll marry a frequent customer of hers, actually legally marry, in late 1972. Before then, there was a period of about a year and a half where Dick is home with his

two sisters and mom, all of whom he is sexually attracted to, and there's no scary grown man to keep him in check. Then she gets more out of control. Peggy Sue, when she's 17 and a senior in high school, wakes up in the middle of the night feeling something wet and warm hit the side of her face and hair and that is Her brother semen. Oh for fuck's sake and Then when she screams she sees him turn and run apparently

Apparently with an old hairbrush. She'd lost years ago Sticking out his ass. Holy shit She's still sharing a room with her little sister Barbara Jane She's only 12 at this point and Barbara Jane sees all this too mentally scarred forever Dick runs off into a shed room where his mom now comes out there threatens him with the gun Says she will shoot him dead if he ever does that again. I guess he believes her at least somewhat because he does not do that again This is one of the craziest childhoods that we've ever covered. The hairbrush is killing me. How was it staying in his ass as he ran? How is that even physically possible? Was he just raw dogging it in there? No loop

Just letting it get sealed somehow. I don't understand it. Meanwhile at school dick still not doing great shocking I know he gets held back in eighth grade He is not well liked by classmates either the first or second time he goes through eighth grade Doesn't seem as if he literally had any friends. Some bullies at school had taken to calling him Dick Turd. Okay, well done. He's right there. Fucking balls right on the tee. Back in grade school and the nickname stuck to the point that by the time he was in eighth grade, not sure this is the first second time, he would just answer to Dick Turd as if that was his real name and not an insult. What's going on, Dick Turd? if that was his real name and not an insult.

What's going on, Dick Turd? Oh, nothing. Just was just opening a dark tree with a hand on my jacket, hair brushed up my ass, bye bye you. A former classmate, Tracy Moses, interviewed by author Joe Eschenbauer for his book, had this to say after he was arrested for multiple murders almost 30 years later. I wasn't surprised, not really, when I heard about what he'd done. He was always different. As a girl, you never wanted to be anywhere alone with him. I remember when we were little, he was the kid you would tease your girlfriends

about going out with because it was such an insult. You know, you'd say stuff like, I heard you had a boyfriend, I heard you and Dick Bird, except even then we were calling him Dick Turd. We're going steady. By junior high, we didn't juggle like that anymore. We were scared of him. And then after Tina went missing, we were real scared of him. He'd always been kind of quiet at school. By junior high he never said much at all. But he was always looking at the girls. Like if you wore a shirt that he could see down at all he would be staring. If you wore a skirt he'd try and look up it. Like he'd do stuff

like walk to the front of class, drop his pencil on purpose in front of a girl's desk, and then he would just take his time down on the ground picking it up. Like just straight up trying to peek up her skirt. This kid was fucking time bomb for serious sexual crimes. More serious than coming on his sleeping sister, which is already pretty serious. Let's talk about this Tina girl who Tracy mentions. In the fall of 1973, when Dick is a 15 year old freshman in high school about to turn 16, a local 14 year old, Tina Huffman, described as sweet, overly trusting, gullible,

and a bit slow in sources, goes missing from Winnemucca. Her body will be found several years later buried in a shallow grave in the desert about a mile from town on the back of a little hill. And it's believed, although he will never confess to this murder, that Dick killed her. She lived just seven houses down from the bird's home and disappeared in the middle of the night. There was no sign of a break-in. It was assumed she crawled out of her bedroom window, lured very possibly by young Dick. When her remains were found, they were buried inside a big garbage bag.

They'd been transported from some other place. Did Dick perhaps lure her back to his shed room, do something to her, possibly rape her, then worried about the trouble he'd get in, kill her? Did he hide her body there until the search for her started to wind down, then he snuck out one night, buried her in the desert? That's what some, like author Eshenbaugh, think is a definite possibility. The police will interview him, but never it seems get a warrant to search his shed room. They wanted to look around, but his mom, Phyllis, would not allow it. Maybe she was worried that her son had done something.

She certainly knew he was a creep. Speaking of Phyllis, she has been remarried for about a year now to Dick's stepdad, Wayne Morgan. We can back up a little bit and talk about him. Wayne, it seems, actually a pretty good dude. Not real good with women. He was a big guy, real big, 6'4", weighed around 300 pounds. Main source author again Esham Bad describes him

with the following quote, Wayne Morgan was not easy on the eyes. He was friendly though. He had a wide enthusiastic smile when he smiled which was a lot. He was also missing two of his teeth in the front which he didn't seem to mind. He typically wore a big patchy beard and his eyes, set atypically close to one another, were dull and small in comparison to his large pie-shaped face. His hairline was thin and receding and his forehead often had a few pimples on his typically greasy skin. His large head seemed to rest directly on his shoulders, as if his neck had grown tired

of supporting his large cranium and packed up and left. His barreled chest was massive, as were his arms and legs. In another life, he could have been a professional powerlifter or an NFL offensive lineman. While generally a gentle soul, you got the feeling that if you did cross him, there might be hell to pay. Man, Hashemba really does not hold back with some of his descriptions. Wayne ran heavy equipment for a local mining outfit that operated out of the so-called Awakening District of Mines, about 30 miles outside of Winnemucca. Good at his job, made solid money, and he loved Phyllis. Treated her like a princess, which is awesome,

after all that she's been through. After they got married, he never sought out sex work anymore, and neither did she, apparently. Like that, what he lacked in looks, he made up for in dependability and kindness. Protectiveness. Phyllis is said to have grown deeply in love with him and her girls loved him too. Back in 1972 when Dick's older sister Peggy Sue got married and moved to Reno a few months before Tina Huffman had gone missing, she got along great with Wayne and will later say that she only felt okay about leaving

her mother and little sister Barbara Jane with Dick because she knew Wayne would be in the house and there to protect them. And he did protect them. Barbara Jane would never have to wake up to get in a come on by her degenerate brother and would never again see him scamper off with a hairbrush sticking out of his butthole. So that's good. 1977 now, Dick graduates high school to age 19, barely. There are rumors that some teachers gave him C's instead of F's just to get them, just

to get him, excuse me, the hell out of school and hopefully out of town. He still didn't seem to have made any friends. I don't know that he literally had any friends growing up, which is fucking crazy. I feel like all the serial killing degenerates we've covered before have at least had a friend growing up, but not Dick Bird. She was living that solitary shed life, which for sure continued when Wayne became man of the house. No one seemed to have had a good thing to say about Turd from high school. His English teacher, Mrs. Owens, was interviewed about her memories of Dick. She shared the following. educated themselves people who did not really value education and that as a teacher can be very difficult and we had some kids who were problems for sure kids who had to be suspended a few kids who were expelled but only one kid ever

really scared me and that was Dick Berg even before the Huffman girl went missing we all came to thinking that or the thinking that he did that but even before then there was something about his eyes. Even when he smiled, he would only smile with his mouth. His eyes never matched his smile. The way he looked at me made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I was a young teacher then and it was the early 1970s and sometimes I'd wear a skirt to class. But I stopped doing that when Dick was in my class. I made sure not to wear clothes that were revealing on any level. I didn't lock my car or my house for that matter before I taught Dick either, but I

started to once I had him in my class. And then over time, after he left, I went back to no longer doing that. I felt safe again. We all talked about him, especially the women. We all seemed to know he was going to go on to do some very bad things. I feel so terrible for those girls. While Dick didn't have any friends at school, he did have co-workers while he was in high school.

He'd spent his last two years of high school working at a little grocery store in Winamucca that is still there today. Uptown Market on Bridge Street. Bad groceries, stock shelves, mock floors, clean toilets, made sure carts were collected from the parking lot, that sort of thing. Never once beat off with a banana peel in the bathroom, from what we understand, if you know, you know. His old manager, Mike Newman, I had this to say about him. He did his job.

I never had to worry about that. And he was never a problem for me. But the women at the store didn't like him. They were bothered by the way he looked at them. He never said or did anything to them that would be grounds for being dismissed. He just creeped him out. And while he worked there, he had a hell of a time keeping certain lo-

or excuse me. And while he worked there, we had a hell of a time keeping certain lotions and baby oil on the shelves. And women's hair brushes randomly. I think he was stealing them, but I could never catch him. No one has ever loved a hairbrush the way Dick Turd loved a hairbrush. Clearly Dick was the town creep by a long long ways. Luckily for Winnemucca this menace leaves town in the fall of 1977 becomes some other place's problem. His stepdad Wayne wanted him gone and so he used some of his mining connections to help get Dick a job at the Goldstrike Complex of Mines

working for Pan Cana Minerals. This mine complex located 46 miles outside of Elko, about an hour's drive. Many who work there will live in Elko. A huge mine complex. There are literally miles and miles of underground tunnels, and Dick will work down in these tunnels for the next 16 years. If he killed during this time, and I do think he killed at least one woman, he never admitted it. He may have kind of behaved himself, but probably not. Not long after he moved to Elko, there were reports from a few local women of seeing a man in a tree outside their windows at night. In a tree, ah, peeping in on him or a peeping in on them.

But they can never identify who and Dick was never caught arrested for that. Such a specific fantasy. One woman even could tell that the guy in the tree was jerking off. What a strange terrifying thing. See a grown man jerking off in a tree looking down at you. I've never heard of that one before. Like a fucked up, I don't know. He did get picked up and charged with loitering when he got caught hiding in an alley once, a public alley. Alley behind an apartment building downtown. Probably jerking off in the alley, I'm guessing. And a few women would go missing from Elko while Dick lived there, and he was heavily suspected at at least one of their disappearances. We will get to that here

soon. But first, let's get to know Elko. After the second of our two mid-show sponsor breaks. And I'm back, and now it's time for me to make Elko Nevada's Board of Tourism just as happy as Winnemucca Nevada's Board of Tourism is with me. Elko is an awesome place to live. If you just move there from Winnemucca. The word Elko is a Shoshone word that means slightly better than Winnemucca.

No, it means rock. What it really means is rocks piled on one another. That's kind of sad That's not a great selling place. You know point for a place. You should go there. There's a bunch of rocks Pile on on some rocks a lot of a lot of rough. You're in the rocks. Oh shit. You can't beat it Elk was motto is the heart of Northeast, Nevada Which is a better motto than Winamuccas, which is the butthole of earth. Sorry. It's hard to stop Winamuccas actual motto that kills me. It's called the City of Paved Streets.

That's so sad. To me, that tells me that Winnemucca peaked about a hundred years ago when they just got paved streets. And no one else around had paved streets and they're like, ha ha! Check out our streets! We got fucking best streets in this whole area of Nevada! And they haven't done anything since to be like they can point to. That's cool too.

Elko is a bit younger than Winnemucca and while indigenous people lived in the area for who knows how many centuries before white settlers showed up, white settlers did show up in 1868. It was a railroad camp lying at the east end of the Central Pacific Railroad being built to connect California to Utah. When railroad crews moved on, Elko remained and it became a regional center for ranching, mining, rail, freight, and general supplies. First courthouse was built quickly in 1869. Elko officially incorporated in 1917. Climate wise,

almost identical to Winnemucca. High desert, they can get real hot up to 107. A little bit colder than Winnemucca, down to as low as negative 42 again in Fahrenheit Like I mentioned earlier Elko has a little over 20,000 people situated in a big valley the Ruby Valley Which is more of a basin actually about 60 miles long 10 miles wide about 50,000 people live in this big basin Similar to Winamucca the economy is based largely on mining ranching and agriculture But mostly a focus on mining, specifically gold mining. Nevada has a lot of gold, and it seems that most of it is around Elko. The state of Nevada produces more gold than all but four countries, and most of the

gold mined in Nevada is mined around Elko. Because of that, the economy of the area is heavily dependent on the current price of gold. There are literally hundreds of abandoned mining camps in the area from mines that went bust or from the price of gold dropping. Also like Winnemucca, it's a big cowboy area. Elko has been home to the annual week-long National Cowboy Poetry Gathering since 1985. A festival celebrating not just poetry, but cowboy-themed music, gear, photography, films, food, and more. And again like Winamucca, there's a large Basque population. Every July since 1963 Elko has hosted the National Basque Festival.

Finally like Winamucca, the town has a long history of both illegal and legal sex work. There are a number of brothels still there today, including Dick Bird's favorite, the Desert Rose. And the Desert Rose will take us to the disappearance Dick was suspected in. Likely murder. The first few years Dick was in Elko. It didn't seem like Dick got into any trouble. He made good money. Lived in a little one-bedroom apartment by himself. Unit 12 of the Rabbit Brush Run Apartments on College Avenue. And yes there is a small college in Elko. Great Basin College, opened in 1967. Go big, hard, cheap! The Great Basin College might have the saddest website of any college. Just, period. Stop. Just might have the saddest website of any college. Definitely

have any college I've ever looked at. It looks like whoever designed Great Basin's college, or Great Basin College's website, ironically, never went to college. But I'm sure it's a fine school. Actually looking at some pictures, I'm not sure about that. I'm not even remotely sure about that. I doubt that. I am sure that it is a college. So that's cool. Anyway, Dick is working at the Gold Strike and he's living at the Rabbit Brush Run Apartments.

And he finally has a friend, another loner, Floyd Burch. Oh Floyd. Floyd grew up an hour away in Battle Mountain, another little mining town in I-80, nestled in between Winnemucca and Elko. It's never been incorporated, but it's been around since 1866 when copper ore was discovered nearby.

So many minerals in this area. My God, copper, gold, silver, all mined in the area over the years. Same high desert climate, geography, same heat and cold, same desolation. When you go to the Arts and Culture section, I'm not making this up on Battle Mountain's Wikipedia page. I like that it has a section for Arts and Culture,

and it literally just lists one small public library. That is the entirety of the town's culture. All of it. All of its art. 2001 Washington Post article called Battle Mountain the armpit of America. Essentially naming it America's shittiest town. Far from the only person who's poked fun of these towns. Floyd and Dick were quite the pair, I guess. Two oddballs that no one else, not even other lonely Northern Nevada miners, wanted anything to do with. But they got along with each other. For a time, at least. During their work week,

they bunked together at a work barracks at the mine. There were rumors they were romantically linked. Who knows? Maybe Dick figured out that Floyd's penis worked better as a butt plug than a hairbrush handle when he wanted to get off. Or maybe they didn't do anything like that. They both liked to go blow money at the Desert Rose frequently on their nights off. And some women working there were interviewed by police in 1983. Following the disappearance of a 22 year old girl who went by the stage name of Jasmine, real name April Beasley. And then at least one of these women was tracked down later by Joe Eschenbach

for his book and this is what she said. Venus, AKA Sarah Robbins. That's what she had to say about Dick Byrd. Dick was weird. Like really weird. And I'm saying that as someone that other people think is weird. I'm a freak baby. But Dick, he um, we called him Chester.

And not like Chester the Cheetah. Like Chester the molester. He had creepy eyes. Just real dead dark brown eyes. He was a skinny kind of tall guy with a neck like, who's that guy? Ichabod something? With a Big Adams apple? He was a skinny kind of tall guy with a neck like who's that guy? Ickabout something with a big Adam's apple And he had this funny little mustache real thin and funny haircut too like a bowl cut kind of it looked like he cut himself

And he wore these thick glasses with big black frames and t-shirts that always looked a bit too small It was like no one had ever showed him how to dress like he grew up alone Well, I mean, yeah, he kind of did grow up alone. Spent most of his childhood in a fucking shed room in Winamucca. Zer continued with her less than flattering description of Dick saying, this is absurd, she said, he smelled bad too. Like I know what cum smells like. And he smelled like cum.

He smelled like he jerked off all the time, which I bet he did. And he didn't shower enough. He smelled like pancake batter. M.B.O. Whenever any of us girls had sex with him, and I think we all did, he paid well. We made him shower first, if he wanted to actually have sex with us. But a lot of the time, he didn't want that. He had this real specific fantasy.

He wanted to pay for two girls. And he'd want to be in the room with just one at first. She'd pretend to be in the room with just one at first. She pretended to be asleep, my god, and then Dick would pretend to sneak in and he would start jerking off next to the bed and she had to keep her eyes closed and oh my god I almost forgot this is so I don't know what this is but he would but he would pay extra if he could have one of our hairbrushes and stick the handle of it in his ass. Man he's fucking he is locked in on this fantasy.

I mean, I guess if it works, it works, you know, different strokes for really different folks. Sarah then adds, and he only wanted the first girl to wake up and start yelling at him when he came on her. And that's when the second girl was supposed to come in with get this, a wooden spatula. And she was supposed to scream at him too. He actually had the manager Rick Tell us to quiet down a few times

Or we actually had the manager Rick tell us to quiet down a few times because this was all ruining the mood for other customers Yeah, I bet but the second girl she was supposed to come in and yell at him to take his pants off and he would pretend to not Like it and she would hit him with a spatula and she would keep yelling at him Like I said, it was real specific and I can't remember if she would take his pants off or if he would. But then she would put him over her lap and spank him with that spatula until he came again. The whole time yelling at him about how he was a disgusting little boy. He needed to stay away from his sister. Crazy, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that is fucking crazy, Sarah. That's, you know what? It's classic Dick Bird. That's old dick turd, Dick Bird was doing his thing. Uh, Sarah also talked to Ashenbaugh about how obsessed Dick became with April Beasley. She said, I think the only girl he ever, excuse me, the only girl he never asked to act out this fantasy with was April, who went by Jasmine to customers. April was a sweetheart. She also had, she was also like, excuse me, a magnet for all the freaks. She was real small, maybe just five foot and 80 or 85 pounds or so thin

frame, almost no tits. Wayfish, I guess I'd say she wore this pixie cut and she looked real young. Like if I saw her with no makeup wearing kids clothes, and you told me she was 12, I wouldn't have blinked. And when you look like that working in a place called, or like the desert rose, you're going to get some creeps. And we all knew that April was Dick's favorite. He had a different fantasy with her. He wanted her to pretend that she was his girlfriend. He wanted to lay in the bed with her and just chat about their days and pretend they had been together a long time.

And he'd have sex with her, kind of. She said that he would finish in seconds after being inside of her or sometimes before he even got inside of her, kind of. She said that he would finish in seconds after being inside of her or sometimes before he even got inside of her and that would make him angry. So angry it scared her. He'd hit himself. And at least a few times she was worried he was going to hit her. About a year before she disappeared, he started asking her if she would go on a real date

with him, like outside of the desert rose. That's just not how it works. He wanted her number, her home number, so he could call her and he got real mad when she wouldn't give it to him. And he'd stop coming around for a while. Or he'd come back but ignore her. And then one time he waited for her in the parking lot in his car. He drove this Chevy Citation hatchback. I only remember because we talk about how perfect it was for him. It was a terrible car. Really ugly but perfect for him. And one of the bouncers went off on him about how he needed to leave the parking lot. When April came out after work one night and got scared, the bouncer drove her home.

Jim, I think his name was and Dick followed Jim in April and Jim ended up chasing Dick off, like in his car. The next time Dick showed up to the club a week or two later, Jim was there. He talked to Patty, the owner, and they agreed to ban him for good. And Jim told him that, but he demanded to see Rose anyway, who he called Jasmine. And then Jim grabbed him to throw him out. Jim was a big guy. Dick tried to push him away. Then Jim hit him a few times, like punched him in the stomach and maybe even once in the face. And then Jim dragged him outside, threw him on the ground and kicked him a while and told him he'd kill him if he ever came back. That was the last we saw of Dick, but I think he did come back.

I think he waited a while, six or so months, and I think he followed April home and he grabbed her. Ugh. Also, that's so sad in addition to being creepy. It's like he truly had no idea how to form normal attachments, especially romantic. I'm surprised he ever figured out how to make some sort of platonic male friend attachment with Floyd Burch.

Wonder what his deal was, Floyd's deal was, that he would view dick as friend material. I would love it if Floyd liked to shove a comb or a beard brush up his ass. And also had a history of specifically jerking off in trees. What a thing to bond over. What? No way! You too? Oh, wow! Let's compare techniques. September 7th, 1983. Now 25-year-old Dick would be interrogated about April's disappearance. But he had an alibi. His buddy

Floyd Burch. She'd gone missing back in the night of August 20th, 1983. Floyd insisted, like Dick did, that the two of them on the night April went missing, which was a Saturday night, had gone out to a local bar, the Silver Dollar Club. And then after that, they walked to Dick's apartment where they both crashed and Floyd was too drunk to drive to his apartment which was a few miles away. Witnesses would put them at this bar until around 2 a.m. April finished work at the Desert Rose though at 3 a.m. She then it seems drove herself home. She also lived in an apartment complex one called the River View apartments her car will be found there in his normal parking spot locked

nothing taking from it April who lived with the roommate never made it home that night though something happened to her in between leaving the car and making it to her apartment less than 20 yards away also when dick when Dick went in for his next shift the following Tuesday, a few co-workers will remember seeing some scratches on his face. Damn! Dick Turd, I'll never get tired of saying that, definitely looking real guilty here so why wasn't he arrested? Well, for starters, there was no security cameras at the Riverview Apartments. This was 1983. And he was not interviewed by police for weeks. By then his scratches had healed.

They wouldn't think to ask co-workers if he had scratches and he had time to get his alibi right with Floyd. But the main reason was Dick was just sadly one of many many creeps who were obsessed with April. He wasn't the only guy apparently who had been banned from the desert rose in the past year alone for turning into a stalker. Police were focused on another guy as their main suspect Troy Peterson. Troy was a 40-something former regular of the Desert Rose who worked for a construction company in Elko. Somewhat new to town, he had moved to Elko the year before after finishing serving an

8-year prison term for attacking a woman he knew in Carson City, an exotic dancer he'd become obsessed with. So Troy seemed like a good candidate. And who knows, maybe Troy did do it. He was never arrested though and most people seemed to think it was Dick. Following being interviewed by police for April's disappearance, Dick keeps a real low profile for the next year or so. Goes to work, comes home, rarely goes out, and seems to have some sort of falling out

with Floyd. The two stop hanging out shortly after they are questioned by police, which is pretty suspicious. Then before the year is up, Floyd will quit his job at Gold Strike And take a new mining job back home in Battle Mountain and then sadly die a few years later in a tunnel collapse that killed five miners in 1988 and Dick is a lone wolf once more Starting sometime in 1985 dick starts hitting up some Elko brothels again. Just not the Desert Rose.

Instead, he's going to Mona's ranch. See what you did there, Mona. And also to Sue's Fantasy Club. Same old story, minus getting obsessed over any of the girls. He seems to have mostly wanted to run his come on one girl while she's asleep, then have another girl come punish him for that and come while she spanks him. Fantasy. Showbiz! He's like the new Albert

Fish minus the peanut butter. That's how they do it in Elko. Speaking of Fish, he did share another similarity with that guy. He liked to write a letter. This is one of my favorite parts of this. 1985 dick who does not really keep in touch with his sisters does still talk to his mom regularly on the phone and he tells her that he's engaged. And yeah, he kind of is. Technically, Richard found from the back of some random porn mag, I'm guessing. Did I imagine he was super into porn? He was super into porn. And anyway, you know the term mail order bride? Well, Dick found a phone number, or I guess address, for a mail order bride service in South Korea. He finds their contact information, gets a catalog sent to him, and he will through this catalog service meet Yun Hee Jong,

who now goes by Sonny Douglas here in America. Sonny was interviewed by Eshenbaf for his book and wow, what a story she had to tell. Sonny did not have an easy life. Born in 1965, she was getting up for adoption by her birth mother as a baby in Seoul. Mom was a teenager who she believes going with our theme today was a sex worker and her dad likely one of her clients. She ended up in a Korean orphanage. There was a massive amount of kids in South Korea up for adoption in the 1960s. The war had left a lot of orphans. Also left a lot of young women in desperate situations for money. Many of them turning to sex work, leading to more pregnancies and

more kids are put up for adoption. Yoon Hee never adopted. By the time she was 14 she was living on her own. She hustled cleaning houses for rich people working uh uh cleaning fish up or cleaning up at excuse me like at a fish market, working as a street vendor selling bracelets and other jewelry she made all sorts of stuff. And then when she was 16 she met a young Korean man who she fell in love with. They got married, but he is killed in a freak accident at work in a warehouse. Massive pallet of lumber dropped on him. Some people have no luck. Random deaths in this suck. This sent her into dire times again and feeling like her life in South Korea would always be one of misery. She really, you know, it started to become a beautiful young woman now and she was approached by an older woman who worked at an international agency

helping to arrange marriages between South Korean women and men in a variety of countries including the United States. She had pictures taken, put in a catalog and she will essentially be, I mean, kind of sold to a man overseas who agreed to marry her, a man who would pay a brokerage fee to the agency and also pay to fly the woman to his country. Sonia decided that she wanted to move to America. She taught herself English and how lucky are we? She saved some letters. The old dick turd wrote her. Here's one that was dated February 18th, 1985. Beautiful, Yunhee. I'm happy. You wrote me back. You're very beautiful. I like your long hair. I bet you smell very good.

To answer some questions you ask me. I work at a large mine. I'm a blast hole drill. It is a hard job. It is a dangerous job. But it is safe. Okay. I'm very good at it. I have promotionals. I think he meant promotions there. He, he, listen, he's not the most sophisticated letter writer. He continues. I have a nice apartment. I have more than $25,000 in savings. I'm not rich, but I'd be rich with you.

I never have had girlfriend. I am too shy, but I am too kind. I like movies. I like tacos and spaghetti. Do they have tacos and spaghetti in South Korea? I bet you make a good tacos and spaghetti. Did I mention Dick was never accused of being a genius? He wasn't. He continues. Do you like to pretend sleep?

Do you like to pretend someone's very beautiful older sister be asleep? Do you like to pretend that young brother come in to wake you up? Do you think sexy if a man stick hairbrush handle in his butthole and come on sister? Will you love Dick Turd? Will you masturbate and bed him with light on and window open and not laugh at Dick Turd who stand naked on tree branch like perverted mothman? Come raining down like falling leaves with sister hairbrush and butthole. He didn't write that He may have thought that stuff, but he didn't write that now. That's who goes too good for him. He wrote I

Will make a husband. I will honor you very beautiful you and he I would like babies with you very beautiful South Korean babies but also white I'm white. I would like to be your white husband. Sincerely, Dick Bird. I like that he wrote sincerely at the end. He meant it. He was sincere. Also, it's like he wrote a business letter, which I guess he kind of did. Not exactly the most romantic poetic love letter, you know, but Sunny was desperate to get out of sore at South Korea. She didn't realize how badly written this letter was because she was just starting to learn English herself and letters like these would lead to her moving to Nevada. She came to Nevada

even after she got the last few letters from Dick which were increasingly creepy. She ignored some red flags because again she was very desperate starting her life and was not that good with English yet. Check out the second to last letter. I guess it had written back and forth about 10 times now she said and now it's gotten sexual. This is from August 7th, 1985. Beautiful Yoonhee, I'm happy you agreed to marry me. We will have a beautiful life. I am very sexual.

I need release. Five or six times a day. I cannot wait to touch you with my mouth and for you to touch me. I will need you to spank me. Showbiz! That's how you now go. Here we go! Here's the weird shit. I like being spanked with spatula. Very hard. Do not worry. I will not spank you like this. I want to wake up you by releasing on you while you sleep. You're very beautiful. Just gotta hammer that home. I like your long hair. I bet you are very beautiful. I like your long hair.

I bet you smell very good. And I will make love more after release on you. I will also release in you. Jesus, only one month and I see you. We get married at courthouse, day after you get her. Probably here. I love you beautiful you and he. Ye stars to my son.

Sincerely, Dick Bird. You know, I do like he's remain sincere. He's a very sincere meat sack. He's completely fucking insane. Who says release like that? I'll also release in you. A serial killer. That's you.

How many of you ladies suckers are so moist right now? So turned on by that exceptional sexy dirty talk? Zero? None. Huh. Okay, that sounds right. Yoonhee, aka Sonny, arrives in Elko, Nevada September 9th, 1985 and Dick Bird picks her up at the airport. Crazily, there were no direct flights between Seoul, South Korea and Elko, Nevada. She had to fly first to Los Angeles, then to Salt Lake City, then to Elko. I'm sure she was exhausted and then incredibly disappointed when she saw the skinny, odd-looking chest of the molester fellow waiting for her, holding a large sign with her name on it,

the guy who, as Venus, aka Sarah Robbins from the Desert Rose would say, smelled like he jerked off all the time and didn't shower enough. Good God. Welcome to America! After convincing Dick that she wanted to wait until she was married to have sex for the first time sunny gets married to dick At the Elko County courthouse next day and then she will move out in less than a year She and dick will then come to a new arrangement He will pay for her apartment

But we'll say that she still lives with him on tax documents, etc She was so she can transition from a green card to citizenship. And why would Dick agree to do this? And why did she move out? Let's look at the second question first, then address the first one. Sunny said she moved out essentially because her hair brushes consistently smelled like literal shit and she kept getting pink eye. No, she said that she felt less like a wife and more like a living sex doll. Or like a sex worker with one John. A creepy, insatiable John.

Sunny said she wouldn't have even lasted nearly a year, but he was only home two to three days a week, some weeks, with his schedule at the Gold Strike. Some weeks he didn't come home at all. He was working overtime. Initially, their first few stretches of time together, Dick seemed to have tried to court her more traditionally. They went out to restaurants for dinner, he bought her flowers a few times, but then whenever they went to have sex, he either could not perform or he would prematurely ejaculate. In both instances, he would get furious, he would leave the room, Sunny would hear him grumbling to himself, she could hear him hitting himself with something, and then later she

would notice welts on his back and butt. So she's a bit disturbed, but at least he's not hurting her But then a month or so into them living together. He starts up with his fantasy You know the one by now pretend to be asleep let dick sneak into the room. Let him beat off on you Maybe with something in his butt maybe with a hairbrush It escalates little by little as these things do when someone is sexually obsessed with you know They're fetish and soon he wants her to spank him afterwards. And she somewhat reluctantly indulges him in this. But then, six or so months in, he brings up wanting to bring another woman into the bedroom

to escalate the fantasy and Sunny not having that. Dick gets frustrated. And one night when she turns down this offer again, he hits her, slaps her across the face, and then he rapes her. Holds her down as she tries to fight him off. He starts to strangle her. This turns him on immensely. He orgasms. He releases and then afterwards he demands that Sunny spank him hard. Afraid she does. He likes this a lot. Then after releasing again he acts like he did not just rape her. Like it was all just some role-playing. Just a

fantasy and they both had a great time They both enjoyed it Over the following months he attacked Sonny like this again and again and again And when she fights back one night and she hurts him she never went into detail as how she said he told her something Trying to scare her something that if the police were to find out would get him in a lot of trouble though Sonny will not wouldn't say what this was But it was enough for her to be able to broker this deal. She'd keep his secret, a secret. She now told some friends she'd made in town, who would tell the police if something happened to her. She'd get a job, work on her own. She'd pay most of her own bills, except for rent. For legal purposes, they would pretend that they were

so happily married and still living together until she had citizenship and could bounce. Then they will get divorced and she will leave the area and start a new life. Hail Nimrod! Hail Yoon Hee-Jong, aka Sonny Bird, aka Sonny Douglas. Author Joesjen Ba believes that the secret that Dick told her is related to the disappearance and almost certainly murder of April Beasley, aka Jasmine, that sex worker from the Desert Rose who disappeared back August 20th, 1983. From the fall of 1986 when this deal between Sonny and Dick was struck, until the spring of 1990, both Sonny and Dick will honor the deal. Sonny got work as a cocktail waitress, then later will work at various,

on various table games, excuse me, eventually becoming a croupier, fancy word for a craps dealer at Mavericks Casino. Then once she gets her citizenship, files for divorce from Dick, is granted divorce, moves to Las Vegas to work as a craps dealer down there. And how is Dick Turd handling all this? Great, actually, super pumped about it all. He started seeing a therapist

at Elko's premier mental health counseling center, Desert Skies and Clear Minds. And he came to understand that maybe his childhood wasn't like the best, that maybe he didn't have great male role models between his rapist grandpa, who probably molested his mom, and his manipulative abusive father, who beat his mom. He came to understand that maybe you shouldn't be so focused on such specific sexual fantasies to the point that dominate your life. He began to understand that he was really depressed and that was why he wasn't showering

enough, you know, and doing hygiene stuff. He began to have more respect for himself, to feel like he deserved more from his childhood than to have been banished to his shed room and been called dick turd by his peers. He called his sisters, made amends. He was more than a dick turd. He was Richard Henry Byrd, hard-working man who deserved a good partner and that partner deserved to be treated like she was more than a fuck doll. And he shouldn't choke anybody unless they asked for that. And you got to be careful with hairbrushes because they can really hurt your butthole. And he made amends with Sonny who agreed to help him transition to a healthier sexual and overall life perspective by letting him occasionally find release on a tree branch, you know, a couple times a month outside her apartment while she stood in front of a window naked with the curtains open and she even

Gave him her favorite hairbrush to stick up his ass. I get the fuck out here. No, no dick grew angry He soon started heading back to town's brothels Not the desert rose but others and according to interviews with some of the women he visited later into bartenders at some of these Town's gentlemen clubs as well He complained a lot about how his wife ruins his life, about how his own mother made him stay out in the shed growing up. Basically about how he'd never been treated well by any woman in his life, not ever. Not even his own sisters would talk to him.

You know, he of course never mentioned his role in all this. Also got rougher with the women to the point he would eventually be banned by all the brothels in town and the strip clubs as well. In the summer of 1990, Dick is angrier than ever. Sonny has just left for Las Vegas. He doesn't know where in Las Vegas she's living, but he knows that she's moved there and is working in a casino somewhere. He'll later say that now he has a new sexual fantasy. He thinks about raping and choking her to death, focuses all of his hate on her. This fantasy becomes so intense that he quits his job at the Gold Strike, moves down to

Las Vegas in August to try and find her with murder on his mind. Oh, before he left, there had also been new police reports of a man spotted masturbating outside women's homes in Elko in 1988, 89, and 90. There were no more reports of this after he left town. In the fall of 1990, Dick Turd, now 36 years old, moves into the Anchor Village apartments, not far off of the intersection of Durango and Sahara. Dude had enough money to buy a house. He later would say he saved up a lot of money before leaving, over 100 grand.

But I don't think Dick thought about practical things like that. He wasn't thinking about building equity and retirement planning. He's probably thinking about how he had plenty of room in a one bedroom apartment to stick a hairbrush up his butt, jerk off the thoughts of coming on his sister or choking his ex-wife. Yeah, this'll do. This'll do just fine. I picture him walking in when he's touring it and just kind of like putting his arms out and just be like, okay, maybe like pantomime-y, kind of jerking off, putting something in his... Okay, yeah, no, let me check the angles. No, this'll do.

This'll be fine. This'll be great. Start looking for Sonny gets a job at a snack and beverage distribution center called ice production Working in a warehouse where they store the large amounts or large amounts of Pepsi products Frito lay chips that kind of stuff Before these items would be shipped off to area stores Basically ran a forklift and helped take big pallets full of boxes of goods from big rigs into the warehouse Stacking them in the right places for pickup, unstacking them for transport, etc. And he'll work there for 11 years. All the way up into his eventual arrest for multiple murders. Eshambal will interview one of his former shift managers, Lloyd McCall. And McCall said, I was surprised when Dick got arrested, but not shocked. Odd guy.

Good worker, but an odd guy. Buddy never called in sick, or showed up late. Some guys burn out in a job like Dick had after a few years to get tired of the monotony of it all, or frustrated that there isn't a lot of room for advancement. But not Dick. He never asked for a promotion or a new assignment. He seemed perfectly content to show up, do his job, and get a paycheck. Honestly, I wish I had more guys like Dick. I mean, not the killing women part, but the not complaining about his job and doing his job well part.

Never saw the other side of him. Probably because the crew here when he was around was all men. And Dick was quiet, real quiet. Only thing close to a problem I had with him was his hygiene. We secretly took to calling him Pancake Batter. That's what he smelled like, pancake batter. And B.O. But he never really had to work up close and personal with anyone. He was usually in a forklift, so I didn't ever feel the need to address it with him. Fuckin' dick pancake batter turd. What a guy. Most of his neighbors at the Anchor Village Apartments won't have much to say about him, other than Jackson Pugh, who lived in the same apartment unit corridor as Dick, for

most of the time Dick lived there, is upstairs and across from him. And Jackson would say, this guy's character. Dude was greasy fucking creep. Hella creepy. When I heard about what he's arrested for and then read about it in the paper I literally said I fucking knew that dude was fucked up like I literally said that. He was hella weird. Never brought friends over. Stinky, stinky fucking loser. Probably had none. I hated that guy. One time I was hooking up with this fly girl, people say that, who came over wearing a skirt and

that dude straight up got up between her legs as she walked up the stairs in front of me. And I caught him staring. And I called his ass out. I was like, yo, fuck you doing, creep? Why are you staring at my girl's skirt and shit? And I started, you know, walking back down the stairs to confront him. And homeboy straight scurried back into his apartment. Like the fucking cockroach he was.

Dude, literally scurried. Hella scurried. Which I could have caught that dude myself and gone like full judge, jury, and executioner on that motherfucker. You know what I'm saying? I do, Jackson. We all know what you're saying. I hella know. We all hella know what you're saying. Within about six months of moving to Las Vegas, Jackson's murder spree begins. The following victims I'll mention are all women he will confess to killing or otherwise harming. On the morning of March 13th, 1991, the dead body

of 23 year old Alicia Mitchell is found on the Las Vegas strip laying under some thrown-out construction material on the lot where the Luxor Casino will open two years later. She'd been raped and strangled, semen was found in her hair. Alicia had moved to Las Vegas from Omaha, Nebraska as a teenager in 1984 after running away from home. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, March 3rd, 1968, her mother Loretta said she wanted to be a singer. She was in the Glee Club when she started high school, had been in the choir and church, used to sing around the house a lot. Mom said that she had the most beautiful voice you've ever heard. Her favorite singers were Bonnie Tyler and Joan Jett. Good taste. She, according to her mom, fell in with the wrong crowd

in high school, started using meth. After getting in trouble at home and at school for being threatened with being sent to boarding school, she ran off, made it to Las Vegas, where she fell into an even worse crowd, found this shitty boyfriend who was really a pimp who pushed her into sex work. She turned 18 a year and a half after moving to Vegas, ending her parents' chance of having her found by police and apprehended and sent back home. She never returned home. She cut off all ties with her family. And between 1984 and 1991, the year of her death, she was bouncing around between sex

work, working as an exotic dancer, briefly holding a few jobs as a hostess at a few places, cocktail waitress at some others before she ran into Dick Byrd. Dick will later say that he picked up Alicia outside the Flamingo in a 1986 Chevy Suburban he was driving, where he had the seats taken out of the back, windows tinted, and a mattress added to the back. He called it his love mobile. Not sure who he said that to since he didn't really have any friends, but that's what he said he called it. Let's call it the the turd mobile instead. Dick turds turd mobile. Anyway, Dick picked up Alicia in his turd

mobile after agreeing on a price, and then he drove her to a parking lot of a grocery store not far from the strip that had been closed down, was about to be demolished. they drove behind the former store got out went into the back Alicia laid down pretended to be asleep but she said he could not choke her as he had asked frustrated by her denying him he had trouble getting erect so then he put his hand on her throat according to Dick applied just a little bit of pressure not really choke he said he did not intend to harm her but she freaked out like this is her fault and she started screaming and now he just tried to get her to quiet down

You know be calm and he panicked and he started choking her to try to get her to be quiet And this turned him on a lot until he kept choking her He penetrated her as she fought back then released inside of her and by the time he had orgasmed He said she was dead So now he leaves her body in the mattress in the backmed he said she was dead. So now he leaves her body in the mattress in the back, drives around looking for a spot to dump her body. That leads him to the construction site where the Luxor will be built. Places her body in a pile of garbage from the job site, gets turned on

again as he does so. So now he chokes her already dead body as he masturbates above her and that is how he got ejaculate onto her hair. He said that he returned home after that, proceeded to masturbate numerous times that same night, reliving this fantasy. And now he craves doing this again. So while he, you know, said he didn't set out to kill anyone when he headed out looking for sex on the night of March 12th, 1991, he will be heading out with murder on his mind following this. I'm sure Sonny is on his mind. And before he can speak in a Sonny, he does find his ex-wife in Vegas. June 3rd, 1991. Dick's walk, Dick walks into the Fitzgerald's Hotel and Casino downtown Vegas on Fremont Street where the D sits today. It was the middle of the day. Dick had the

day off and on his way to grab some cheap buffet meal he was apparently fond of, he finally spots her, his ex-wife Sonny. She was there dealing craps. He'd already looked for her at all the casinos on the strip multiple times on various days and nights and at all the downtown casinos as well. This was the second or third time looking at Fitzgerald's. He assumed she worked nights, but there's more money in that, but she had taken the morning and afternoon shifts because you know She was new and didn't have the seniority to get the better shifts He approached her and when she saw him he said she went pale

He thought she was going to talk to the pit boss and have him removed But she did not say anything to any co-workers and so he bought some chips and that motherfucker started playing at her craps table She later said that when he first approached there was another player there and he made small talk you know how have you been how do you like Vegas where are you staying that sort of thing like they're like they're close. She kept her answers terse but professional she kept smiling to not make a scene and avoided sharing any information with him but then it was real quiet as you see now when the other player left the table and it was just Dick and Sonny she quietly said to him

Dick you need to leave and never come back I have a new boyfriend now a very protective boyfriend And if you ever come back here, he might be waiting for you and he will hurt you. Fuck. Yeah, bro Dick now leaves in a huff Calls her a bitch tells her he would just be nice didn't want to see her anyway He would hurt her boyfriend, you know, cuz he's so tough blah blah blah and Then he leaves she hopes he never comes back, but he does come back. The next week at the same time, Sonny, thinking if he did came back, he might just do that,

you know, with his whatever work schedule. She did tell her boyfriend who did show up to play some slot machines with an eyesight of her table. This is so great. And her boyfriend's a big dude, I guess, and a former Golden Gloves boxer. She didn't ever reveal his name to author Eshenbaugh, but she said that she told her pit boss about Dick this time when he showed up, and that, you know, management then asked Dick to leave the premises. When he's escorted out, her boyfriend follows. Follows him all the way to his suburb in his turd mobile in the parking lot, and when Dick opens the door, this guy runs up and punches him in the fucking neck.

Hail Nimrod! Then slams the door on Dick a few times, this guy runs up and punches him in the fucking neck. Hail Nimrod! Then slams the door on Dick a few times, steals his driver's license. This dude did not play. He makes it clear to Dick that now he knows where he lives and what car he drives, and that he'll be real easy to find, and that if he ever, ever shows up to the Fitzgerald again or if Sonny ever even fucking sees him again anywhere in town, he will pay Dick another visit and this time he will beat him to death. Then he kicks Dick in the ribs a few times,

leaves him there to bleed a bit before Dick gets to do his turdmobile and drives off. I love this guy so much. Whatever your name is, if you somehow heard this podcast, you have a huge fan here. I have never done anything as cool as what you did to Dick Turd in Vegas on behalf of Sonny. I have never done anything as cool as what you did to Dick Turd in Vegas on behalf of Sonny. Sonny doesn't mention this guy as her husband when she gets married later and changes her name to Sonny Douglas. So, you know, not sure that they stay together, but maybe she just protecting his identity. Dick now emasculated and angrier at Sonny than ever and thus anger at women in general will be more brutal going forward. December 4th, 1991. The dead body of 20 year old Hannah Curtis is found in a vacant patch of undeveloped land about a mile from the strip. She had been, like Alicia Mitchell before her, raped and strangled. Seeming again, found on her body, on her shirt this time, chest.

She'd also been hit in the face several times. Perpetrator had left her badly battered. Hannah was from Bakersfield, born there on April 17th, 1971, Bakersfield, California. She'd only been in Las Vegas for about six months. She had moved out with a boyfriend, gotten addicted to fucking crack, was dumped by her boyfriend a few months later, and soon resorted to sex work to pay for her addiction. And then Dick found her. He said that like with the previous victim. He picked her up on the strip in his turdmobile after she agreed to terms. Then he drove her to a secluded spot behind a casino parking structure he had scouted

out beforehand. Then just like with Alicia, he had her get into the back with him, lie on the mattress, pretend to sleep while he started to masturbate. Except this time once he got going, out of nowhere, he starts hitting her in the face. Then he starts to strangle her. He alternates between punching, strangling, releasing his hands from her throat to draw all this out, make it last longer, and again, rapes her in the midst of this, releasing inside of her, then drives her body to that vacant lot where her body will be found the next morning after a police helicopter spots it. And after dumping her out of the ground, he again simulates choking her while masturbating

and ejaculating, releasing onto her shirt and chest. And then again, he returns home, masturbates several times the same night, reliving this fantasy over and over. Following spring, Dick Turd almost gets caught shortly after killing a third young woman in Las Vegas. The dead body of Tiana Baker, 19, found lying alongside the dirt of a, or lying alongside, along the side of a dirt road. That's how you say it. In the Clark County Wetlands Park just outside of Las Vegas.

Her body is found before Dick even leaves the scene. Let me back up a bit before we get to that. Chana was a Las Vegas native born January 12th 1973. She had graduated from Bonanza High School the previous spring in 91 and she had started attending classes at UNLV that fall. But then her life went off the rails. She got into a bad car accident, got addicted to opiates, really addicted. And when a prescription ran out, she found someone to buy opiates off of illegally, got way more addicted, didn't have money to keep paying for it. And just a few weeks before she died, she had started skipping classes to throw on a

wig and an outfit, like a costume of sorts to turn tricks on the strip. Her family and friends were shocked when her body was identified. No one who knew her seemed to know she had turned to sex work. Family and some friends knew she was struggling with addiction. She was even set to check into a treatment facility as soon as spring classes were over. They just didn't know quite how bad she was addicted. Had Dick not found her she might have started to turn her life around and get back on track just a few weeks later. Same as the first two victims, she's strangled, she's raped, and like the previous victims,

she had been battered. Dick will later say he picked her up in front of Caesar's Palace in that nasty ass suburban of his. Then he drove her to the same secluded spot behind a casino parking structure he had scouted out before his last murder. And that's when he repeated his M.O. He had Tiana pretend to be asleep while he masturbated, hit her out of nowhere, strangled her, alternated back and forth, you know, between strangling and hitting while he raped her and

released inside of her before driving her, this time to the Clark County Wellands Park. He dumped her body on the side of one of the roads in the park, simulated strangling her again while he finished onto her face and hair, then literally as he is zipping up his pants, he sees headlights. A park ranger doing routine patrols was headed his way. That greasy-faced fucker jumps into his suburban turdmobile and races off. And the park ranger, Officer Mason Schaeffer, pursues him while he calls the police. Schaeffer was able to see a white male get into the suburban. He was able to see that he was driving a suburban, but not able to make out the license plate number. Dick

was able to get out of the park before the cops showed up. And then he drives all the way to Elko that night, 420 miles over six hours. He was fucking panicking. He drove all through the night, called in sick to work the next morning, took his Suburban to a car wash, cleaned the shit out of it, threw the mattress that was in the back into a dumpster, and then traded in his Suburban for a 1985 Chevy Astro van. Turdmobile 2.0. Thought about quitting his job, staying in Elko for a bit, then leaving the state. A state that now a 34 year old man has literally never left by the way but he doesn't as scared as he is of being caught he hopes that maybe whoever saw

him in the park did not get his license plate number so he drives back to Las Vegas that same day he does like living there and he'll go back to work the next day tired as hell and look like shit but since dick always looked like shit doesn't really stand out to anybody right doesn't talk to anyone anyway this dude's normal state is looking like he hasn't slept well or taking a shower in about a week and smelling like pancake batter. So no one recognizes that anything is up with him.

And then Dick will not kill again for over six years. Manages to keep his demons in for a real, real long time. So afraid he'll get caught. Which also shows, by the way, that he could manage his demons just fine if he wanted to, but he just didn't always want to. I bet nearly all of the serial killers we've covered so far, outside of the few who were like way mentally ill. Look at you Richard Chase, vampire of Sacramento, didn't have to do what they did. They could have suppressed their urges.

Just like someone very addicted to nicotine can quit smoking if they try hard enough. Might be real real painful, might be the hardest thing they've ever done in their lives. But they can do it if they want it bad enough. Well killers like Dick Byrd can control their own murderous addictions. Early into Dick's murder hiatus, likely his third murder hiatus, actually if you think that he killed 14 year old Tina Huffman in Winamucca in 1973 when he was 15. He also killed 22-year-old April Beasley in 1983 when he was 25, which I do think. Like a lot of serial killers, Dick took some cooling off periods. And all of them, typical of serial killers, came after he nearly got caught. Anyway, early into this murder hiatus, in the summer of 1992, before we go forward, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department homicide investigator Detective Andy Bowen.

He felt strongly that the murders of Tiana Baker Alicia Mitchell and Hannah Curtis were all related All three women were roughly the same age between 19 and 20 all three were very small None of them taller than 5'3 all looked very young very petite all three sex workers picked up on the Vegas strip That all been dumped unburied in a different location than where they'd been killed. That all been strangled, raped. The second girl also battered about the face. Third girl battered worse than the second. An escalation of violence not uncommon at all with serial killers. Someone likely their killer had also ejaculated both inside and onto the victims.

They'd left a lot of semen at the crime scene. So much DNA evidence. There was the problem that the semen could have also belonged to previous clients. Detective Bowen knew it would be almost impossible to get a task force assembled, you know, at this point because of the victim's profession. Unfortunately, a lot of sex workers encounter violent sex with clients. Too many do go missing or end up dead. But still in his gut, he thinks Las Vegas has a new serial killer. He talked to some working girls on the strip he was familiar with, asked them if they'd had any problems with a white man

driving a blue two-tone suburban recently. And a few did. They didn't know his plate number but one of them thought his name was Dick. They said he had a mattress in the back. Couples said that they turned him down because he just felt off. Also, he smelled. Smelled like B.O. Something else funky. One girl said he actually literally smelled like cum. So, you know, multiple people recognizing this. This is fucking ridiculous. Another said he wore thick black frame glasses.

Another one, and this really made Bowen think he did have a serial killer on his hands, said that she went on a date with him about 16 to 18 months earlier. That he had this fantasy where he wanted her to pretend to be asleep while he pretended to choke her and masturbate onto her. Bowen wondered, had this fantasy escalated significantly in the past year and a half? Had he grown more violent? But then the case goes cold. And before it picks up again, before, you know, Bird kills again, Bowen is shot in the

line of duty and retires from the force. Then after Bowen retires, Dick gets back after it. On the morning of October 16th, 1998, the body of 21-year-old Celia Gonzalez is found laying in the parking lot of the First Baptist Church on the corner of West Oakley Boulevard and Arville Street, a few miles from the Strip. Dick will confess later to picking her up the night before on the Strip in front of the Mirage Hotel and Casino. Born in Albuquerque, June 11, 1977, Celia had been working the strip off and on for about a year. She was not addicted to anything, just got wrapped up with a real, real bad guy and made some terrible choices. Her boyfriend, 33-year-old Orlando Wheeler, also from Albuquerque, was a hustler who had been

incarcerated off and on since he was 14, mostly burglary and stealing cars. He was addicted to cocaine and that seemed to be the reason behind most of his criminal choices. While her parents gave no interviews to Eshenba or anyone else, Celia's friends will say that she had grown up in a very religious household, been very sheltered. And then when she met Orlando, he was exciting. He made her feel special. He also took her virginity and eventually isolated her from her family and friends by moving to Vegas with her where he pressured her into sex work eventually so she could help take care of him until he kicked his addiction.

He started abusing her. Down down down she went into a spiral of shame, embarrassment, confusion, and mistreatment. She lost her way. And then she met Dick and never got the chance to find it again. After Dick picked her up, it was the same old story. Drive to a secluded spot. Run the same fantasy. He battered her face.

Raped. Strangled her. Then he ejaculated onto her body in that church parking lot. This time he just used his van, Turdmobile 2.0, that now also has a bed in the back just like that old suburban did. March 21, 1999. He strikes again. He picks up a girl whose body has still not been identified. She was likely between 16 and 25 years old, same you

know like 5'1", 95 pounds, picked her up in front of the MGM Grand, did all the same terrible shit. And then he left her body next to a dumpster in the parking lot of Jesse Ray's Barbecue off of West Dewey Road, again within a few miles of the strip. Her body was found by the manager of the barbecue joint coming in to open the next morning. August 1st, 1999, the dead body of 23-year-old Monique Alexander is now found laying under a tree in Burkholder Park in nearby Henderson. Henderson is just a suburb of Las Vegas. A mom taking her two young kids to play on the playground the next morning found the body.

Man, a day those kids might forget if they were young enough, but mom never will. Monique, born in Oakland, July 22, 1976, had been working the strip off and on for about five years. She, unlike previous victims, left two young children behind. A three-year-old son, Curtis, and a one-year-old daughter, Brianna. Her friend, Valerie Chavez, will later say, Monique was troubled, but she wasn't a bad person. When she wasn't struggling, she was the best mom. She adored those kids. She just had her demons,

and when they got the best of her, we wouldn't hear from her for a few days, or a few weeks, or sometimes longer. Seems that Monique, who originally worked as a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines when she moved from Oakland to Las Vegas, got addicted to opiates. She'd seem to do better for a while. She'd get a regular job. She worked as a waitress at a steakhouse for a little bit, as a cocktail waitress at the Flamingo for a while, but then she would relapse, lose her job, disappear, often end up turning tricks for quick cash down in the strip.

And on the night of July 31, 1999, she turned turned her last trick when, when amuck is worst, Dick Turd picked her up. Same as before, just a bit more violent. She'd been battered about the face and strangled. The killer had ejaculated both inside of her and onto her neck and chest. And this time she'd been left out completely naked. Previous crimes were at least partially closed or previous victims, excuse me. Also her left breast had been bitten near the nipple hard enough to break the skin.

Fucking turd. Why couldn't his piece of shit dad have just beat him to death in his shed room back in Winnemucca before the mafia got him? Winnemucca mafia. Those two words still don't feel right being said together. The body of the next victim will not be found until December 30th, 2000. Gann left in a park, Baker Park, less than a mile from the strip. Not sure why Dick took over a year off. He never said. This time, he killed 18-year-old Tiffany Davenport. She'd only made it to Las Vegas a few months earlier.

She was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. Born there March 19th, 1982. After graduating high school, where she got great grades, her parents wanted her to go to college in Wisconsin, but she wanted to work as a performer in a show like Cirque du Soleil She was a solid gymnast. She was a great dancer, but she had no idea how to create a career for herself in the live performing arts So she just went for it, but then her dream turned into a nightmare She got a place with the roommates, but then her roommate bailed out for just a month She got a job as a production assistant for a show at the Mirage but it paid almost nothing and she soon ran out of cash,

the cash that she'd saved up. She was too proud to ask her parents for money, ended up meeting another girl who sometimes did sex work. That girl talked her into trying it when her money got so tight she was about to be kicked out of her apartment. The night of December 29th would be the first so sad, first and last night she would ever work as a sex worker. Very possible the dick bird was her only client. Same as before but more violent. She'd been batted about the face and strangled the killer had ejaculated both inside onto her hair. Again she'd been left out completely naked. Her right breast this time had been bit hard enough to be missing a

small piece of flesh. And now while it managed to not be leaked to the press, a serial killer task force is formed, composed of Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department homicide detectives. They're calling the killer the Strip Strangler. The press will later, when Dick is caught, change the moniker slightly to the Las Vegas Strip Strangler. Task force is led by Detective Tony Horton. Tony, he used to work with a recently retired guy named Detective Andy Bowen. Remember him? Tony remembered that Andy had worked on solving three murders of young sex workers back in the early 90s that he thought were the work of a serial killer. So he calls Andy up

and after the two compare notes they are both certain that whoever killed those three girls back in 1991 and 1992 is the same guy who started killing girls again in late 1998. However, when Detective Horton and the members of the task force start talking to girls on the strip and asking about a creepy white guy driving a suburban, nothing comes up. Right? Damn it! Because he doesn't have that anymore. June 8, 2001. Dick runs into his ex-wife Sonny at an Albertson's grocery store less than two miles from his apartment. Excuse me, when they saw each other, I love this so much. He turned around so fast he literally fell down. Sonny even said it was a whole

scene. He slipped when he turned, grabbed for a shelf to stop his fall, pulled a shelf loose, bunch of cans of vegetables. Fall on him. Then when he tries to get up too fast, he falls again. Lands flat on his back. Then he gets up and runs out of the store. Clearly he was very, very worried about being beaten to death by her boyfriend and I love it. That's the only thing that happened that day. I just thought you'd like to hear that. That was the last time she'll ever see him. The following month, July 10th, 2001, another dead body turns up. The victim is the youngest yet. A 16-year-old ran away from Dallas, Texas.

Damn it. Natalie Gaines. She'd only made it to Las Vegas two weeks earlier. She had run away from home just three weeks prior. It's not known what led to her working the strip. No one else interviewed by a detective seemed to know much of anything about her. Natalie had been struggling with mental illness. She had been diagnosed as being bipolar six months prior to leaving Dallas. Also been

sexually assaulted by a male relative, a cousin when she was 13. She was having a lot of problems at home and at school, acting out, hyper-sexualized. When her body was found, it was determined she was eight weeks pregnant. Father was never identified. Her sad struggles led her to Las Vegas, to the strip, and to piece of shit Dick Turd. Dick picked her up in his van, not far from Circus Circus, took her to Baker Park, reliving the thrill of desecrating the corpse of his last victim perhaps. And there he strangles her, batters her face, and savagely bites both her breasts, numerous

lacerations. And then he dumps her body at almost exactly the same spot where he'd left Tiffany Davenport ejaculating on it again per his MO. And this was the first time he attacked a victim and left the body at the same location. And it will also be the last time he does that. Day after, the September 11th, 2001 terror attacks, four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by Al Qaeda against the United States that resulted in the deaths of 2,997 victims and 19 al-Qaeda terrorists died when passenger planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the Twin Towers, the World Trade Center in New York City, two of the world's five tallest buildings at that time. Another plane hit the Pentagon and a fourth plane, United Flight 93,

only did not crash into the White House or US Capitol building thanks to some brave passengers on board fighting the terrorists. The day after that when the whole world is captivated by that tragedy wondering if more attacks are imminent and curious how the US will respond Dick Bird is back on the Vegas Strip and 21 year old Emmy Martinez is climbing into his fucking rape and murder turdmobile 2.0 van. Dick drives to a secluded area of Sunset Park, massive county park on the other side of the airport from the Vegas strip. And now this 43, almost 44 year old man tries to get off on the

twisted sexual fantasy he has been stuck on some version of since 1972 when he was 14 and jerking off onto his sleeping older sister, Peggy Sue. 30 years, he's been focused on reliving some twisted and sessuous fantasy. And this time, fucking finally, it backfires. Amy was in a dark place in her life when Dick picked her up. She was desperate for money, but she is not strung out. She hadn't fucked with opiates in almost a month.

She made a deal with herself. If she could stay clean for a month, she'll take the money, she may do in sex work that she now was not spending on drugs, and she will give herself a fresh start. She'll leave Vegas, maybe go live with family in Phoenix, and start over. She'd been living on the street off and on since she'd run away from home back in Oxnard, California where she grew up when she was 17. Before she ran away, Emmy had taken Krav Maga,

mixed martial arts classes for six years. She had a black belt before her life spiraled. And now in the back of Dick's van that training comes in real handy. She was shocked how much of it she still had committed to muscle memory. So when Dick told her to pretend to be asleep, she didn't completely close her eyes. Something fell off about this guy. And when he went to punch her, she moved her head just enough for it to be a glancing blow and the small but mighty five foot two hundred and five pound woman threw her knee into dick turds as

nuts jackpot uh and then when he tries to push past the pain in his groin and grab and grab her neck to strangle her she punches him in the throat twice he lets go now she uses a hip thrust to flip him over get on top of him right she takes the mount position, rains down hammer fists and elbows onto the soft tissue of his face and throat. Go, Emmy, go! She's also screaming the entire time she's doing this to attract attention. And then to make sure that he is incapacitated. She scoots back out of the van, grabs his fucking foot,

pulls him out of the van as well. He hits his head on the ground when he falls out, and then she stomps on his dick in nuts. Hail Emmy Martinez. Hail, Lucifino. She's still yelling for help while she continues with her offense is the best defense Krav Maga attack. And then this time another park ranger Nora Collins shows up in time to catch this fucker. And about an hour later when Emmy is interviewed by LVMPD officer Martin Horn and shares details of the kind of fantasy Dick wanted her to carry out. The whole pretending to be asleep while he jerks off, how he tried to hit and strangle

her. Officer Horn thinks of the task force's report on the strip strangler and pretty soon task force leader, homicide detective Andy Bowen is called in. And after talking to Emmy, Bowen decides to talk to Dick Byrd the following morning. He wants him to stew in jail a bit. He's already been charged with assault, solicitation of prostitution, and attempted rape. Before he talks to him, the next day, he runs a search in the DMV, hoping to figure out what he drove in the early 90s.

Boom! Jackpot! Buck and Blue two-tone Chevy Suburban. Then after finding out he lived in Elko for over a decade, that he grew up in Winamucca, he places a few phone calls, finds out Dick was a suspect in the disappearance of a young woman in both places, and that he'd gotten booted from a number of brothels in Elko. Orm, with all that info, now he goes in to question Dick Burt. And Dick, who does not lawyer up, after trying to deny everything for about 10 old minutes,

he snaps, starts bitching about his mom, about his sisters, about his ex-wife, Sonny, how they all hated him, how everyone has always hated him for no good reason, how women are all men hating fucking scum. Detective Bowen plays into all this, acts sympathetic, and while Dick will never confess to the Elko or Winamucca murders, or disappearances, when Bowen explains how they have a lot of DNA evidence from all eight of the Las Vegas murders. And now if he goes to trial, he will certainly get the death penalty. But a confession could spare his life. He confesses.

The following month, October 15th, 2001, wheels of justice moving real fast in this case. I love it. Richard Henry Byrd is sentenced to eight life sentences with zero possibility of parole plus another 30 years for the attempted rape and murder of Amy Martinez. His arrest and sentencing does make the paper and local news in Las Vegas, but just barely. Because of the lack of a trial and again all this happening in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, his case is overshadowed by a lot of fear in Las Vegas about the city being

attacked. And there was fear all over the country. Operation Enduring Freedom, the US war in Afghanistan began October 7th with cruise missile strikes fired from warships targeting Taliban forces in al-Qaeda. Nearly all of the media's focus is on this. And Dick's story just never makes the rounds of the national media. What a wild story it is though. And there are two more brief entries in the final chapter of Dick's story. May 13th, 2005, 47 year old Dick Turd gets married.

Yep. To a complete lunatic. 30 year old Joanna Knox, a woman from another little Northern Nevada town, Wells, Nevada on the East side of the state. Also on I-80, just 1200 people, more depressing looking than Winamucca. As she felt kinship. Uh, then less than a year later, Dick Byrne will file for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. I guess he thought they were gonna be allowed to have conjugal visits, but when that wasn't gonna happen

He realized it was never gonna happen, which he should have known before marrying her. In his case He didn't see the point in being married. I mean, what's marriage if you can't choke your partner and cum on them while they're pretending to be asleep? What's marriage if you can't force yourself on them? Joanna was pretty upset by the whole deal. Yeah, I get it. That's a pretty big rejection to be dumped by a creepy serial killer who apparently smells like cum most of the time and will never get out of prison.

And so when Joe Eschenbach was putting together his book about all this, Las Vegas's Forgotten Serial Killer, she agreed to be interviewed and also hand over some letters that Richard wrote her when he still thought that they could have sex and here's my favorite letter sent on February 10th 2005 beautiful Joanna I'm horny for you you're all I think about I wish I could smell your nipples right now I bet bet they like roses. I think he meant I bet they smell like roses but who knows maybe he thought that her nipples specifically her nipples just like roses. You know just really enjoyed him. He continued I masturbate a lot here. Two sentences. I want to stay ready to

release on you in you in and on you. I like how he makes sure that she knows he doesn't, he doesn't just want to orgasm in her or on her. No, he wants both. He wants his cake and he wants to eat it too. He wants to make that real clear. Communication. It's so important in romantic relationships. And it continues.

It's been a long time since I had a woman spank my ass with wooden spatula. I've asked guards if you can bring a spatula in when you visit. They think it's not good. I guess maybe use your hand? Maybe put a hand in the shape of a spatula. We can pretend. It would be great if you could bring a hairbrush. I asked guards if you could give me hairbrush for sex or otherwise.

They laughed. I hate it here. If not possible, I happy to pretend your fingers hairbrush. That thought makes me release. At very least, I think he meant least, you can pretend to sleep and I massage your neck and release on you and then in you, on and in you. I look forward to romance. Sincerely Dick Bird. I like how he's still sincere. You know a lot of people probably lose their sincerity in prison. It gets kind of beaten out of him but he's he's held on

to it you know and he's offering to massage her neck now instead of strangle which seems you know nice. Also he seems very agreeable to being flexible about what they're gonna be able to pull off sexually. I mean, what a guy! Dick Turd! What a ladies man! Now, for one final entry in the book of this fucking horrible life. April 1st, 2007, exactly 17 years ago, the day this episode drops, Richard Henry Byrd dies at the age of 49 years old. He dies from peritonitis following a surgery to try and repair a ruptured colon. He paid to have someone smuggle him in a hairbrush. And well, you know what he did with it. He shoved it out of his ass. I mean, what

else a hairbrush is for? Hair? No, come on. But he shoved it too far. And officers found him an hour later when they were doing their rounds. He was butt-naked, laying on the floor of his cell, bleeding out of his ass, and he had released onto himself. He was taken in for emergency surgery, and while he would survive the surgery, a bacterial infection had set in and he would not survive that, and he died three days later. You know what? He died doing what he loved. Being creepy and shoving things up his ass, making sex unnecessarily painful. His body was cremated and his ashes were taken back to Winamucca and they were

spread over that tree in the yard of that neighbor that he used to peep on and stand on that branch and jerk off to. No, they weren't. I have no idea what was done with his remains. But I do know that that will take us out of this timeline. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. Before I share some final thoughts and all the rest here, time for one more very real... People have accused me of making up a lot of my sponsors. No! Never! This is another very, very real sponsor. Today's Time Suck is brought to you by Equity Hack, the makers of shed rooms.

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Uh, okay. You know, not the worst plan, I guess, really, if you're looking to save money, you'll get a shed room. But Dick Burt, I told you it was going to be a crazy story. Who would have guessed that if you put a sexually, you know, deviant kid out in the shed and leave him there for most of his childhood, you'll end up with a dangerous sexual predator.

Huh, weird. Also, some people know sexual fantasies. Fantasies are fun, right? There are safe ways to indulge yourself and even taboo fantasies through role play. But even then, maybe not a good call to be so singularly focused on such a very specific, complicated fantasy. Maybe a sexual fantasy shouldn't be what you build your entire life around. You know, again, have fun, but also have some balance.

So many unknowns with this story. What the fuck was Richard doing out in the shed when he was not beating off? Clearly wasn't reading a lot of books based on his writing skills. You know, what was he doing in his apartment in Elko or in his apartment in Las Vegas when he wasn't married, when he had no friends, when he wasn't at a brothel or picking up sex workers somewhere else? Was he just sitting in a recliner, Hair brushing his ass watching Jeopardy? Maybe watching Wheel of Fortune?

I can see him feeling drawn to Pat Sajak. Actually. But for real. What was he thinking about when he was not thinking about getting off in such a specific way? Also, how glad were his sisters to hear he was finally locked up for good? Man, there are some creepy creepy bastards out there. What other weird monsters

have been forgotten by history? Send in some recommendations for future episodes for about people as weird as this. Bojangles at timesuckpodcast.com. And now let's recap some of what we went over and learn something new that is going to blow your fucking mind about Richard Turd that I have not touched on so far. I've saved the best for last in the fifth takeaway. Craziest details about him yet if you can believe that. Time Shuck Top 5 Takeaways Number one, Dick was born and raised in Winnemucca, Nevada. What a unique place

that would be to grow up. Massive mines around the town, so much farming and ranching as well. Also a lot of strip clubs and brothels. You know it's like you know Winnemucca once it paved the streets still didn't get the message that the Wild West was not wild anymore. Number two, jerking off in a tree branch or on a tree branch with a hairbrush handle up your butt. Richard would admit to doing that after being captured many times. What a very strange thing that would be to see outside your bedroom window. Number 3. Brothels.

There might not be one currently in Winnemucco, but they still have them in Elko. You can still visit the Desert Rose and legally pay for sex work right here in America. If you do, please shower before you show up. Don't smell like pancake batter. And treat the ladies better than Dick Byrd did. Number four, Sonny Douglas aka Yoon Hee Jung. What a champion. I think I found her on Facebook.

Pretty sure it's her. She's crushing it. Living in a big house, big pool, still in Vegas it seems. She did it. She had to go through hell aka Richard Byrd to do it, but she built a new life for herself. So hail Sonny and hail Emmy Martinez who it appears now owns a Krav Maga studio in Scottsdale Arizona. Lucifina loves you both. Number five new info. Get ready for this truth bomb. This entire episode was bullshit.

There was no Vegas strip stranger named Dick Byrd. He never grew up in Winamucca. He never mined near Elko. Never lived in Las Vegas. None of his victims were real. None of his family. His one friend, his two wives, the officers mentioned. None of that was real. The places were real.

Information about the places was real. Real settings. Fake characters. I made up this entire story. Why would I do that? Over two hours. Why would I do that over two hours? Why would I do that? Because April fools you motherfuckers. This has got to be a classic April fools prank. Has this ever happened on a podcast before?

Big thanks to the many time suckers who wrote in the past few months suggesting that I do this. Took a little longer than I thought. Put this entire fake episode together. I hope it's worth it. Cannot wait for the emails I'm gonna get now. Did any of you feel like this was fake early in the episode? Did I drop any dead giveaways that the episode was bullshit? And look, if you made it this far and you're pissed, just think about how cool it is that none of those ladies were murdered. No one was actually abused this episode.

No one had to go open a shed because none of this happened. That's nice. Come on. What an emotional roller coaster you just went on. How fun. Also, think about all the people who did not make it this far, who stopped listening before we ended to this point. Thousands of people out there probably shut the podcast off early or just

weren't paying attention to this part. And now they're gonna be out there talking about Dick Bird, Las Vegas strip strangler, maybe for the rest of their lives. And they're gonna look like fucking idiots. You have to admit, pretty epic April Fool's episode. What maniac writes out a two-hour plus true crime episode that's entirely fabricated? This maniac! As an olive branch, I will be releasing another episode later this week. A real episode. This is just a little bonus. Just a little prank. I hope it was one you appreciated. All better now? Are we still friends? Okay, good. Time Shuck Top 5 Takeaways

Serial killer Richard Bird, the fake-ass not real does not exist. Las Vegas Strip Strangler has been sucked. And by sucked I mean made up. No updates today. I'll do those the next episode later this week. It would be too anticlimactic right now. Let's let's savor this. Thank you for listening and keep on sucking. Was the hairbrush in the ass too much? Or what about jerking off up on a tree branch while he had a hairbrush in his ass? Was that too much? Or what about jerking off up on a tree branch while he had a hairbrush in his ass? Was that too much? Were his letters too over the top? All that talk of release? Ah, I hope not. I hope you stayed to the end. Once again, April Fools, you beautiful bastards.