Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 502 - Help Me Before I Kill: The Chilling Story of Eddie Cole

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Most serial killers hide what they are. Eddie Cole did the opposite—he flat-out told people he wanted to rape and kill women, and begged for help before it was too late. Somehow, again and again, he was released back into the world. Today’s Timesuck dives into one of the most frustrating true crime cases imaginable: a killer who warned everyone… and still wasn’t stopped. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com  Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook 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/timesuckpodcast Wanna 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Carol Edward Cole always knew that something was wrong with him. Born in 1938, Carol, who would go by Eddie or Ed as an adult, quickly understood, even as a very young child, that something was really, really not right about the way his brain worked. Sometimes he thought that what was wrong with him was inherent to who he was, that it was something he must have been born with. When an older boy came into his bathroom, shut the door, and proceeded to teach him how to masturbate, for example,

Eddie thought the kid must have sense something about him, must have known that something was wrong with his masculinity. Other times, Eddie blamed his mother for his dark fantasies. Though she appeared to most strangers, like any other suburban Californian mother, raising a family in the middle of the 20th century, when her husband was drafted into World War II, Vesta Cole started stepping out on him,

dramatically. She didn't merely reunite with an old boyfriend, she didn't start having an affair with a neighbor, She started attending actual sex parties in nearby apartment buildings, and she brought along her son Eddie with her, only to punish him later for, well, no one really knows why. Vesta would also beat her son for other reasons or force him to wear his sister's dresses and then mock him, and she took great pleasure in frequently reminding Eddie and the family at large who was really in charge, her. and perhaps in large part thanks to her horrific influence, as Eddie's feelings about sex, masculinity, and power developed, so did his violent urges towards women.

But unlike so many other dirtbags we have covered here before, Eddie would actually try to get help for these urges over and over and over again. Eddie told all sorts of people, people like guards at jails where he was imprisoned on minor charges, police officers who just happened to run into him on the street, that he had violent fantasies about women, that he wanted to strangle them, to kill them, to rape them,

and that he wanted help so he could get rid of these thoughts. And then often try and get him that help. He'd spend a lot of time and a lot of different psychiatric facilities talking to a lot of different doctors. But he wouldn't be fully honest with them about where his violent fantasies came from,

and they'd never really be able to get to the bottom of it and get him the help he needed. He also tried drinking these fantasies away or fill in his days with shit like gambling, hoping that the right combination of alcohol, distractions, and exhaustion would eventually make the image of his hands around a woman's throat just go away. But it didn't. Nothing did. And soon he acted on these fantasies with women he would meet in bars, women who flirted with him, thinking that they were on the same page about a night of fun.

Most of them were already in relationships, stepping out on their husbands or boyfriends, and Eddie thought they took pleasure and mocking the hardworking family-oriented men they had back at home. Many of them were also alcoholics. Their senses fuzzy by the time they walked out, their reaction times delayed when Eddie put his hands around their necks. In short, they were a lot like Eddie's mom Vesta, and he hated his mom. The dark, fascinating and oh-so-frustrating story of Eddie Cole, the guy who kept telling everyone that he was dangerous,

the guy who kept getting picked up by the police, but then put right back out on the streets on another true crime, serial killing edition of Times. suck. This is Michael McDonald, and you're listening to TimeSuck. You're listening to TimeSuck. Well, happy Monday. Welcome or welcome back to the cult of the curious.

I'm Dan Cummins, the Suckmaster, the Snortmaster, guy who has not done hard drugs in weeks, Dr. Rock Terrio, surgical assistant, and you are listening to TimeSuck. Hail Nimrod, Hail Lucifina, praise be to Good Boy Bojangles, and Glory B to Triple M. Hope you have recovered from last week. This week will be brutal, but not as brutal. Well, it'll be more brutal in a sense of more people dying, innocent people. But I didn't have the same amount of in-depth details to pull from regarding the crimes of Eddie as I did for the crimes last week. And I think after those painfully graphic Ant Hill Kid descriptions, maybe that's a good thing.

But also, if you came here for an intense story again, you will get one. So let's begin, shall we? We head back to the realm of serial killers today. not much info needed up top. This will all lay out nicely, or maybe nicely isn't the right word for it. This will all lay out horrifically in today's timeline, where we will meet Carol Eddie Cole, a serial killer whose extreme hatred for his extremely hateable mother, led him to kill five women that he was convicted for,

but possibly, if not probably many more, with estimates ranging from a dozen total women to around 35. And he also, if you believe Eddie, murdered a boy when he was just eight years old himself. Let's jump in. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-suck timeline. Cole's father, Laverne. Born on May 25th, 1900, raised in Fargo, North Dakota, near the Minnesota state line.

Don't hear a lot of guys named Carol. Also don't hear a lot of guys named Leverne. There's not much info about Leverne until he arrived in Sioux City, Iowa. There he met married a woman named Vesta. Also don't know a lot of Vestas. Vesta Odom, who had been born on September 4th, 1904, and two settled down to raise a family. Vesta was a shy, small-town girl when Laverne met her, especially nervous on her wedding night, not knowing exactly how to do the deed her new husband expected of her.

But they figured it out eventually. Funny how that works. I remember being nervous, too, for my first time. But then you're like, oh, this shape fits pretty gosh-dang well in that spot. And then your lizard brain takes over. And Lucifina puts a little thrust in your hips and you're off and running, or often fucking or often coming, hopefully. The couple's first child, Richard Keith, Dickie K, born in 1933, a daughter Nancy followed two years later. Then a third child and second son, Carol Edward, delivered in Sioux City, May 9, 1938.

Interestingly, Sioux City was just as big back then as it is now, like almost exactly the same. Population in the city, not the metro area, but the city proper back in 1940, a little over. over 82,000 people, and then back in 2020, the most recent census year, a little under 86,000. That is unusual consistency. In the spring of 1940, Laverne Cole gathered up his wife and four kids. They had another daughter, Patricia, 1939, and gathered up his assorted in-laws as well, and they all headed west. Their goal was to live in San Francisco, but they would end up settling for anywhere where the wartime manufacturing boom was creating jobs. Big business tycoon, Henry Kaiser, had five shipyards, big-ass shipyards running around the clock in northern California, and he was advertising for labor nationwide.

Help wanted, said the ads on billboards across the country and in daily papers. Male or female, young or old, experienced or inexperienced. Just basically like, we'll fucking take anyone. Get over here. Laverne took that offer seriously. Nicole and Odom gang soon touched down in Richmond, California, just across the bay from San Francisco, a little-known. north of Oakland, where the Kaiser Yard employed around 100,000 workers, turning out a new Liberty ship every 10 hours, seven days a week. Holy shit. A hundred thousand people all working in some

capacity on the same projects at the same site. A nickname California's war baby, Richmond would see its population grow nearly five-fold in a decade, with scores of new arrivals, crowding into cheap apartment houses that were huddled close around San Francisco suburbs, there were suburbs at that time, 60 factories. It's fucking crazy. It's population of 1940, 23,642. 10 years later, 1950, 99,545. Wild.

What a great market that would have been to be a general contractor in. Couldn't keep up with demand. For their part, the Coles did a little better than many. They found a small three-bedroom home on Fifth Street with a huge backyard, literally big enough for an entire baseball field. And there was another bonus area. Beneath the house, young Eddie found a private place with access from a crawl space underneath the porch, flattening cardboard boxes to pave and insulate a, quote, fort that ran the full length of the house from front to back.

Some Eddie's earliest memories would be of playing in this fort or wrestling his brother in that big-ass yard. Another early memory would come from December 25, 1940, Christmas Day, when a bunch of family members gathered at the clubhouse of a golf course Vesta's parents now managed, celebrating the holiday by dropping coins into the illegal slot machines that flanked the bar. But it was kind of a sad celebration because Eddie's dad had just been drafted into World War II. He'd managed to get Vesta pregnant before he left, and their daughter and fifth child, Linda, would be born the following year. By 1943 with her husband away and kids crowding the house, 39-year-old Vesta,

itching for a different kind of life, or at least something to take the edge off. She definitely knew how sex worked now, for sure. And minus the getting pregnant part, Mama liked it. Her pee was starving, and only some D would truly satisfy it. Feed me see-mo.

Feed me all night alone. That was from Little Shop of Horse. I feel like, what? Who's needing fed? One afternoon. Well, Eddie played with Toy Soul. in the garden, his mom called him inside. Reluctantly, he left his game and went inside the strangely silent house, normally full of kids. At this time, both Nancy and his brother, Richard

were off at school, Patricia and the baby at a neighbor's house. He found his mom waiting in the kitchen, and she told him, go get cleaned up, we're going visiting. And then she took him to a neighborhood of bleak apartments managed by the local housing authority. And at one building, they climbed the stairs to an upper floor apartment in front of the door, Vesta told Eddie not to tell anyone anything about what was going to happen next. And she knocked, a girl about Eddie's age, stark fucking naked and filthy, not concerning at all, answered the door, standing there until a man brushed her aside and invited Vesta in. Vesta immediately kissed him, and he took her in his arms, pressing their bodies together and squeezing her butt through her dress. Inside, there were

three more couples in the small apartment's living room, all in various states of fondling. Eddie turned just in time to see his mom disappear down the hallway. It's fucking crazy. A few moments later while exploring, he peered into a room saw a very, very old person in a wheelchair, and this shriveled, decrepit figure scared the shit out of him, and he screamed. Vesta soon reappeared, and instead of comforting him,

she just laughed at his tears. And then the little girl from before, who I guess had clothes on now, hopefully, then led Eddie outside to play, but a gathering group of neighborhood kids would tease him for having a girl's name. He still went by Carol then Shoving him, tripping him, kicking him, punching him, you know, just being shitty kids?

Aren't kids raised by shitty parents so much fucking fun? Shitty people creating more shitty people. Literally the worst thing humanity does collectively. If we could ever somehow, someday get the worst of us to just stop fucking. And the best of us to fuck more. Oh, what a time to be alive. It would be the dawn of a new age.

That's what I imagine the vibe of the entire earth would be. after one generation of just the best people fucking. Anyway, after a while, maybe an hour, maybe a couple of hours. Vesta came down only to yank Eddie out of the circle of kids he was playing with. Blame him for starting trouble. Somehow was his fault. He got him picked on while she was fucking some dude or multiple dudes upstairs, not watching him. Back at home, she slapped him repeatedly,

then bent him over her knee, pulled his pants down to whip him with the belt. He'd also be grounded for seven days, and she threw out his beloved toy soldiers. Eddie's dismay, outings exactly like this, would quickly become a repeating event, waiting at the apartment or near it while his mom fucks some random guy or guys then getting home and getting his bare-ass beat for, I don't know, being present for her infidelity or something, just because she didn't like him. A sick mixture of sex and violence here for little Eddie, right? Mom gets fucked, he gets his bare-ass beat by mom over the course of the same outing, essentially.

And it wasn't always just beatings vested dished out. sometimes it was humiliation. One humiliation involved forcing Eddie to wear one of his sister's dresses while his mom entertained other women from the neighborhood, introducing him as Mama's little girl. And then they would all laugh at him. Mama had a real mean girl's club going on, I guess. Birds of a feather, I suppose.

Vesta allegedly enjoyed fucking with Eddie so much that in the fall of 1944, when he was six, she decided to keep him out of school for another year. He was just too much fun to have around. I can't let him go to school. Missed all this laughter and mockery? because of this, Eddie would start to spend more time in his cardboard fort beneath the house, hoping he could wait out his mother's rages until his dad came home from the war and got everything back to normal. By the spring of 1945, Eddie's father was back, and there was a huge party to celebrate his return,

but Eddie was terrified of spending any time around his mom, so he hid, and this would apparently be a disaster. Cole later recalled, Dad must have noticed me and made some comment to my mother, because she came around and told me that she needed help with something from the house. Drunk, Vesta stumbled into the house, dragging Eddie behind her. Then she began to twist and pinch his ears, berating him for acting sad. She also twisted his arm behind his shoulder hard enough to make him squeal, and nobody came to help him. This moment shattered Eddie's belief in his father's masculine authority.

His dad was back, and he wasn't going to do shit to protect his son. Of course, with LeVern back, Vesta could not. go as easily to various apartment buildings where she had these sex parties. That's how they're described in sources, sex parties, how did she find out where sex parties are being held? Why did I never get any sex party invites when I was single? How was she pulling that off in the 1940s, no less? So many questions. Eddie got to go to school now, that Eddie's problems would not get better at school. Now a year behind his classmates at Nystrom Elementary. I think it's Nystrom. Might be Nystrom, like it would be pronounced in Scandinavia. I look, but none of the

videos about their school ever say the name. Eddie was immediately a target here. Aside from the taunts about his girly carol name, a girl named Evelyn also called him Cabbage Head because I guess he had cabbage heavy lunches packed by his mom. And that nickname would stick with him until junior high. I mean, that is a pretty good nickname. I know it's messed up. But Cabbage Head does have a fun ring to it. In class, little Cabbage Head spoke when spoken to, paid attention to his lessons. His grades were satisfactory, but he was also easily distracted, something that would not help in his weekly catechism class at the local Catholic church near downtown Richmond. Their nuns love to slap idle students' hands with rulers.

Yet another example in Eddie's mind of abusive women, taking out their anger on defenseless targets. As Eddie grew older, the tension between him and Vesta did fade somewhat, but there was always an undercurrent of anxiety in the house. And soon he would have another source of anxiety to add to his overflowing mental bucket, sex. Started on a lazy afternoon at home when Eddie was only around eight years old. He went into the bathroom to relieve himself. But midway through, the door swung open to reveal one of his brother's friends.

Instead of backing out with an apology, the friend stepped inside and closed the door. And then this friend taught Eddie how to masturbate. Huh. What the fuck was wrong with that kid? Guessing he may have been molested himself to have been sexualized already. That is so fucking weird. I am so thankful I did not have a jerk off tutor. I feel grateful.

I'm 100% self-taught when it comes to jerking off. And you know what? I got to say, I don't feel like it's held me back. I think it's worked out. No lessons were actually needed. I've had a long, successful run now. I don't want to brag, but I feel like I'm pretty good at it. I can switch hit, right hand, left hand, job's still getting done. Lotion, no lotion, no problem. Jerking off for Eddie soon became a compulsive pastime, as it tends to be the case when you're young. And soon, little Eddie was jerking it in the bathroom, in the cave beneath his house, in the room. He shared with his brother Richard, and he was doing it quite a bit. and he was getting weird with it. He'd be sitting on his bed with the door wide open

and a clearer view of the family room beyond while he would beat it. Now, that's a no-go, Ed. Jerking off is a private affair, at least until you get older. And, you know, then if you want to engage in some consensual kink, you know, by all means, round up that circle jerk, right? But like this, no, don't be a sexual terrorist. Don't force other people to fucking see your hard dick.

Soon, girls would enter the sexual equations. Well, too soon, fucking way too soon. a couple of weeks after the bathroom incident, so he's still around eight years old. Eddie was playing with a female relative in the house alone, and on impulse, maybe urged on by all that jerkin, he suggested that they play doctor.

And he persuaded her to remove her panties, then he fondled her, probing her with his fingers, and then he attempted penetration. But he's still a little kid, and thankfully this did not work. I'm actually curious how he was able to even jerk off at eight. I don't think I was even fucking close to being having boners at that age.

but I guess everyone develops differently. Now he starts to feel a shame, though, that he couldn't get a proper erection at eight years old. He's convinced that something's wrong with him. No, dude, nothing was wrong. You were just way too young. That idea, though, that he was lacking would be reinforced quickly by two of his frequent playmates.

His two best friends at this time were a boy and a girl. Kids he would known for years. The girl, I guess, was aggressive, which annoyed him based on his idea that girls were supposed to be soft and obedient. She also seemed to have a crush on him, which also annoyed him. And one day they were wrestling, and the girl had him pinned to the ground, as Eddie's new puppy played around them in the yard.

Then in a flash, her skirt flew up. Eddie caught a flash of cotton panties right before she sat on his face. Her thighs gripped his head, the smell of her crotch pressed tightly to his nose, and he felt both disgust and humiliation and also arousal. But before he could do anything about it, before he could shove her off or lean in for more, Vesta came out of the house, ripped the girl off of him, and then fucking slapped him across the face. Right? Classic Vesta.

No one liked to kick a kid when they were already down more than Vesta. Eddie sprinted now for his under the house hideaway, cradling the puppy as his aunt Gladys came out, brought Vesta back into the house, offering to take Eddie to her house for a while if she needed to break from him, but Vesta turned her down. Meanwhile, under the house, Eddie sobbed hysterically, and then when he came up for air,

he realized his hands were around the puppy's neck and that the puppy had stopped moving. This is what he would claim anyway. that he unintentionally strangled this dog. Though Jangles isn't buying it, I'm not so sure. Maybe that's how it happened. A little cabbage head feels more shame over this,

of course, guilt, self-loathing. He buries the tiny corpse, not telling anybody about what happened. And now Eddie has changed. Soon after all that, he'll start fighting back when anyone teases him about his girly carol name,

and sometimes he'll go even further. One afternoon, while playing with some boys at the nearby harbor, he held a boy named Dwayne Eugene Owen under the water until Dwayne stopped moving, just like the puppy. Like permanently stopped moving. Little Dwayne is now a lot dead. Eddie scampered out of the water back to his playmates, and then when the police investigated,

it was deemed an accidental drowning. Eddie had gotten away with his first murder, a murder he would later confess to, having been intentional done out of curiosity at the age of eight. Terrifying. He escalated real quick from puppy to child. not long after that in sixth grade Eddie was selected to be a student crossing guard

and this would become an outlet for his violent fantasies as well after the drowning of Dwayne he said he started having murderous fantasies all the time Eddie would fantasize about blowing the whistle at the wrong time about intentionally letting the traffic flow across his fellow students just imagining their blood all over the asphalt

then a few months later he found another way to direct his violent urges and this next thing, admittedly, is a little hard to believe. It's kind of a crazy story, but who knows? Apparently, though, a popular boy beat him in the last round of a talent show, some kind of talent contest at school. And a few weeks later, after school had let out, the kids are all hanging out by some road grading equipment in front of the school.

As the boys scrambled over the construction equipment, Eddie got in, waited until this boy's hand slipped between the tread and sprocket, then kicked the gear shift once and smiled as the truck crunched down in the boy's hand, permanently maiming him. That'll teach that motherfucker to do a better job lip-sinking or hula-hooping, whatever he actually did to win the talent show. I mean, I don't know about that one. I don't know if he could actually figure out how to run equipment like that when he's so young,

but maybe. If it happened, once again, nobody associated Eddie with this incident. Then that fall, Eddie entered seventh grade at Roosevelt Junior High School, a gloomy brick complex that filled up a whole block with the adjacent lot fenced off for playing fields. And Eddie would not do well here. Academically, he turned along in the D-plus range. His poor grades in gym and arithmetic pulled down his solid C average and other subjects. I guess he did get a B though in something called attitude.

First semester of eighth grade looked more promising. Cole earned solid B's and an occasional A in English, social studies, and art. Seemed like Eddie was about to turn his slump around, but that wouldn't happen. Back from Christmas break in early January, Eddie got into a fight, another fight, I guess, with a boy in gym class. The coach intervened and both boys were sent to the dean who planned on whipping him both. crazy that that wasn't a huge deal back then to have your coach literally paddle the fuck out of your ass, even your bare ass, right?

It was considered fairly normal before California legislature banned corporal punishment in schools. But before his coach got to whoopin, Eddie told the dean that if anybody laid a hand or a strap on him, they should, quote, prepare to die. You know what? Fair. I feel like that's a fair thing to say in this particular situation. But the dean didn't agree with me, and Eddie was expelled.

But his luck would have it, Eddie's family was about to move. Not far, short little hop over to Richmond's Florida Avenue, but it was in a new school district. His expulsion from Roosevelt, apparently got lost in the shuffle. He would start fresh at Harry L's junior high on McDonald Avenue, Jason to Nichols Park and YMCA, barely scraped by his first semester there with the D-plus average again, but his social life turned around. Practically from day one, he was invited to every dance and party, especially by the girls who now seemed to like him, got a lot of attention from them when he intervened in a fight

between two boys, beat up the boy who had brought a wooden board to the fray. I mean, that is pretty cool. Eddie was a tough kid now, unfortunately, thanks to his mom. He's pretty used to violence.

Still, this newfound social acceptance to not solve problems with violence he's having. Some nights he would accompany schoolmates to a skating rink near Alvarado Park, but Eddie didn't spend much time on the wheels. He liked to slip away

and stalk the darkened footpaths of the park, fantasizing about finding some unsuspecting girl and killing her. And again, he's only in the eighth grade when he's thinking this. June of 1954, he graduates from junior high. I'd spend a lot of the following summer at the Uptown Theater on McDonald Avenue, watching parts of some movies, but mostly making out and drinking alcohol. Also went to bonfire parties at Point Richmond.

But despite finding plenty of people to engage in heavy petting with, he never managed to lose his virginity. His best shot was Ellie Roth, a girl, years older than him, two years older than him, he would describe later as having, quote, the nicest set of cans you'd ever want. Cans. I forgot about that slang term for breasts.

What a weird one. Why cans? I guess firm breasts maybe can look like a set of cans. Sticking off the chest? I'm not sure of the etymology there. Eddie and Ellie apparently made out a lot. Ellie seemed plenty eager, moaning when he slid a hand beneath her bra.

One night she steered him to a playground near her house, and they sat on the swings. Ellie rubbing up against him. him. She then suggested they moved to a nearby car and they slipped inside. They both undressed. Ellie spread her legs. But when young Eddie tried to penetrate her, once again, couldn't get hard. Eddie wiggled out from under him, confused, maybe feeling rejected. Then Eddie got mad for a moment, pinned her down, his hands braced against her shoulders, ready to try and strangle her. But then he remember that Ellie's parents knew she was out with him, that if anything happened to her, it would be traced

back to him. So he abandoned whatever horror he had planned. And he simply ran away. way. I wonder if Ellie ever found out who this fucking cycle became how close she came to a very early terrifying death. Eddie would next enroll at El Cerrito High School in the neighboring town of El Serrito that fall, and his newfound social clout did not extend to his new environment. Random trivia, Phil Lesh from the Grateful Dead, would attend this same high school just two years below Eddie. John Fogarty, lead singer for the Creedons Clearwater Revival, would go there seven years after Eddie. The original lead singer a thrash metal band Exodus went

there too. A guy who produced albums from Metallica went there. When Eddie went there, several future Major League baseball players were going to school with him. Eddie probably not hanging out with that crew, though. He was decidedly not in any cool kid clubs. He pulled straight D's, his first semester at El Cerrito,

with conduct grades of U for unsatisfactory in English, boys glee and machine shop. Second semester, failing grades across the board. Got even worse. with Cole also absent 27 out of 88 days The failing grades in absences

mostly owed to the fact that Eddie was now regularly drinking beer on his lunch break beer he'd gotten from a burglarized in a local liquor store with a friend and then they got caught It was the first arrest for both young men Only the first of so fucking many arrests for Eddie It is preposterous

How many times he is going to be arrested going forward Eddie's friends parents promptly bailed him out but Mama Vesta overruled Laverne's attempt to do the same, forcing Eddie to sit out a two-week stint in juvenile hall. Eddie was terrified there. Later said, he cried himself to sleep every night. During the day, he was stone-faced, though, hating his dad for not standing up to his mom.

And now a pattern of regular incarceration will follow. Following this initial stint in jail, there would be more trips to the juvenile facility, most of them for alcohol theft or curfew violations, not sure exactly how many. Now Eddie begins to think that is time to get out of town. Eddie and another friend decided to join the National Guard on a whim to do so, lying about their ages, forging parental signatures on their applications.

But the lie was caught, and Eddie was released without dishonor in June of 1955 when he was 17. So he got him for a little while. And now his family has to figure out what to do with him for a little while, longer at least. Their solution was to send him to live with his older brother Richard and Richard's wife, Edna, who were now living in Elko, Nevada. Fuck yeah, bro. One of the old stomping grounds Of another weird serial killer we've covered

Mr. Butt Hairbrush himself Richard Dick Bird The Las Vegas Trips Strangler Very scary dude Before we head over to Nevada A state Eddie will live in On and off For the rest of his free life

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and now let's return to the summer of 1955 when Eddie Cole was being shipped off to Nevada to stay with his brother Dick instead of simply putting Eddie on the bus to Elko his parents made the drive with him 400 miles one way with Vesta berating her son apparently nonstop as a disgrace to the family Laverne tried to intercede at one point

but back down when Vesta just told him to shut up In Elko, Eddie's brother Richard was working as a bellhop at the commercial hotel while Edna was staying home with kids already had kids they were getting a family fast eddie would take a day job busing tables at a highway truck stop job didn't pay shit it was hard work soon he found a new job also at the commercial hotel where he began collecting quote some odd people as friends as he would later put it one of them an older man certainly odd volunteered to relieve cole of his virginity not by fucking him though

but yes that is what i was expecting uh but by finding him a girl which is also creepy i have to say kid, I hope you find some sex. I got a girl in mind for you. I mean, there's no way that that's not creepy, is there? The world is full of so many fucking creeps. Together, these two allegedly picked up a waitress at the competing Stockman's hotel, all three piling into bed for some sort of sex party, but the woman changed her mind once Eddie's friend had worn her out.

What is happening? My life has been so boring in shelter compared to so many of these people. Eddie came up short again and spent his next few weeks in Elko apparently dodging this woman's irate fiancé. Then after getting into an altercation with some local drunk, Eddie was dismissed from his new job, so now he decided to go back to Richmond, try and finish high school a year late,

and that attempt would not go well at all. He missed 33 out of 93 days in the first semester, hearing straight Fs, and then just gave up and dropped out on his 18th birthday. Cole now joined the Naval Reserve over at the Treasure Island Naval Station in the San Francisco Bay, and then he was packed off for two weeks at training in San Diego. On February 18th, 1957, Cole then reported to the USS Ingersoll,

moored in San Diego Bay, and two weeks later, he was steaming towards the West Pacific. And what followed would not be the kind of thrilling life he'd imagined. Instead of the adventure promised by recruiting posters, he encountered drudgery and discipline, closed quarters, a lot of spam, canned meat, and powdered eggs. I do like me some spam, but probably not every day. The ship's first stop in Melbourne, Australia, was a lonely one for Cole, who had not managed to make any friends on board. The next stops in Hong Kong and Formosa, aka Taiwan, went similarly.

By the time the fleet turned back towards U.S. coal was drinking constantly, including on his shifts, and he ended up being placed under extra supervision because of that, during which he would later say he would sneak away to masturbate about four times a day, as he had still not lost his virginity. Is that too many times a day for a young man four? That's not a normal, healthy amount? Don't read into what I'm wondering about this. Soon Eddie's thoughts turned back to violence.

In San Diego, he stole two automatic pistols, some 45s from his ship, took them to an empty field behind some naval housing. He claimed he aimed them at the cars passing nearby, tracking the family sedans. He said he fired a few times, but didn't hit anything. Ended up taking the pistols back downtown and sold them using the money to buy more beer. Even though nobody had caught him stealing the pistols or even suspected him, Eddie confessed the next day to his division officer. Officer then hit him with a court-martial on charges of stealing government property.

It included forfeiture of pay and reinvestment. reduction in rank to a seaman recruit, 90 days in the brig and a bad conduct discharge. Doesn't seem like they cut him any slack for turning himself in. Not good. He gives him no incentive to ever turn himself in for anything again. And this was his first adult arrest of sorts. But I guess, you know, not a conventional arrest, not by the police, but within the military. Eddie would say the brig was by far the worst part for him.

For starters, brig rats, what guys in the brig there were called, I guess, were assigned to barren cells with cots and nothing else. bathroom privileges were routinely denied for minor infractions, leaving prisoners forced to relieve themselves in rusty cans that would overflow into themselves oftentimes. More serious problems like speaking out of turn, showing disrespect to one of the guards, could lead to a beating, delivered via fists, boots, or billy clubs. According to Eddie, some prisoners were handcuffed to the chain-linked ceilings at their cages,

dangled there for hours while their arms went numb. Noisy inmates were frequently hog-tied, excuse me. Their heads swathed and taped like mummies. with only their nose is free so they could breathe, just straight up torture. Others were bound with straps in a painful crouching position, unable to sit, lie, or stand. Straight jackets also popular with the guards. Their long straps drawn up between an inmate's legs to intentionally mash their nuts as the guy got dragged around the cell block. After emerging from three months in the brig, Cald wrote that, quote, all I felt was hatred.

And that's scary because I feel like he'd been starting to lean in that direction already. Eddie was next assigned to transit housing pending an appeal of his bad conduct discharge, but the law would soon catch up with him again in the first week of September of 1958. He was detained by San Diego police on suspicion of burglary and auto theft. But there was not enough evidence to charge him, and after they let him go, Eddie decided it was time to leave San Diego. He got his discharge, was back home in Richmond by October 4th, where he would again move in with his family now at the age of 20.

Luckily, he would not stay with his folks for long. He soon found a job at Knopco Chemical, working six days a week as a shipping clerk, made enough money to move out, also gave him a place to bring back girls, and finally, seven months before his 21st birthday, he lost his virginity. But after waiting so long, Eddie felt like the act itself ultimately wasn't that exciting. He built it up too much in his head over the years. Instead of feeling relief for excitement, Eddie felt dismayed by how easily young women tumbled into bed with him now. He'd spent so long thinking of himself as defective that he now wondered, what's wrong with these women if they're having sex with me? And that, of course, is a very fucking dark, dangerous headspace to be in.

Lucifina, disgusted with him. Also, by the time Spring rolled around in 1959, Eddie was fed up with the boring routine of his new job, and he quit, moving back in with his parents, yet again. For a dude who hated his mom, he sure was heading back to live with her a lot. But that April, after just a week or two of living with his parents, police in Placerville, east of Sacramento, knabbed him on two counts of driving without a license

and he served two weeks in lieu of a hundred dollar fine second adult arrest right and when he got out he was gone again for another quick stint in Lake Tahoe with his brother Richard but that wouldn't last long either for unknown reasons dude's a fucking prop now he just can't not fuck his life up

things feel too steady and too easy it's like he just needs to wreck it he returned it again to Richmond moves back of his mom and dad again also starts dating a girl he'd known as a teen Patty Morris. Patty would not go all the way with him. She was saving that for marriage, but she would give Eddie hand jobs. And she would also let him rub his naked chest against her naked chest. Chest to chest rubbing. That's a new one. Does anybody get off on that? Sometimes she would

even go down on him, but always stop before he climaxed and would then finish him off by hand. And that apparently frustrated Eddie, and he wound up masturbating after every date. Imagine his hands around Patty's neck. Scary. During this time, and he also managed to save up enough money to buy another car. Then he, of course, fucked his life up all over again. In December of 1959, he's only 21 years old at this point.

Police in Richmond caught him driving drunk without a license. Six weeks later, he gets jailed again. This time for petty theft. Third and fourth adult arrest. He fucking cannot stop getting arrested. Just again and again. Local judge combined the counts in early February. packing Eddie off for 30 days at the county work farm

Then within days of getting out of jail that May He's fucking busted again Charge with buying alcohol for minors Fifth arrest His girlfriend Patty Stuck by his side throughout these arrests And they even talked about getting engaged But that wouldn't stop Eddie's new hobby of night time prowling

June 1st, 1960 Now 22 year old Eddie went out cruising after dark He made a right between his old school Old school in Nichols Park his headlights picking out a dark sedan with a variety of huddled shapes inside. It was two couples making out that he drove across the railroad tracks, killed the engine, and from beneath the driver's seat grabbed an old claw hammer. Sneaking back to the darkness, he approached the car where he heard the couple's whispering and moaning,

and then he dramatically killed the vibe when he brought the hammer down on the car's rear window. One of the girls screamed his glass rained down on everybody inside. Eddie then rushed to the driver's side during the confusion, aimed his next blow through an open window at the driver's face, but he fucking missed and then a set of hands wrapped around the hammer, twisting it from Eddie's grip. Uh-oh, and now Eddie runs.

He hoped they hadn't seen him enough to identify him, but one of the girls was from Eddie's neighborhood, and she knew exactly who he was and did go to the police. And so once again, the cop showed up, booking coal for assault with a deadly weapon. Sixth arrest. Convicted on June 28, he sends

to another 30 days on a county farm. Does that feel too light for anybody else? 30 days for trying to attack two couples with a fucking claw hammer? That feels insanely light to me. Late July, he was released back to his parents' house. How fun for everybody. Spend his days mainly drinking, trying to avoid Mama Vesta. But a few weeks later, guess what?

He gets arrested for outstanding traffic warrants in San Pablo, and he gets another 30 days, seventh arrest. Traffic violations, hammer attacks, petty theft. Everybody just gets 30 days. This time around, Eddie lost his car for missing payments while he was in jail. And by January of 1961, Eddie began telling others now that something is seriously wrong with him. One day that month on foot, he flagged down a Richmond squad car, huddled with the officers, explaining his compulsive urge to rape and strangle women. They drove him to the station house where he explained himself to a lieutenant.

The man was skeptical at best. Sounds like he thought that Eddie was just a different kind of nuts than he was, right? one of those strange attention seekers that police do unfortunately have to deal with, sounds like fairly often, almost unheard of for a potential killer to walk in off the street and warn cops of his violent feelings in advance. Cole waited while the officer made several phone calls when he returned. He told Eddie that he should strongly consider going to therapy. He could even check into a state facility if he didn't have any money for private treatment.

And Eddie agreed. He said that sounded great, right? Ain't that something? I cannot remember coming across another serial killer who did this, at least not before they started their serial killing. On February 2nd, 1961, Cole not yet 21 still, is admitted to the Napa State Hospital, 20 miles north of Richmond, for a 90-day stay. But once he got there, he has second thoughts about sharing everything with the doctors.

He worries that if he tells the truth about his violent behavior, if he admits, say, to the murder he had committed when he was eight, he might face murder charges. So after all that, he doesn't tell these doctors the truth, not even close. Dr. R.C. Hitchin handled Cole's first interview at Napa, readily accepting Eddie's fabrication of, quote, a happy childhood. Dr. Hitchin would write, the patient talks about both of his parents in rather glowing terms,

stating that they were always affectionate. They did all they could for him, and that he has not always done as well as he could for them. Listing his religion as Catholic, fairly active, which was not true. Eddie also described himself as a temperate drinker, not true, who had only been drunk about two times in the past year. he did at least admit to having a morbid urge to rape and murder women, which he said had plagued him since the latter part of 1959.

And with that, Dr. Hitchin diagnosed Carol Cole as suffering from a schizophrenic reaction, chronic undifferentiated type. Other psychiatrists who met with him during his stay noted symptoms of depression and anxiety. None of them, interestingly, labeled Eddie as being a sociopath, even though he seemed to fit most of the criteria for that. And most didn't agree with Dr. Hitchens that Cole was schizophrenic. They said he had, quote, an emotionally unstable personality. And because of that, Cole would not have to take any medication.

But he did have to go to group therapy. That wouldn't help, though, because nobody else in group therapy was experiencing anything close to what Cole was experiencing. Or at least, none of them would admit to it. Soon, Eddie was convinced that he had made a huge mistake by checking into Napa. And when his girlfriend, Patty stopped visiting him, effectively ending what he felt was an impending engagement, his suspicions felt confirmed. that there was no point in talking to doctors. They couldn't help him. And the doctors, they really weren't sure what to do with him.

They knew there was something wrong with him. They finally settled on antisocial, sociopathic personality disturbance, and they noted that he had, quote, sadistic abnormal sexual tendencies, but they could not agree on a treatment plan. And so on March 25th, 1961, they discharged him with the recommendation that he applied for outside psychiatric treatment, but he would not.

He would return home for what already feels like the 10th time, and back in Richmond, Eddie's family situation was degrading. His father Laverne was drinking more than usual. Vesta drinking a lot as well. She won't stop nagging Eddie about finding the job and settling down. And you know what? I actually can't blame her for that. He did need to get a fucking job and try and find some consistency in his life.

Once again, though, Eddie leaves town. He lands in Reno this time, where he gets a job as an apprentice bartender at the Horseshoe Hotel and Casino. But Eddie being Eddie soon quits. And then he becomes a fixture on Reno. Rino Skid Row, drinking and gambling and passing out and unlocked cars. Homeless, he soon will not have enough money to gamble, so it's back to crime. And this time, Eddie picks his targets more deliberately.

He wanted to target Reno's gay scene, figuring the police wouldn't do much about robberies of gay men, and there would be a good outlet for his own confused feelings about his masculinity. It's so fucking dark, right? What a life plan? What a, just a depressing debauching deba's point to be in your life? when you're trying to figure out what group of people are the most vulnerable

for me to attack and make their hard lives even harder. He beat and robbed a gay man in an alley net in about a hundred bucks. He would repeat that routine whenever he ran short on cash

and he was right. These poor dudes were either too scared to go to the police or the police did not pursue any leads and Eddie just kept getting away with it. He continued to spend his days drinking and gambling, having sex with whoever he could pick up

sometimes even threesomes when he could pull that off. Eventually Eddie joined up with a group headed to Sacramento. The car they were in was stolen, though, and in woodland they were stopped by the highway patrol on June 5th, 1961. On July 13th, Cole would plead guilty to auto theft, and now he receives a six-month sentence on the county farm, 8th arrest. I did about a month before the urge to get help overpowered him, and once again, he divulged his violent strangulation fantasies this time to a guard. The confession got back to a lieutenant in command to Eddie's unit, and the guards removed, Cole placed him in a barrenuards.

in cell without a bunk or a mattress. He spent three weeks in solitary before being transferred to the county psych court, where he would spend another month. There, he was asked if he would volunteer for treatment at the Atascadero Maximum Security Psychiatric Facility. To his credit, in this particular situation, he agreed, and by October 16th, he was on his way. But still, he wasn't ready to tell anyone the whole truth.

Like before, he refused to admit that he'd had an abusive childhood, would not talk about his mother's infidelity while his dad was off fight in the war. but not talk about how he'd been dragged along to those trists, wouldn't talk about being taught about masturbation by an older boy, about drowning the kid when he was eight. There was so much he wouldn't share. So his violent thoughts and fantasies seemed completely disconnected from anything that had happened in his past,

therefore completely inexplicable. Dr. Carl Klocka diagnosed Cole's problem as a, quote, personality trade disturbance, passive aggressive personality with sexual and homicidal aggressive tendencies. In closing, the doctor dubbed Eddie, a definite menace to society recommending further tests. Clearly, Dr. Clocka was very concerned about Eddie. Unfortunately, there was not some magic pill he could give him to fix him.

Back then, especially, the only cure for Eddie would have been, you know, whatever stopped his heart from continuing to beat. But again, to Eddie's credit, he was trying to figure out how to get the evil out of his brain. In April of 1962, Eddie now sat for a new battery of psychological tests, including the Rorschach test, word association tests, sentence completion test, the classic Minnesota multifacic personality inventory tests. Clinical psychologist Erwin Hart found Eddie somewhat tense during these tests. Eddie initially insisted that he was ready to be discharged, but when Dr. Hart analyzed the findings of these tests, he disagreed.

As recorded by Dr. Hart, my conclusion is that psychotic mechanisms are operating in this patient. I suggest that the patient be referred for retesting after about two months so that comparisons may be made with present data in the hope of obtaining more definite conclusions. However, Hart's recommendation was ignored by the Tascadero staff, and Cole then tried to take matters into his own hands at August, filing a writ of habeas corpus in an attempt to secure his release. Psychiatristor did try to keep him. They sent him for more testing on September 4th to the Stockton State Hospital,

a minimum security facility. He arrived there by the 12th. But, at his patients for treatment to run out. there he refused a kitchen work assignment insists that all his necrophilic urges had gone away and yes I guess part of his strangulation fantasy had become the urge to have sex with victims after they were dead Eddie's case was reviewed by the staff on November 26

with some staff member listed as Dr. Weiss presiding The exercise included a fresh interview with Cole in which Eddie continued to rewrite his own history In this version, his theft of pistols in the Navy he now became a plot to kill an unarmed girl he thought had given him a STI. The doctor saw through that story to a deeper, more concerning pattern. The female figure is very threatening to him, and he wants to kill it, as he did the girl he thought had given him VD, noted his case report. He is hostile towards his mother, the prototype of all female figures.

He dare not rape the woman in his obsessions. He must kill her first. The report diagnosed him with schizophrenic reaction, chronic undifferentiated type. and recommended him for ground privileges in line with Eddie's request to go work in the carpentry shop. By February 7th, he was doing well enough to get a town pass which allowed him to go look for work in Stockton. But when he would leave the facility,

he would spend most of his time in bars drinking, you know, drinks he bought with the money. He got from federal disability checks he received for being hospitalized and not working. Apparently the hospital didn't even try to look into what he was doing during his days out. Nor did they look into it. It went on March 4, 1963.

was arrested for disturbing the peace, which earned him a 90-day jail term with three years suspended now, and that is arrest number nine. Apparently unaware of his patient's incarceration, Dr. A.B.R. Smith signed release papers on April 19th, granting Cole an indefinite leave of absence to self. Doesn't sound like they're running a real tight ship at the hospital. After his jail term, it would be off to Dallas now. He's heading off to Texas, once again, to live with his brother Richard in a small house on Throckmorton Street. Poor Richard, man. He just can't get rid of this motherfucker. Not even when he moves halfway across the country.

Soon, Eddie will discover that Dallas is as good a place to prowl as any. One night in June, he took a bus north to Love Field or towards it, Love Field, where he followed a woman where, when she got off at her stop, sneaking up behind her, he wrapped his belt around her neck, but she managed to turn around and fight him within moments they were on the ground, wrestling as the woman was screaming, a nearby porch light then flicked on, and Eddie Cole made a break for it. The next day he would learn in the paper that the woman's name was Priscilla house. This impulsive incident left him deeply shaken, and he started drinking heavily to keep his fantasies at bay. Now he wasn't only troubled by his fantasies, but also by the fact that he couldn't

even seem to get murder right. Seemed like sooner or later, he was going to get caught, sentenced to life, and that would be that. So he thinks that he might just be better to go out on his own terms. And on July 5th that year, Eddie swallowed 20 caps of Melaril, a mood elevator, capsules. But he couldn't get that right either. He was found outside, brought to a hospital where doctors pumped his stomach and then took him to the psych ward with the diagnosis of acute brain syndrome, whatever the fuck that is. It's no longer a diagnosis. Eddie met with a staff psychiatrist and was released three days later with a referral to the

state adult mental health clinic, which he ignored. Instead, he would take a few short-term jobs, meet a bartender moving with her, then quickly move right back out, then meet a sex worker named Neville Whitworth, who went by Billy. And they started dating, but one night at her place, he heard a voice pleading from the closet, open it to discover Billy's three-year-old daughter in a pool of her own piss. Holy shit. That night, he beat Billy seemingly in retribution for neglecting her child. But the two of them stayed together, which resulted in a series of arrests for both.

Billy for prostitution and public intoxication, Eddie for vagrancy, drinking, and domestic abuse. So 10th, 11th, and 12th arrests. 10, 11, 12. 12. My God, this guy's life is such a fucking mess. Despite all that, these two will get married. Yeah, sure. Yeah, but it sounds like a good plan. A few weeks after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November of 1963, Eddie Cole and Billy Whitworth tie the knot and then move into a small house on Sycamore Street in East Dallas.

Eddie finds a job. Yet another job. Things seem to turn around for a little bit. The couple even begins to attend the Carroll Avenue Baptist Church. But soon, very soon Billy is drinking heavily again. Eddie gives up and joins her. He quits his job, spends his days drinking and watching horror shows, as he would call them. Early slasher type flicks where women get strangled. His violent urges are back if they'd ever left. When Billy's cat has kittens around this time, Eddie kills them one by fucking one,

wringing their necks over a period of weeks and claiming that they ran away. Damn. Now it's only a matter of time before things spiral further out of control. And one night in the summer of 1964, when Eddie is now 26, Billy brings a man home, a client, a John, and then Eddie comes home soon afterwards, flies into a rage, grabs a foot-long meat fork, and slashes Billy across the stomach before she runs off. Eddie then turns to Billy's daughter, who's now four years old, starts to drag her around the apartment by her hair. Oh my God, this is fucking so much trauma.

Meanwhile, downstairs, some police officers spot a naked, bleeding woman. They soon corner Eddie in the apartment, disarm him, and arrest him for assault. Arrest number 13. But then the next morning, Billy will bail him out and the case will be dropped. Still count that arrest, though. Still count 13. January 5th, 1965, Cole is busted for public drunkenness. 14th arrest.

This time he's feeling especially talkative. He spilled the details of his 1963 assault on Priscilla House, the one from the bus. He had tried to strangle with his belt. While the police now do a lineup and Priscilla identifies him immediately, Eddie then pleads guilty and gets 90 days getting out. out on March 13th, 1965. 15th arrest. It fucking counts separately.

God. What the fuck? I mean, okay, giving some points for turning himself in, but this dude has been arrested, like, he's been arrested 15 times now, at least. Twice in a short amount of time

for violence against women. And he gets 90 days? By the time he got out, Billy was waiting for him at the Carlton Hotel, of course. On Glaston Avenue in East Dallas. He will join her and Billy's daughter. How fucking great.

Then on August 10th, after a long fight, and he storms out of him, out hitchhikes his way across town to Richard Place, his brother, borrows his brother's car, drives back to the hotel, around 1 a.m. in the morning, parks behind the Carlton, goes to the back door with a can of gasoline he's got. Outside of Billy's room, he starts pouring it while he backs up to the exit,

then he strikes a match, throws it in the gas, flames fucking, you know, take off, and then he runs away. And then after all that, he calls the hotel's operator, and he asked her, quote, how'd you like that fire? He's very not good at crime. He truly was nuts. Obviously, sensing that this could be the arsonist.

The receptionist flatters him. Man, smart thinking on the receptionist part. She tells him that, man, that was really something. And after a few minutes, he asks her out. And she's like, sure, I'm leaving work just a few minutes. Can you come pick me up? And he thinks she's serious. He actually thought that she was going to go out with him.

He's going to show up, you know, take her out on a date after all that. No, when he gets there, the police are waiting for him. Of course they are. And he will formally be indicted for arson on August 19th. Now we are at arrest number 16. Three weeks later, psychiatrists at Parkland Memorial have another chance to pick his brain. One doctor notes that Cole was, quote, carrying magazine clippings and photos of men, strangling women, and claims he gets sexual satisfaction from acts of this nature.

Holy shit. Carrying around magazine clippings of dude strangled women. That's a pretty big red flag. diagnosed with a schizophrenic reaction chronic simple type he has returned to jail pending trial he will then be convicted in March of 1966 and receive a two-year sentence still not great begins on March 25th

dude tries to fucking burn his wife to death maybe her kid whoever else happened to be standing at the hotel and he gets two years after having a long criminal record awesome he'll only spend nine months at the Eastham Correctional facility before getting parole January 5th, 1967 free again for fuck's sake. He now moves to Fort Worth, you know, just right next to Dallas. Then within

weeks, he catches a bus to Oklahoma City, where he will enjoy the single life, going out to bars, picking up women, and dating a teenager named Lisa. Fun. Her exact age not mentioned, he's 28. They don't date long because he's still married. And when his wife, Billy shows up in OKC, looking for Eddie, Lisa Boltz. He and Billy will now live together again, dear God. And then on April 8, 1967, Cole will be put in jail again on a charge of vagrancy by pimping, aka living off of the income of a sex worker, and that is his, can you guess? That's his 17th arrest. Gets off with only a $20 fine this time, but it's enough for Eddie to want to leave both the city and his wife.

Catches a bus to Tulsa, leaving Billy behind for good. From Tulsa, it's off to St. Louis. Then on Saturday, May 27th, he hitches a ride to Lake Ozark, Missouri, with a couple, and spends three days in a booze and pill-induced blur. And now before we see what kind of trouble Eddie got up into in Lake Ozark, time for today's second and two mid-show sponsor breaks. Thanks for listening to those sponsors. Hope you heard some deals you liked and wanted and used our codes.

Now let's return to May of 1967. Find out what happened with Eddie Cole in Lake Ozark. He's still there on May 30th when he staggered out of a bar at 2 a.m. without a place to sleep. made his way down Highway 54, passing Bartlett's Cafe, notices a staircase on the side of the building, goes up looking for a place to sleep, but instead of a storeroom,

finds an apartment, and the door's unlocked. A woman was sleeping in the bedroom, and he slowly lowered himself to the ground to crawl under her bed, like a fucking ghoul. A few moments later, he rises up, wraps his hands around her neck, and she starts to scream.

Yeah, of course she did. It was fucking terrifying. It's like a monster. Then he quickly hears startled kids' voices, hadn't expected that. He staggers away from the woman, stumbles out of the apartment, past the late night partiers headed home. Ducks down an alleyway, but some people had saw him run. They heard the woman scream. They ran after him, caught him, wrestled him to the ground, and held him until the police arrived. And hail Nimrod. Fucking love a good citizen's arrest. Good on those people. Help him when they did not have to. Highway patrolman. Herb Thomas will get the call at 3 a.m. But by the time he gets there, Eddie Cole has already told everyone who will listen exactly what he'd been up to. Kind of. what he thought he was up to.

He didn't know that the woman he had been strangling was actually an 11-year-old girl, Virginia Rodin. He had just tried to murder a child. Patrolman Thomas drove Eddie to the Miller County Jail, delivered him to the sheriff's custody, where he was held on charges of felonious assault with intent to ravish. Eighteenth arrest.

I think, were you already at 18? There's so fucking many. Feels like it's been a million arrests. Okay, I think that was 18. three weeks later she stood before Judge James Riley and pled not guilty by reason of mental defect Judge Riley packed him off for 90 days

of observation at the Fulton State Hospital where doctors found Cole criminally sane and competent to stand trial and now Eddie Cole could have been put away for 10 years in maximum sense but Miller County's prosecutor did not want to put the county through an expensive trial

if Cole would plead guilty to the lesser charge of assault with intent to kill not assault with intent to rape he'd only get five years maximum and wouldn't have to put his name on a sex offender registry. I fucking hate our justice system sometimes. I really do. People in prison for life for drugs and sexually violent motherfuckers

constantly getting put back on the street. Why are we collectively so fucking stupid in this regard? Also, how is intent to kill a lesser charge than intent to rape? I think because we're stupid. I actually think that's the answer. Because collectively we are a fucking stupid society in so many ways. Eddie, of course, takes the offer. He'll get five years on March 11th.

and two days later he is transferred to the state's maximum security prison at Jefferson City. Purchased on a ragged bluff overlooking the Missouri River, the prison's gray stone walls enclosed 47 acres, dubbed the Bloody 47 by Times Magazine or Time Magazine in 1967 for the crazy rate of inmate homicides. Operating from 1836 all the way to 2004, it was the oldest prison west of the Mississippi for many years and held some infamous inmates like James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King's killer, heavyweight champion boxer Sonny Liston, dude we met in the Muhammad Ali suck. Back in 1954, a little over a decade before Eddie showed up, the prison had seen a 15-hour riot that left five inmates dead in seven prison buildings in ashes.

State of affairs had degraded to the point that inmates were effectively in control of the prison, forcing guards to buy protection with gifts and favors, and the most powerful inmates would wind up in hospital rooms outfitted to look like private suites. Things were so bad at this place that a few days shy of Christmas, 1964, only three years before, warden E.V. Nash shot himself to death as desk. Just frustrated, you know, with how fucking terrible this place was.

Cole would have a front row seat to watch homicides happen all around him now, in the dining hall, in the yard, in cell blocks, and bathrooms. And while stuck in the bloody 47, Cole got the news that his estranged wife, Billy, had died in Oklahoma City. due to a combination of pneumonia, diabetes, and rock gut. Boo! Hard living, caught up with her. On May 1, 1970, Eddie Cole is a free man once again.

He spent the best years of the hippie counterculture revolution behind bars. No summer of love for this motherfucker. Not that he would help that at all. He decidedly did not feel rehabilitated, not even a little bit. In his own words, if anything, I was worse. On his way out, he received a suit, 50 bucks, and a one-way ticket to Charlotte, North Carolina, to attend his school for heavy equipment operators,

which would offer him a weekly stipend for the three-week course that Eddie didn't like Charlotte. He thought the drinks at the bars were watered down. This is actually his reasoning. He thought the drinks at the bars were watered down. The girls were too flat-chested, and he didn't like the way black and white people

seemed to get along. That was his three big beef with Charlotte. Watered down drinks, flat-chested women, racial, too much racial harmony. That's some very interesting reasoning. Fuck this town. Can't get a stiff drink.

What's up with all these white people being all fucking nice to black folks and vice versa? Thought this was the South, God damn. And another thing. Where'd all them titties go? There's a damn titty drought going on in this curse of town. I won't have it. I don't need much, but I do need a strong drink and some big old cans. By the time the heavy machinery program was over,

on May 25th, he decided it was time for a change of scenery. He headed to Texas to find bigger titties Stopped over in Dallas on the way to El Paso Checked into the cheapest hotel he could find Promptly walked across the border To find a sex worker Ended up finding two Fucking four good tetties

Offered a threesome to him But no matter how hard they tried He just couldn't get it up Back on that impotence grind That's not gonna be good for his anger I guess maybe their tities weren't that big Maybe they weren't fucking big enough boobs for liking What the hell is going on this crazy world

I'm not the only man left Who cares about Tiggle Biddle It is. It's goddamn ridiculous. After a few months in El Paso, he gave up finding his coveted Texas-sized tities, wound back up in Reno, where he let his violent fantasies take center stage once again.

I feel like there probably was a lot of big titties in Reno. On two occasions, Eddie later wrote, I tried to strangle women I met in bars. One was up near Truckee. Other was in Reno, a parking lot just off the railroad tracks. They got away both times. If only he could have stayed that bad, strangling.

If only he could have been as bad as strangling, as bad at strangling as he was at the rest of his crimes he tried to commit. September 19th, 1970. Cole now 32 years old, entered the Reno police station and surrendered to the death sergeant, confessing his desire to rape and strangle virtually every woman he met. And I have to admit, I do feel bad for him, and that he just kept trying to get help,

and it just never worked out. He was booked on a charge of disorderly conduct while the cops decided what to do with him. And I will count that. That says 19 to rest. 19 now. September 24th, a judge ordered him to the state psychiatric hospital in nearby Sparks, Nevada, where Dr. Felix Peebles recorded his initial diagnosis of, quote, anti-social personality with alcoholism, with compulsion to strangle and rape pretty females. Felix Peebles. That's an unfortunate name combo, isn't it?

Dude, it sounded like a rare S-T-I. Oh my God, look at this dick rash. I think I have Felix Peebles. Is that look like Felix Peebles to you? Anyway, for good measure, Dr. Peebles added a question mark. the diagnosis. Nobody knew exactly what to do this guy. He probably should have been permanently institutionalized, but they didn't have the grounds for it. On October 13th, Cole is interviewed by a psychiatric social worker, Richard Watson, and this dick will think that all of this, the fantasies about rape, the murder, the necrophilia,

all a ruse for free housing. Our impression of Mr. Cole is that he is a highly manipulative young man who is utilizing his difficulties with the law in the past and his threats of violence upon others to find shelter when he's out of funds or ways to get what he wants, he wrote. We also feel that because of this kind of insight, it can be called that he would not constitute a danger to himself or others because apparently he does seek assistance when he feels an urge to do harm. We also feel that he is not going

to benefit substantially by any social work intervention. Well, this guy wasn't right here. Dr. Peebles agreed with that bullshit, and 10 days later, Cole is discharged. Now it's back to San Diego for this continually drifting rolling stone. There, he does. check out a few mental health clinics, does receive a bit more counseling, but then he stops going by the end of October, and then he will sign up for training as a nurse's aid, a six-month-long program. There, his instructor, a woman named Mrs. Baker ended up taking a liking to him and offered him a room in her large house. But after throwing a big boozy Christmas party for her students, Mrs. Baker was fired from the training program, and then Eddie never went back to classes,

and she also kicked him out. And now he started sleeping in a different motel every night, sometimes staying over with the women he met in bars. He had disability support now. He was getting those checks, so money's not the problem once was. On Friday, May 7, 1971, Eddie went about his new routine, driving around looking for sex workers who were women to try and pick up, bar hopping, wandered around on foot when he's too drunk to drive. And he arrived at one of his usual haunts,

a bar owned by a slim brunette named Essie Buck. Don't know how long your breasts were. Don't know what Eddie's doing with that right now. her mom was having her birthday party at the bar that night and someone to the party asked Eddie if he wanted to tag along to the next spot and Eddie agreed one bar then turned into two would turn into three and four and soon Essie was asking Eddie if he knew of a quiet place

where they could go get to know each other a little better he found a quiet place to park started to fondle her despite the fact that she was barely conscious of course her consent didn't really matter to him not this guy not for what he planned when he wrapped his hands around her throat she did not resist once she was out cold he began to rip her clothes off and then he suddenly drew back at the smell of feces.

She had soiled herself. And then she started to wake up. She could barely speak but managed to say that she wouldn't tell anyone what happened. Seemingly, she thought that he had raped her. And Cole supposedly said, I know you won't. But then he strangled her again until she was dead. And now his real crime spree has begun. He put her body in the trunk, then dropped her clothes in a roadside ditch, took $100 from her purse, used the money to find a cheap motel for the night. He was spent the next day drinking in a bar, stepping out several times to visit Essie's nude corpse in the trunk. Jesus.

After the bar is closed, he made his way to an open field near a school, parked and took Essie's body out of the trunk to wedge her between two boulders, then sat next to her and drank a few beers, celebrating Sunday, May 9th, his 33rd birthday with a naked dead woman he had killed. He's crazier than ever. It doesn't sound like he had sex with her when she was dead. The next morning, her corpse was spotted by a young boy on his bicycle. that poor kid, he immediately peddled off to get help.

Sheriff's deputy responded, placed the call to homicide, who found a nude white woman lying on her side between two big stones. It was obvious she had died somewhere else, but an autopsy did not find what they expected, no signs of rape or trauma. It wasn't even obvious how she had died. They did manage to identify her, though. Essie Louise Buck, age 39,

a background check revealed that Essie was last seen alive the night of May 7th, leaving a santi tavern, or the santi tavern, with the male nurse named Carol Edward Cole. But Eddie, not associated with any address in San Diego at this time, and the case against him soon went cold. And this was not what Eddie expected. He initially thought the cops were going to find him. They were going to come from him immediately. But when two weeks had passed without anyone tracking him down, he started to relax and he started to think about killing again.

Now he has a taste for it, not just a fantasy anymore. At a bar named Lady Luck, he soon met a blonde woman named Wilma, a Navy wife whose husband was out on a six-month tour at sea. I'm guessing she reminded him of Mama Vesta. Wilma lived in National City midway between San Diego and Chula Vista to the south. As they drank and shot rounds of pool, she hinted that she knew a place they could go next. The place was the National Club. And in the parking lot of the National Club, Eddie and Wilma kissed in the front seat of his car. And then he quickly locked his hands around her neck.

Once again, she soiled herself. But unlike with Essie, he managed to finish the act right away this first time around. After he had strangled her, he then drove her corpse to an isolated spot along Route I-5, where he transferred the body to the trunk and laid down in the back of the car to get some sleep. Next night he drove to San Isidro on the Mexican border, went a little into the brush to start digging

and he buried Wilma and finished off a six-pack, leaving her in a shallow grave. It seems as if he had sex with her as well this time, but I can't confirm that specifically, but the way he refers to things later, I'm guessing that happened. A week later, he'll meet another woman at the Western Club. This one unnamed in sources.

Once again, they make their way to the car, where they make out shedding pieces of clothing in the back seat they have sex but sex is no longer what eddie really wants he pushed her down into the seat once he had finished fondling her nipples letting her think maybe they were going to have round two but then he put his hands around her neck and squeezed until her body went limp then uh he may or may not have had sex with her corpse uh he drove back to his hotel room where he masturbated repeatedly that definitely happened picturing the naked woman pinned beneath him and dine also thought about how nice it would be to have her body in the room with him,

made some mental notes for what he would do with the next woman. The following day, buried her in the same area he had buried Wilma. Then just a few days later, June 1st, 1971, the law will catch up with him. But not for murder, but for driving drunk again.

It was actually his third DUI in a month and he didn't have a driver's license, for fuck's sake. I'm counting the way it's written, it's a little ambiguous, but I'm counting the three DUIs as three separate arrests, which would be 20,

21 and 22. 20, 21 and 22. Yes, that is the Super Mario Brothers coin. He was sentenced to serve 30 days in the county jail and during this time investigators figure out that he'd figured out he'd been passing bad checks so they decided to

hold on to them while they figured out what to do or hold on to him. This was when Detective Robert Ring, who was investigating Essie Buck's murder first learned about him. The homicide detective came to visit Eddie on July 14th, telling him that he was the last person who had been with scenes. with Essie.

The night she died. Eddie tried to play it off at first, saying, no, I part of ways with her at some point that night. But Ring had an important piece of evidence that made him doubt that. Jailers had found a newspaper clipping about Essie's murder in Eddie's fucking wallet. Whoops. Now Eddie changes the story. He says, okay, yeah, I was with her when she died.

We went back to a hotel. At some point during the night, she just passed away. Then blind panic made him shove her body in the trunk and ditch it in a field. and somehow Detective Ring bought that shit. And now the homicide case would simply just disappear. And Eddie would only be sentenced to a one year term for check fraud. So I am counting check fraud as separate of the three DUIs. And that would be his 22nd.

Is it 22nd arrest? Or is it 20? No, it's just, oh, fuck, that's his 23rd arrests. I was miscounting 23rd arrest. He was now transferred to the Laszima farm on July 23rd, then discharged in late March of 1972. This fucking dude was arrested so many times. And he just kept getting let go.

When he got out, he was back to San Diego a few months later in April or May. He'll be back to strangling. Driving again to San Ysidro down on the border, he spots a Mexican restaurant, stops by where he meets two Spanish-speaking women. After a couple rounds of drinks, they asked Eddie to take them someplace fun. Instead of doing that, he takes them to the foothills north of San Ysidro where his private cemetery was. There, one of the women got out of the car to relieve herself while the other woman wandered around, checking out the view of the city lights. Eddie, meanwhile, grabbed his claw hammer, approached the wandering woman, fucking drove the hooked steel into her skull.

She dropped to the ground, a dark stain spreading around her head. Holy shit. Other woman then stumbled out of the wilderness, came around to the car. Eddie approached her from behind, wrapped his hands around her neck, forced her to her. forced her to the ground with his knee planted between her shoulder blades. He pinned her and choked her until she was done breathing. Then he dug two graves. Near the end of May of 1972, he will then be arrested again, but not again for murder.

No, he'll be arrested for more drunk driving. Fuck, so many goddamn arrests. Sentenced to 30 days in jail released on June 23rd. So now that's his fucking 24th arrest. Duke got driving drunk again without a license again, and the career criminal still gets only 30 days. And then he was to be back in jail on a charge of disorderly conduct, my God, which gets him the six-month-sense at the Veehas farm.

So that is his 25th arrest, fun. He only spent two months there before he was released due to a furlough center or released to a furlough center where he then just walked out. After that, Eddie bounced between cheap apartments, and shelters. Also briefly took a job as a driver for the Salvation Army. Finally get his license. Hung out at a bar named the copper room where the other drivers would go after their shifts.

How did he get a job as a driver after so many fucking DUIs? Excuse me, sir. One more question. Have you ever driven drunk? Oh my God, yeah. No, hundreds of times. But I've only gotten caught like, I don't know, maybe a dozen times. At the copper room, you met a bartender named Diana Pashall.

And one night, Diane invited him back to the small apartment she shared with her mom, Joyce. soon after that Eddie and Diana began going together officially and he soon moves into her apartment. He was also technically still on the run from the law after walking out of that furlough center. And on January 15th, 1973, when Cole was headed for work, he passed a police car and they pulled him over,

ran a check, found an open warrant charging Eddie with escape from custody. 26th arrests. He just don't quit. This time his term was six months in the county jail where he worked with a chaplain performed odd jobs like passing out glasses to near-sighted inmates. That job couldn't have took that long.

That job must have taken about ten minutes total, but whatever. April, Eddie wrote a letter to his trial judge asking the judge for a discharge on his birthday. And the judge granted it. Diane had a new apartment. But when he arrived, she saw him and burst into tears. She confessed that a sailor named Charlie had assaulted her sexually that they'd been drinking. She didn't have the strength to fight him off. After tracking down, Charlie, though, Eddie decided that it wasn't an assault.

he believed Charlie's account that Diana had willingly consented. Furious over her infidelity, Eddie nonetheless proposed to Diana. Okay, that's a plot twist. And they get married in July. Soon, however, Diana is drinking more and more than ever. Joyce, her mom is in the middle of a divorce.

She's spending more time with her apartment. Eddie's feeling trapped. In July of 1974, he'll escape to Nevada, back to Nevada. But then he comes back by August, California, and soon the two of them are planning to move to Las Vegas now. Just constant chaos. In Vegas.

Eddie gets a job working for a woman named Marie who ran the slot machine concessions out of Mr. Size Casino down on the strip. Full name of this place that's no longer around was Mr. Size Casino of fun. I guess it was a real fleabag operation known for a 99-cent steak and eggs breakfast and free chili.

Free chili sounds terrifying. Good chili, already a gamble. Free chili, that feels like I'm fucking pointing a gun on my butthole just playing Russian roulette. Mr. Size Casino was known as a grind joint Vegas used to have a lot of these grind joints Instead of some big mega casino They were, you know, like the size of a place you'd see in a strip mall.

And actually, Mr. Sides' casino was in a strip mall, Korean barbecue joint, rents a spot where this casino used to be. Mr. Sye was Seymour Husney And his casino folded after he went to prison for raping a 13-year-old. So many cool people in this place. Wasn't a classy joint. Perfect for Eddie Cole. Most evenings after work, he stopped in at the silver slipper,

a bigger but another grind joint. to drink and play Kino, limiting his bets to $15, $20 a day. As for excitement, uh, that was it for a little while. Life with Diana became dull for Eddie, marked by explosive fights, then long periods of drinking and silence. Finally, cold had enough. He stole $700 from Mr. Sly's casino, then set off on a road trip back to San Diego.

Little did he know Diana would follow, and they get right back together. At this point, Diana's health is rapidly deteriorating due to cirrhosis of her liver from years of hard drinking. And faced with more responsibilities, Eddie starts looking for a stress outlet. And a bar south at Chula Vista. There, he meets young brunette

as he, or excuse me, as she wandered the room, chatting with people, feet and coins in the jukebox, he got pissed. Imagine that she was toying with him. It was a game trying to lead him on just to turn him down. And then when he got up to leave, she approached him and asked him for a ride. She directed him to a nearby trailer park,

mentioned that she probably shouldn't go, or they probably shouldn't go to the house together because her husband was home. And that really pisses Eddie off. So instead of driving her, or dropping her off, he drives away from this trailer park to a nice side street. At this point, the woman starts to realize something is going on, lunges for the door, Eddie lunges after her.

They tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Eddie manages to get his hands around her throat, shifting his weight for better leverage, and then headlights flash over them. Sheriff's deputies. Oh my God. Eddie will claim that the woman tried to rob him with a group of men that made a break for it when he stopped the car. The woman gave her version of events that he was just trying to fucking kill me, but the cops will side with Eddie.

God damn it. He just keeps getting out of this shit. And they let him go. No arrest. Now he takes his opportunity, this new lease on terror, the cops have given him, to leave Diana. And a few months later in April of 1975, he sees an advertisement for jobs on oil rigs in Laramie, Wyoming. And off he goes. But the jobs were filled up by the time he got there. So then he headed further north to Casper, Wyoming, where he finds work at the Benton Clay Company in nearby Mills, little town of only a few thousand people, a couple miles outside of Casper. Job paid only $300 a month, but he maximized his take-home salary by claiming non-existent dependence on his withholding form. But then he got bored.

And after that job quickly got old, he managed to field, or excuse me, find work in the oil industry. This time in the fields around Thermopolis, 120 miles northwest of Casper. Small town, a few thousand people, a bunch of mineral hot springs. And after only a few months in August, 1975, he gets fired. for a confrontation at work, given a severance check of $950,000, which he promptly took to a bar back in Mills. And it wasn't exactly what you call a big saver.

If he had money, he spent it quickly. Back in Mills, he would meet Merlene Hammer, a young woman whose friends called her TP because of her Native American heritage. Near closing time, he asked Merlin if she wanted to head out to an after-hours club. But then the club was too noisy. So he asked if she wanted to take a little drive,

and she agreed. They drove down to a narrow access road to a bentonite refinery where Eddie killed the engine and soon his fingers found her throat locked around it and started to squeeze. He would actually finish the murder's act with a cord from a lamp he had brought with him that was in the back seat. Then he dragged her body out of the car and into the trunk. He dumped her corpse off at a random hillside covering her naked body with an old red sleeping back. Well, Merlin's body would be found August 9, 1975. Investigator Art Terry took the call for the Natrona County Sheriff's Office, supervising lab

technicians at the scene. Before the corpse was moved, he noted marks on her neck. And soon the cause of death was confirmed. Strangulation. Now it was time to figure out how she'd spend her last living hours. A bartender remembered Marlene's visit in the after-hours club even managed to give a description of her date to a sketch artist, but in an area full of scruffy-faced oil workers could have been anybody. Meanwhile, Eddie was already long gone. He spent a few weeks driving around before he headed back to San Diego where he found Diana again. and her situation even worse than it was back in March. A few weeks earlier, Diana had been drinking on the sun deck when she'd fallen asleep,

and when she woken up, she had second-degree burns over 40% of her body had to be hospitalized. There are so many complete fucking train wrecks in this episode. Oh my God, this is so sad. During her stay in the hospital, she was also officially diagnosed with cirrhosis and Warren to stop drinking or she would die and she does not stop drinking. Eddie stayed for two weeks before he left Diana yet again to check into a rehab program called Project Jove, or ex-cons helped wayward teens get back on the right path. He was hired December 16, 1975.

That's great. This guy, counseling teens. All right, kid, let Uncle Eddie fix you up. Let's start with the basics. Has anyone ever taught you how to beat off? No. All right. Well, all right, let me show you how it's done.

Then a few months later on March 19, 1976, the San Diego Community Mental Health Center received a call from a local detox house. The counselor, Alice Moran, was asking about a new guy who would show. shown up. She wasn't sure if he was more dangerous to himself or others, uh, but she could tell that he definitely needed help. She was speaking, of course, about Carol Edward Cole. Eddie would check himself into the mental health center the next day with a basic complaint. I feel like giving up. Now he framed his aggressive tendencies in a different way. He said he was trying to bait women into killing him. Huh. He was discharged, April 2nd, with the diagnosis of adult situational reaction

with depression and suicidal ideation, personality disorder mixed type. That doesn't help him at all. Spend the next week's bouncing around halfway houses before heading up to Jackson, Wyoming now, where he had a lead about a job looking after a hunting lodge, but before he could get there, he got stopped by the police.

He was driving a stolen car. Running a check on his license, they found out that Cole was also wanted from mail theft. Did I mention he stolen checks from a halfway house and cashed them? And that is his 27th arrest. This dude committed crimes with the regularity some people have lunch. On Friday, June 4th, a formal arrest warrant was issued on charge of mail theft. But one of the supervisors of the halfway house, the one who had stolen the car from actually,

would end up bailing him out, felt sorry for him. Now Eddie wasted no time getting back out of town. When he didn't show up for a preliminary hearing on Friday, June 11th, a new warrant is issued for his arrest. Cole then turned himself in on June 26, tired of life on the run. he was convicted on February 2nd, 1977, sentenced to a year and a day in prison on the mail theft charge. Jesus Christ. But with credit for the seven months,

he served before his trial and more time off for good behavior. He would be eligible for release in less than two months, and he got it. And I guess should that warrant count? You know what? I'm going to not count that as a separate arrest. April 4, 1977, he's released. had no plans to stick around for his five-year probation.

Off to Vegas now. That shitty motherfucker could just not stay in the same place for long at all. Monday, April 25th, Cole goes to work full-time for Western linen supply, washing sheets and towels for various casinos and hotels. He would end up working there for all of nine days. He quit on May 4th, returned to his preferred job of drinking and stealing shit,

orbiting a few dingy blocks near the federal building on Las Vegas Boulevard. He soon met a woman named Catherine Joe Blum. Catherine was a sex worker in a late 20s, with dark hair and glasses, and on the night of Friday, May 13, she was drinking at the dingy dive bar of Dan and Rays when Eddie strolled in. She told him she just split up with her boyfriend,

bartender nicknamed Shotgun. And now she didn't have a place to stay. So she asked him if she could crash with Eddie for a while. Fucking Shotgun. Her ex-boyfriend was Shotgun. Eddie consistently traveled in the most unusual circles. Eddie did not have a place to say either, and he initially tried to shrug her off,

but Catherine was insistent. Finally, he left with her walking down, pass an all-night laundromat before flogging down a taxi. They drove for a little while in the taxi towards some apartment complex where Eddie had lived before with Diana years earlier. Eddie pretended like he was still living there telling Catherine to wait while he went inside. He goes upstairs, comes back down saying that she couldn't come up with him because his daughter's boyfriend is over.

He was trying to get rid of her. She doesn't want to go though. So then he asked her if she wants to take a walk and she complains that she's tired. Then she steps into a small alley to pee. He watches her, pull up, her pants, steps in behind her, suddenly shoving her out of the ground out of fucking nowhere, and he just yells at her, you want to show off what you got, I'll help you, bitch. My God. As if her life wasn't already

hard enough, she runs into this pile of shit. Well, he now rips her blouse off, wraps her bra around her neck, pulls it tight, right as she seems to be passing out, her bra rips in half, and she just sits up, rubs her throat. He then grabs her by the neck again, forcing her down under the ground until she went still and was dead. He then dragged her body into some shrubbery,

stripped the rest of her clothes off, used her tattered blouse, dipped in a dirty puddle to wash her because she had soiled herself, and then he raped her corpse, finishing inside of her, then smoked a couple of cigarettes. Then went to a casino, wandered around, did a bit of gambling, like he just hadn't fucking done what he did, then returned to the apartment complex, went and found Catherine's body, raped her body again. God, if he hasn't done it already, he definitely went after his necrophilia fantasy here. Aye, yeah, next day, May 14th, 1977, Catherine Blum's corpse is found by the police. Detective Joe McGuckin approached the body nude except for her socks.

There were obvious abrasions on her throat, smears of feces on her inner thighs, as well as on paper towels near the body. But there was nothing to see to identify this woman, much less her killer. A canvas of bars downtown would turn up several people who recognized a photograph of Catherine, including shotgun. Her ex-boyfriend fucking shotgun. But nobody knew who she'd gone home with. And soon other murders would arrive on Joe McGuckin's desk with better leads and Catherine's case would go cold. Meanwhile, Eddie is off to another job, very different kind of job. He would soon wind up working for a woman named Carrie Chadwick, who ran an exotic animal rescue.

While the job did not pay, literally did not pay anything, but he got free room and bored and ended up sleeping with Carrie. Of course. This dude's life was insane. Just take away the murders and any other violence, and he still lived an insane life that gives me anxiety. There's so much moving around, so little stability. Well, he gets sick of living with Carrie real quick. Of course he does. he's wild and unstable

and he turns himself into the feds for violating his parole and then they allow him to transfer his parole from California to Nevada but then an impromptu joyrides in Nevada desert in a car he just stole

gets him arrested yet again in July of 77 Jesus Christ and then he'll be released on his own reconnaissance pending trial 28th arrest he can't stop

can't stop won't stop still he had to go show up for his court dates which of course he does not do on Wednesday September 14th Eddie missed a court date in north Las Vegas.

Three days later, patrolman pick him up, but they let him go again. I won't count that one. And now he decides to get out of town. And he leaves with a woman named Tanya, heads to New Mexico, where they catch a bus to Oklahoma City. There, he and Tanya eke out of a living by doing odd jobs. And then the night before Thanksgiving, 1977,

the two have an explosive fight, and he kicks her out of a house he'd rent it. And then he heads out by himself for the night. And he finds a bar that advertised live nude girls, where a slender blonde woman was seated at a table by herself. he dropped him beside her. Within a few hours, they're leaving together. Back at his house, they get down to business,

and Eddie blacks out. At least that's what he'll claim. He said he woke up on Thanksgiving morning to find the sheets around him smeared with human shit. And then in the kitchen, he sees a slice of meat he couldn't identify on a skillet. Another cut up into bite-sized pieces lays on the dining table.

He proceeds into the bathroom where he finds the woman in the bathtub, at least what was left of her. She had literally been cut into pieces. Both feet in her right arm have been completely severed. A hefty chunk had been removed from her backside. Eddie backtracked into the kitchen where he found her feet and arm in the fridge.

He put the mangled parts in a heavy-duty garbage bag, or I guess several garbage bags, scrub the bathroom in the kitchen, then he lugged the bags to various dumping sites across the city and parked the woman's car downtown. And now Eddie decides to leave again after reconnecting with Tanya. Why not? So after that, in December, he and Tanya make their way to Denver City, Texas, where Eddie finds work driving diesel tankers. How?

How is he driving diesel tankers now after fucking a thousand DUIs? January 24th, 1978. Eddie gets off work, heads over to neighboring Gaines County, a wet county where he could drink. On his way back, he gets tired, pulled over to take a nap, wakes up to a flashlight shining in his eyes.

The cop figured out that Eddie soon figured out, that Eddie was in violation of his parole. He was supposed to be in Nevada, and within a week, he shipped out west in change. after his 29th arrest. My God. Then he'll be sentenced to a whopping six months

in prison with three years of probation afterwards. And that's just fine with him. On May 9th, his 40th birthday, North Las Vegas announced a dismissal of his bail jumping charges, leaving Eddie more or less a free man when he hit the streets. June 16th, 1978. He has no intention to get into job or going to AA, which were two conditions of his parole.

Fucking classic Eddie! No one tells Eddie Cole what to do, or at least when they do, he doesn't listen. No one doesn't listen better than Eddie Cole doesn't listen. He returned to San Diego and he will live as he always did, shacking out with various women, occasionally taking a one-night stands home, trying to kill women. His next couple attempts will not be successful. And a few days after his last unsuccessful attempt, Diana reappears,

Diana Pashall, the bartender from San Diego, who had been trying to drink herself to death for years, the woman who is still legally his wife. And she looked better now. She had an apartment on Louisiana Street. the neighborhood of North Park, and she's sober, and the two live somewhat happily together for a few weeks, a few months, until Cole is arrested on October 25th for public drunk. His 30th arrest.

Fuck yeah. A quick check turns up some traffic tickets he'd never paid, and his current status on federal probation. Surprisingly, the magistrate says bail at just $2,000, and Eddie hits the bricks on Halloween. But then, gets arrested again on November 8th. oh his 31st arrest oh yeah and then the police let him go that same day January of 1979

he rolls in a course in air conditioning repair classes yeah why not after graduating he actually fucking graduated this class in March of 1979 he then used his connections at bars to get jobs repairing their appliances he finds a full-time position at Sims appliance in April enjoys how the job lets him go into other people's homes where young housewives will smile at him sometimes

and thank him for his hard work, and that gets him a boner. And it also gets him thinking again about more murders. On August 27th, the Monday, he drops into a bar two blocks from the apartment he shared with Diana. There he met a short-haired blonde named Bonnie Sue O'Neill. After some flirting, he suggested they go back to Sims appliance, letting Bonnie believe that he is the owner. In the small apartment in the back, they have sex. Then around 2 a.m., Bonnie says she needs to call her husband. And as soon as she hangs up, Eddie's hands are around her throat.

He squeezed until she stopped moving, then carried her out to the alley, still naked, a block or so away. He dropped her into the shadows. Next morning, police officers would gather at this site, including Detective James a Shively, a nine-year veteran of the San Diego Police Department. But what Shively and the others found was not what they suspected at first. The medical examiner's report came back with the diagnosis of death by natural causes. Bonnie's blood alcohol level coincided with a pathologist finding of advanced cirrhosis. and the police figured that she had simply drank too much, sat down and died.

And, you know, maybe was naked because, I don't know, she had started to pass out while servicing a client, and so the case is closed. This dude, despite so many arrests, kept getting lucky with the big charges. Eddie is still free, but it didn't feel that way to him. Things were getting, you know, stressful at home.

Diana sobriety is now completely gone again. She's drinking more than ever. What? Diana, no way. On the 17th of September, She found Eddie drinking with another woman in a bar. The two fought all the way back home. In the bedroom, Diana then softened, telling him that they could get through this.

They have sex tenderly. And then when it's over, he wraps his hands around her neck. Did not expect that. Now he's killed his wife. He will keep her corpse in the apartment for the next few days hiding it in a rolled-up blanket. On September 25th, Cole's next door neighbor calls the police to report that Eddie is crawling around under her house.

Patrolman find him in the crawl space. working on a grave-sized excavation. And they drive into a detox center because he's drunk where he spends the night. Holy shit. What they don't do is look in his house and find Dana's body. How has he not been caught yet? The next morning, bright and early Joyce, Diana's mom, decides to take matters into her own hands to find her daughter. For the last few days, her son-in-law has been telling her that Diana's out, that she's in the shower,

she's just not available, whenever she calls. She goes to check for herself. And as soon as she steps inside their apartment, the smell is overpowering. poor woman. She approaches the closet where she finds a rumbled bedspread. She pulls a cornerback screams. It's her fucking dead daughter. She runs to call the police. The first detective on the scene is Detective Schively. That same detective we just met a little bit ago. He was examining the corpse when Cole walked in fresh from detox, but then Eddie turned around and ran before the detective saw him. Excuse me, a sense the detective hadn't actually seen him come in, didn't try and

stop him when he left. So he gets away. He makes to a bus, gets on the bus, leaves San Diego again, unreal. But he didn't actually have to worry because Diana's autopsy revealed a blood alcohol level of 0.42, more than four times the statutory limit for intoxication and her death was described

to advanced cirrhosis complicated by ethyl alcohol poisoning. Another diagnosis of natural causes despite the fucking fact she'd been rolled up naked in a blanket and shoved into a closet. The madness never ends around this guy. Eddie now is headed back to Las Vegas.

November 3rd, 1979. He walks back and he was old haunt, that dive bar, Dan and Ray's, where he'd already picked up a previous victim, Catherine Joe Blum. Well, now, a freckled, red-headed woman sits at the bar. Eddie sits down beside her, making casual conversation for about an hour before a gaunt, gray-haired man comes up to her, says it's time to go home. Woman tells him she's staying right where she is, and when the man leaves, she turns to

Eddie to explain. Says the older man was her husband of a year, and she regretted marrying him. He could not satisfy her in bed, but she didn't want to get a divorce either because then she'd have to get a fucking job. Well, her story was music to Eddie's ears, because he now felt justified in wanting to kill her. As he twisted a nylon cord around in his pocket, they kept chatting, and by midnight, the bar was crowded and noisy.

Marie suggested they go somewhere quieter, and Eddie took her a block away to another bar, the Casbah. But they won't stay there long. After a few minutes, they proceed to one of the Casbah's attached motel rooms. Eddie takes a bath, while Marie rinses her blouse and underwear in the sink. Then she gets in the tub and starts giving Eddie a blowjob. But to him it felt practice, routine, without passion. Right? That made him hate her even more.

Then in bed, they got down to business. And afterwards, Marie suggests that they run off together. Or she could continue living with her husband and sleep with him on the side. And Eddie snapped. His hands flew up around her neck, straddling her. He pins her arms towards her sides, bends down to yank this nylon cord away from his discarded clothes. He'd been fondling earlier. Twist that around each of her fists.

And then her neck before drawing it tight. and when she finally stops moving, he rolls off of her. He dresses quickly for getting his underwear, pulls a sheet over her body. A maid would discover her body the next day, immediately reporting it to the police. Detective Karen Good would be the first on the scene, and there wasn't much for her to go off of.

This woman had no handbag, no idea of any kind, not even labels on clothes to identify where she might have, you know, bought them. One thing was obvious, though, she had been strangled. The next day, after the case was reported in the paper, a friend came forward with her name, Marie Cushman, aka Marie Powers, aka Marie Stoddard.

Numerous aliases, 49 years old. And Vegas draws so many interesting people. Digging in deeper, Detective Good found a witness Joseph Walsh, who had seen Marie leave the Casbah bar with a male companion, described to looking around 45 to 48 years old with brown hair. He was actually 41 at this point, but he had lived a hard, hard life. It was a hard 41.

On the afternoon of November 9th, the Las Vegas Review Journal published a composite sketch of the suspect, describing him not as we just heard, but as, quote, an unidentified 50-year-old man, five-foot-two, 120 pounds with gray hair, in short, a suspect, nine years older, five inches shorter, and 40 pounds lighter than Eddie Cole

with gray hair instead of brown. No idea how his description got that fucked up. Eddie Cole's weird run of incredible luck when it comes to major crimes continues. According to the article, the Casbah's desk clerk also saw a second man duck into Cushman's room about 2.30 in the morning. This elusive second suspect was described as an Indian in his 30s, about six feet tall with short, wavy black hair. What? It mentioned that the second suspect

had been driving a nondescript Chevrolet with California plates, which is actually what Eddie drove. So this guy was describing Eddie, but just fucking not even close to what he looked like. So Eddie is free to keep living his super shitty drifter's life now. And just over a month later, on Sunday, December 16th, he gets married again. Did you see that? coming? Me neither. He had started a date in a woman named Charla, who he met at another Salvation Army driving job. Poor Charlotte was 26 with substantial learning disabilities. Eddie and Charlotte will leave for Denver City, Texas, where Eddie had some work connections. They left Vegas, December 20th. At 41, Eddie's finally ready to settle down. No, he's not. A few days after New Year's,

he has stopped by the highway patrol, and he gets off with a warning, no arrest, telling the patrolman he had left his California license at the house. But then a search revealed his most recent federal warrant, and he is two days later arrested. 32 arrests. At least. He was locked up in Latuna outside of Anthony, New Mexico, before being transferred to San Diego, January 17th, 1980.

Then on February 25th, he ascended to the maximum one-year term. In May of this year, he'll be moved to Inglewood, Colorado, having requested a transfer, perhaps hoping to put some distance between himself and the murders of his wife, Diana, Essie Buck, Bonnie Sue Neal. But on that front, at least, regarding the Diana murder, you wouldn't have to worry, not yet.

After he was transferred again to Springfield, Missouri, July 9th, the case note reported the spouse was found dead September 26, 1979, and a dwelling occupied by the couple. Her body was discovered in a closet, but was so badly decomposed that an official cause of death could not be established. An effort was made to charge Cole with murder of his wife,

but the charge could not be pursued due to the decomposition of the body and the lack of accumulated evidence. On October 4th, 1980, Eddie Cole is a free man. Free from another sent in prison, free from another marriage, kind of, he's still technically married to Charlotte, but he's a manned and her.

He received a one-way ticket to Dallas where he hit up a couple bars, tried to track down his brother, couldn't find Richard, which says a lot. I bet Richard was hiding from him. I don't think Richard wanted to be found by it anymore. Instead, he ended up at the way back house, a halfway house run by a woman named Linda Bishop

who found Eddie a job at a construction site. But then on Sunday, November 2nd, he left the wayback house, not wanting to be subject to Linda's rules. Of course. He only lasted a few weeks. Now he's camping out in bars during the day and sleeping in parks and Alice at night.

And then less than two weeks later, a Dallas Police Department operator. Logs a call at 5.15 a.m. Wednesday, November 12th, 1980, a man had found a woman's dead body in the 4,100 block of Bryan Street, an inner-city neighborhood of honky-tonged saloons, cheap lodgings, and greasy spoons.

The body was female, naked from the waist down, brawless underneath an open blouse. She had blonde hair and brown eyes. Up close, flashlights picked up, modeled bruising on her throat and a crust of blood around her lips. Definitely a homicide. Detective Gerald Robinson was on the scene by 6 a.m.,

followed closely by a police photographer, a team from the forensic lab, and an assistant Dallas County Medical Examiner. The cause of death immediately apparent to the examiner strangulation. The body is then removed to the morgue to look for evidence of sexual assault. At first, it looked like it could have been a rape and murder that the killer had picked her up somewhere else, sexually assaulted her, killed her and dropped her off. Within 15 minutes, however, an officer found the victim's slacks behind a clump of trees, some 20 feet away.

The piece of clothing had been ripped and soiled, so now it looked like her pants had stayed on until after she had died, which meant any sexual assault would be postmortem. Driver's license found in her pants said that she was Wanda Faye Roberts, age 32. her home address listed as 4607 Brian just five blocks north of where she had died. Soon an autopsy would confirm manual strangulation as the cause of Juana's death, no evidence of sexual activity. Blood alcohol indicated that she had been drinking. Still, this was not much to go on, so Detective Robinson had to take the case to the streets. And with photos from the morgue, he returned to Bryan Street, work in the bars for two blocks on either side of the murder scene,

questioning bartenders and cocktail waitresses along the way. at Pauline's bar, a short block north of where the body was discovered, employees identified Wanda Faye as a regular. She'd been drinking in Pauline tonight she died, hanging around until the bar closed at 2 a.m. Bartender wasn't sure, but he thought she might have left the tavern with another semi-regular, some dude named Eddie. Bartender didn't know his last name,

but over several weeks of idle conversation, Eddie had described himself as living at a halfway house for ex-cons on parole. Unfortunately, that was not as promising as it sounded. without a last name or even known if his first name was Eddie it was going to be hard to follow up on this lead and because of that another woman would soon die about two weeks later near midnight November 30th a Sunday

Sally Thompson's two grown sons brought a girlfriend home to visit their mom's Rollins Avenue apartment lights were on in the living room TV was playing a show but the door was locked and neither of the boys had thought to bring over a key they started to knock several minutes then passed with nothing happening, but then finally

somebody answered the door, but it wasn't their mom. It was a stranger. The man was slender, average height, dark hair, thin mustache. His breath reeked to alcohol. He appeared disoriented, but he didn't protest when the boys brushed past him, looking for their mom. They soon found Sally Thompson lying on the floor, face down beside the couch. Her jeans and panties

wadded up around her ankles. How fucking devastating for her sons. Scared shitless as anyone would be that the two boys ran to find help. Went over to a neighbor's. Meanwhile, inside the stranger walked back to the couch, just sat down, apparently befuddled, with the dead body of their 43-year-old legal secretary mom stretched out at his feet. Ridiculously, he's still there when some of the boy's neighbors come over, took one look at the scene and ran to call the police. One neighbor

smartly stayed, guard in the door in his pajamas, so the man couldn't leave. But the silent stranger had no intention to leaving. He just kept sitting there immobile, staring at the TV with his eyes half open. Soon the police arrived, confirmed the lady of the house was dead, handcuffed the guy. 33rd arrest He seemed to come around as they began to question him He would tell them that his name was Carol Edward Cole That his address was only two blocks away At 438 Lemon Avenue

The way he told it He had encountered Sally Thompson in a nearby bar Club Deville And after several rounds of drinks She invited him home Once back at the apartment They settled down to business on the couch Cole was in the process

Disrobing her when Thompson suddenly collapsed He said apparently unconscious Excuse me He said he was trying to revive her when the unexpected visitors turned up. Moments later, a team of paramedics rolled in to check the body for signs of violence. None were visible, so the symptoms pointed to an overdose,

either drugs or alcohol. In other words, Eddie's story seemed to check out. This is so fucking frustrating. This is ridiculous. I didn't think I would get this pissed off again, working on an episode so soon after the very upsetting Anhill Kids. Reluctantly, the officers removed Eddie Cole's handcuffs. God damn it!

But they still wanted to ask him some questions down at the station. At the station, Colts told him the same story, emphasizing that Sally had consented to the encounter. He couldn't explain her sudden death. So what happened to Sally? Well, nobody knew. I mean, we know. We know he strangled her. But nobody knew at this moment, other than Eddie.

After an autopsy, the cause of death was filed as indeterminate. No clear-cut signs of violent trauma on the corpse, no drugs or poison in the blood or tissue to account for her demise. An elevated blood alcohol content supported the tentative verdict of an accidental alcohol-related death. In other words, again, the case is closed. And Cole was driven back to Lemon Avenue released from police custody. However, that night's story would soon make it back to someone else, Detective Gerald Robinson. Looking at the police rolladex, Robinson found that 48 or 4038 Lemon Avenue was the address of the way back, a halfway house for felons on probation or parole. He had been tipped off, remember that the suspect in the murder of a different woman, Wanda Faye Roberts, was a guy named Eddie living at that halfway house.

It was a rough two blocks from Sally Thompson's place on Rollins Or, you know, living at a halfway house And this one was close. It was a rough two blocks from Sally Thompson's place in Rollins. And within two miles of Bryan Street where Wanda had been killed. Detective Robinson, telephone the halfway house, spoke to head counselor Linda Bishop, digging up on some background information about this strange man.

And he learned that Cole had left the halfway house November 3rd, but called back and got himself back into it on the 12th. And that was the same day that Wanda had been murdered. Provisions for Cole's readmission to the way back including counseling, no liquor in a curfew that would get him off the streets by 10 at night. He also had to get a job. And indeed he did.

He was working at a warehouse for Toys Russ, preparing for the big pre-Christmas rush. His supervisors reported that he was sullen and uncommunicative. Linda Bishop was convinced that he had something on his mind. How creepy that a bunch of kids around the Dallas area got Christmas gifts in 1980 that had been handled in some way by this serial killer. Near closing time, Monday afternoon,

December 1st, Detective Rush, Robinson entered the Toys R Us warehouse, asking the foreman for directions to Eddie Cole's work area. By first glance, his slender, well-groomed subject did not look like Robinson the image of a serial killer. Some long-haired dude ranting and raving to himself in the bushes. But Robinson knew that looked could be deceiving. He approached a stranger cautiously, prepared for Cole to try and run or try and fight, but Cole did not attempt to flee or fight. The suspect's manna was actually very respectful and reserved, as Robinson displayed his badge and asked Cole to come down to the station. Oh yeah, of course that guy's not going to get worked up about a badge.

She's been arrested a fucking million times. At the station, Robinson steered Cole toward the Crimes Against Persons Division. They left him in a small interrogation room, two chairs facing each other across a narrow table, and Robinson came back a couple and stayed with two cups of coffee. After he was Mirandized, Cole waved his rights, seeming like a man with nothing to hide. Indeed, he'd already told the Sally Thompson story twice, and probably thought he could tell it again just as convincingly.

But Robinson had a surprise for him. the name Wanda Roberts. Did Cole know that lady by chance? Had they left Pauline's together in the early morning hours of November 12th? Did Cole perhaps end up strangling her, dumping her body? Cole grudgingly admitted meeting Wanda

at Pauline's night. She died. In fact, he said they had walked out together, but on the sidewalk, he said, Wanda started talking to a tall, slim stranger and went off with him. Cole said he felt like a bit of a chump, but what do you do? Without missing a beat,

Robertson shifted back to the Thompson case, going over Cole's story about the event once again. Then Robinson asked if he'd be willing to take a polygraph. But before he could answer, Robinson was brought out by a colleague who told him that he was needed on a shooting that involved a police officer. Homicide was short-staffed. He was needed, so he'd have to wrap things up with Cole. Robinson now had to make a snap choice. Would he let Cole go? No. Thank God. No, he would not. He informed Cole. He was arresting him on suspicion of murdering Wanda Roberts. 34th arrests.

Not counting trips at Juby's a kid. So it's probably more like 40. Eddie Cole did not push back. Instead, he seemed relieved. And then he said, we shouldn't quit right now. I've still got things to tell you

it could take a while. What kind of things, Detective Robinson asked. About a murder. Cole answered, I'll need coffee and some smokes before we start. Robinson was not moving on

to that other case now. He stayed and escorted Cole to the cigarette vending machine, standing by while his suspect fed coins into the slot and made his selection. Returning to the cubicle, he grabbed another officer, passed the other shooting off to him.

Cole was now his top priority, fucking finally. Okay, he says, as he is seated across Cole, tell me what happened. I can tell you right now, Cole answered, that I need some help. It's like I'm with a woman, having drinks, and then something comes over me. I have to kill her.

Go on, he says. Without further hesitation, Cole launched into a description of a typical incident. Sunday afternoon in Charlie's bar at Carol and Gaston, drink it with the woman he'd never seen before. The invitation to her to go to her house was no surprise to him. He said he got picked up a lot.

Soon they were sitting on her couch, drinking beer and watching TV. But where another man might feel lust getting turned on at the prospect of a hookup, a foggy haze instead enveloped coal. I grabbed her around the throat and pulled her behind me on the couch, he recalled. So hard her wig slipped off. I was choking her a few seconds before I remembered the open door, then I lifted her into a sitting position, laying my head on her shoulder for appearances

while I kept up the pressure on her throat. It was easy, no struggle at all. At one point a Mexican passed by the door and looked in at us, but he figured we were making out and just kept going. Finally satisfied that she was dead, Cole rose and shut the door, returning to the couch.

He said he stripped his victim, carrying her naked body to the bedroom. Like Wanda, the woman had defecated, and Cole retrieved a washcloth from the bathroom, cleaning her up, pausing once to vomit from the stench. With that done, he said he raped the corpse, fell asleep beside it, waking several times, for more intercourse throughout the night.

The next morning, Cole went on. I took her key and locked the apartment before I went out drinking. That night I came back, slept with her body, and screwed her several times. The second morning I left, I never went back. Robinson was now freaking out. This was not a hypothetical, like Cole had let him to believe initially. This was a different murder altogether he was confessing to.

Robinson interrupted Cole, excused himself for a moment, rushed down the hall to check for any records of a case that he might have missed. A Sunday in November narrowed down the possibilities. If Cole had spent two nights with his victim, it would have to be November 9th when he was AWOL from the halfway house. Moments later, Robinson was scanning a report

on the death of Dorothy King, age 52, found in the bedroom of her apartment on Tuesday, the 11th of November. A worried friend dropped by to check on King after she missed work two days in a row. The medical examiner's report attributed her death to natural causes. Linked to chronic alcohol abuse,

a lot like Sally Thompson. back in the interrogation room Robinson knew he had to tread carefully not to mess up this confession now Now about this girl in the bar Robinson began starting over from scratch Trying to get the full story of whatever the fuck was happening here Tell me more about her Cole frowned apparently confused which one Now Robinson was really freaking out But he let Cole go back to a story

Cole proceeded to tell the detective about how Wanda had really died Said a lose and Wanda to an unknown man outside of Paul Leans He said they walked together to the gravel parking lot where Wanda leaned against a car and they began to make out in the dark. And then Cole's hands went inside her blouse. She got mad for some reason, started screaming, he told Robinson. I got scared, and she started struggling,

so I put my hands on her neck. I asked her, what was the matter? I kept squeezing her neck. I just couldn't stop. When Wanda went limp, Cole said he tugged her slacks off, tearing them, also said he had meant to rape her body,

but the smell of feces repulsed him too much. Afterward, he said, I walked around and called the halfway house and asked him if I can move back in. He hoped that didn't stop him. He hoped that would, rather, excuse me, stop him for continuing to kill, but it didn't. By November 30th, he'd begun to prowl again.

That's Sunday night, while he's drinking beer, watching football at Club DeVille. He first met Sally Thompson, he said. She told me she was lonely, Cole recalled, and said that I looked like I was lonely too. She came right out and said she was looking for a man to live with her. The prospect put Cole off, but after a few more drinks,

he returned with Thompson to her Rollins Avenue apartment. They got settled on the couch, and Cole's mind started to spin. again. I remember thinking, why don't these goddamn whores leave me alone? Cole said and shook his head. I turned around and grabbed her by the neck and started choking her. Robinson thought that was that. But Cole had six more murders for him. There were the three San Diego murders, Essie Buck, the tavernorner, a sex worker named Bonnie Sue O'Neill and his wife, Diana. And there was Las Vegas, a sex worker, Catherine Blum, two years later, Marie Cushman. The final

victim he discussed that day was Merlin Hammer, who he killed in Casper, Wyoming. Finally, Cole is booked into city jail on three counts of first-degree murder. And now there will be no more arrests. More charges, yeah, but at long lasted, his days of actually being arrested are over. He'll be put into a one-man cage with a telephone, but he had nobody to call, and later he was placed into a holding cell with a few other men. By that time, word of his long, playing confessions had leaked to the Dallas media. TV camera crews were backing up outside the station house.

A deputy would even try to get Cole's autograph later that night. That's weird. I'm fascinated by these killers, clearly. but I never think like, oh man, I'd like to have their autograph. What? I wouldn't want to help them feel special in some way. That's fucking sick. They're disgusting, right?

I'd rather be allowed to give them a lethal objection than get an autograph. The next morning, Cole would be introduced to his court-appointed attorney Doug Parks. Parks thought the prosecution might have trouble with the medical examiner's office. After all, both Dorothy and Sally's deaths were linked to alcoholism, not violence. But in light of Cole's statements, Dr. Charles Perry, Dallas County's medical examiner, had no qualms about amending, his original verdicts in both cases. says, good for him. Perry told the press, it doesn't take much to strangle someone

under those circumstances, and there may not be any marks at all. So glad we have an explanation now for how so many of his strangulation victims were misattributed to deaths related to alcohol abuse. That was driving me crazy. Meanwhile, news of Cole's arrest and confessions had spread in Las Vegas, Nevada, Detective

Joe McGuckin, who we've met, took the call, caught a flight to Dallas on December 3rd, the first detective on the scene when Catherine Blum was found in 77, McGuckin had been waiting three and a half years for a break in the case and just over one year for Marie Cushman's. At the police and courts building downtown, McGuckin was met by Gerald Robinson, guided to an interrogation room and introduced to Cole. McGuckin had Cole described Catherine Blum, her general appearance.

The clothing she wore the night she died. When that was done, he laid down a fan of photographs out in front of Cole, and Eddie picked the correct victim out in two of them. Then it was on to Marie Cushman, which Eddie narrated similarly. McGuckin was satisfied. He was the killer he was looking for, and he returned to Sin City that Thursday. However, not everybody believed Cole's confessions, or they didn't want to. When a reporter for the San Diego Union questioned Cole's confessions, Deputy Coroner J. Johnson told Newsman, it's just my personal opinion, but I don't believe there's anything to it. Maybe he knew these women. Maybe they drank at the same bars, and he was aware of the circumstances of their deaths.

Indeed, like King and Thompson's deaths, Essie, Bonnie, and Diana had been listed as having died of natural causes. despite some pretty strong evidence to the contrary. Maybe the coroner's office was skeptical because they had definitely fucked up, weren't good at their jobs, and didn't want to admit that. Maybe some members of San Diego police were, you know, worried too about, you know, how they'd fucked up because they were also openly scornful of Cole's confessions. Lieutenant John Gregory, chief of the city's homicide division, announced that his detectives had, quote, no interest in Cole and no plans to check

a statements out. All things considered, Gregory declared, it is obvious. He had knowledge and knew they were dead, and apparently he had a history of mental instability and a background of criminal activity. The coroner conducted thorough autopsies, and the man would have to be some sort of expert to estrangle these whim without leaving any bruise marks. Some of these confessions could be the product of a sick mind. This guy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, right? Another actual doctor said, yeah, this can't happen. And then this police officer, it's like, no disrespect, but like, dude, you're not a fucking doctor.

What are you doing? thankfully the case of Merlin Hamer or Hammer in Wyoming was more straightforward. Detective Art Terry of the Natrona County Sheriff's Office flew into Dallas on December 10th, took his turn with Cole that afternoon in the interrogation room. Like with the others, Eddie would tell the whole story plainly, and Detective Terry would believe him. Soon, Cole would be removed at the county lockup, overlooking Dealey Plaza. His assignment for protection apparently was a tiny strip cell, one of ten adjoining the infirmary. There was no heat, no bed, no blankets.

A blower pumped the December chill inside around the clock. He went in naked but was allowed a jailhouse uniform after a while. Cole spent a month in isolation before Attorney Edgar Mason teamed with parks for the defense and stepped in, got a move to the infirmary, which had a TV and a mattress. Next transfer shifted Cole to a regular cell block where word of his crimes and confessions begun to filter down. He quickly made some friends with some of the inmates there and settled in to await his trial. On February 5th, 1981, Cole got legal news of a different kind.

He had received divorce proceedings from Las Vegas. Charlotte Cole had filed for disillusion of their marriage after 14 months. I actually forgot he was married again. Mostly time during which Cole had been locked away for violating this probation. As a resident of Nevada, she was entitled to a divorce within six weeks unless Eddie contested the suit, which he would not. And the divorce would be granted March 10th. She must have been relieved as held, not only no longer be with him, but also not to have to worry about being murdered by him. Meanwhile, a lot of people wanted to know who was this guy?

What kind of guy murdered woman after woman for around a decade and then just admitted to it without even being pressured? Cole sat for interviews with the jailhouse psychiatrist, Dr. Grigsden, along with another psychiatrist, Clay Griffith, beginning January 30th. As he explained to Griffith throughout Cole's life, the thoughts of hurting someone were bothering me. And yet, he now claimed that he had no memory of what had happened to Dorothy King or Wanda Roberts, saying he had started talking to them, then he blacked out, next thing he knew, he's sitting and everything. to their dead bodies. Concerning the women he remembered, Griffith asked, did you have intercourse prior to killing them? Yes, some of them, he said. Did you have intercourse after killing them? Yes, he said. Why? Cole shrugged. I had occasionally slept with the dead, I had occasionally slept, excuse me, with dead women before. At the end,

Dr. Griffith wanted to know Cole's opinion of his own sanity. Is there any reason why you can't go to trial? No, Cole replied. Any reason why you think that you were insane? when the murders occurred. And he said, I couldn't control myself. By the first week of April, both sides were ready for trial before district judge John Mead. Opposing Doug Parks and Ed Mason, assistant district attorneys, Mary Ludwig and Andy Anderson would represent the prosecution. Cole's involvement in three local murders would never be contested. He was claiming an insanity defense.

A jury's verdict would thus decide if he'd be kept in a prison or a mental hospital. The trial began Monday, April 6th with opening statements from each side. assistant DA Ludwig, sketched the bare facts of her case. Cole was both guilty and sane, at least criminally sane. He definitely wasn't sane, sane, but he'd known exactly what he was doing when he killed those women. He knew it was wrong. He did it anyway, tried not to get caught. Cole's lawyers accounted with their insanity defense,

citing their client's long history of treatment and mental hospitals as evidence that his crime stemmed from a deep-seated, irrepressible compulsion to kill. Doctors Griffith and Grigson, for their parts, diagnosed Cole as a classic sociopath, but said that he was very much criminally sane. Simply stated, they regarded Cole as an antisocial chronic offender, perhaps sexually deviant, but fully capable of understanding and controlling his behavior. Defense attorneys, Parks, and Mason petitioned the court for a new psychiatric evaluation of Cole. Judge Mead ordered another session with Dr. Griffith. Cole's second interview with Griffith took place Tuesday morning, April 7th,

in a conference room adjacent to the judge's chambers. And it was clear to everyone that Cole was only trying to find the easiest way out. wrapping up the interview, Cole said, I want to die, I want the death penalty, or else to spend the rest of my life in a mental hospital. When the public trial resumed that afternoon, Parks and Mason put their only witness on the stand. Eddie.

Eddie described his hatred for his abusive mother, masturbating over photographs of murdered women in detective magazines growing up, the years he had spent in prisons and mental hospitals. He claimed that women he murdered reminded him of his drunken, adulterous mother. I think, he told the panel. I've been killing her through them.

And you know what? Sounds probably accurate to me, right? All that counseling maybe led him to being more self-aware than the average serial killer. Also, rather than the six murders described as December confessions, Cole now admitted to a dozen since 1971. He said he had omitted some of them from previous statements because he didn't know their names. Like two more in San Diego, one in Oklahoma City, murdered on Thanksgiving, 1977. We went over that one.

This one is almost a complete blank, he told jurors of the Oklahoma victim. I don't remember her name, but she had black. care was about 30 or 35 years old. Once again, he claimed that he had no recollection of the crime itself, but woke up to find his rented room and disarray. I had gotten out of bed and I was in the kitchen making coffee, he testified. Evidently, I had done some cooking the night before. There was some meat on the stove and a frying pan and part of that, and part that I hadn't eaten on a plate on the table. It looked like a round steak. I'd gone to the bathroom and found her in my bathtub, and part of her buttocks was missing. The feet were gone, the hand, and the arm. I found

them in the refrigerator. Cole described how he'd taken a hack saw, cut the body into smaller pieces, stuffing parts into plastic garbage bags, and dropping the parcels in a nearby dumpster. I don't think that they ever found any of the parts, he said. And I never heard anyone say that she was missing. I guess nobody will ever know who she was. On Wednesday, April 8, there was prosecutor Mary Ludwig's turn to cross-examine Cole. Rather than dispute his public confession to a dozen homicides, she challenged his alleged memory lapses and uncontrollable desire to kill. do you feel the urge to kill anyone right now she asked cole i've got all this in me he replied it's always with me right now it's even directed i could even say it's directed at you why haven't you killed me then she asked

well this is a controlled situation he answered stating the obvious and i can control it to a certain extent mary ludwick made sure to hit that point hard he's not insane she told the jury he knows exactly what he's doing he knew exactly what he was doing each time he picked up a victim and she said he was probably making the stuff up about cannibalism up to sound crazier than he was. After all, who just happened to have a hacksaw in hand? Cole's lawyers disagree. Can you call all of this antisocial conduct? Mason challenged the jury.

Can you buy that? Murder? Necrophilia? Cannibalism? The doctors who decided he was not a danger to himself or others should shoulder the blame. They could have stopped him. So what would the jury decide?

Well, it took the jurors all of about 25 minutes. to convict Cole on all counts, finding him both sane and responsible. Cole waived his right to have the jury decide the penalty, and the court was adjourned pending Judge Mead sentencing the following Thursday. And on April 9th, Cole stood before Judge Meade to hear his sentence. Mead sends Cole to three life terms in prison, two of them to run concurrently, to be served at the Huntsville Prison in Huntsville, Texas. The sentence included parole, the possibility of it, before the year 2005, when Cole

would have been 67. That's fucking ridiculous. After all that, he could have gotten out in time to start collecting social security checks, maybe kill some more. But then something odd happened. In January of 1984, Cole got a letter from a California lawyer informing him of his mother's death two months prior. A copy of her will was enclosed, and in that will, he read that she had left him one single dollar. Mama Vesta Truly hated baby boy And that changed something

Inside of Cole He now suddenly agreed To face further murder charges in Nevada The murders of Catherine Blum And Marie Cushman Even though that could mean the death penalty Which is he wanted In February of 194

Cole is extradited to Nevada In October he's found guilty of Cushman and Blum's murders He didn't put up a defense Just like he hoped He was sentenced to death When the judge gave him the sentence He actually literally replied

Thanks judge the day was set for December 6, 1985. There would be no appeals, and he did not want to waste time. He wanted to die quickly. Despite his wish for months, anti-death penalty campaigners, including the ACLU,

the United Methodist Church Reno, even several fellow death throw inmates tried to have his sentence commuted, but Cole was not having it. Everything's in motion. I'm not changing my mind, he told the press on Saturday, November 30th. That's not to say,

I'm not scared, don't get me wrong. I don't consider myself brave or courageous from Noble. In my own way, even though I'm scared and nervous, I'm sort of at peace, too. I just messed up my life so bad, I just don't care for it to go on. For his last meal on December 5th, he ordered jumbo-fried shrimp, French fries, a salad with French dressing, and some Boston clam chowder. And on the 5th, less than six hours away from his death, 47-year-old Carol Edward Eddie Cole gave an interview to a local news reporter from Channel 8, K-L-A-S-T-V-V-N-L-V-A-S-V-Vegas.

And here is that interview so you can hear him speak about himself in his own words. What about the stress, Ed? Is it changing? Is it getting harder? Is it getting easier? What's it's been getting harder? Is it? Yeah, since Friday night, actually.

But really, last couple days been real emotionally, I mean, not mentally drained, not emotionally just feel tired and everything like that. Exhausting. Time going by quicker, slower? Fast. Fast. Mm-hmm. Does that need you change your mind in any way?

No. Has it once ever occurred to you? To delay this? That's always occurred. But why not fight for your life? I just don't care to it. Are you sorry? For the victim?

Yes. Yes. All right. Anyone in particular? Especially. The one that was the 11-year-old ago, way back in 1967. And even doing that five-year-s sentence, it wasn't, that wasn't enough. But it affected me.

Just awesome because I not suffered. but I thought about it and condemned myself for many years. Because I can just imagine what that dear, what her life might have been like. What's the little girl's name again? Rurton. Not sure why he's saying here that he wondered what like 11-year-old Virginia Roden's life would have been like, because, you know, she did live.

He did not kill her. Maybe he was trying to say he wondered how his attempt to strangle her affected her life, but also he was fucking nuts. I don't know. maybe he thought towards the end that he did actually kill her. Okay, a little bit more here. What about the religious aspect that I did? Like I told you before, that's kind of personal.

But it's there. When you think about this execution, are you afraid that there might be some pain involved? After all, we don't really know. This is the first time that the state has carried out this type of execution. Oh, you know, I said if I wasn't concerned about that, I'd be lying. But because everybody wants to go, you know,

easiest, most comfortable way. Is that enter your mind, though, that you might... They might, you know, something might go wrong or, or, you know, be stuck, some kind of separate. But that is not altered my decision. anything. Do you deserve to that? I can't answer that question. No, it's the ultimate question. It is, it is the question.

For what I did, yes, I think I did. I never die. I did not expect him to be so soft-spoken. You know, nothing about him. If you didn't know, you know, what he had done, would it would appear like intimidating or dangerous, you know, he seemed like a just quiet, kind of sad guy. Just a reminder, just looking at somebody, you know, you just never truly know what they're capable of or what they've already done. Cole was executed by lethal injection around seven hours, six, seven hours after speaking those words at the Nevada State Prison on December 6, 1985 at 2.10 a.m. And with that, let's get out of this timeline.

Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. Okay, and real quick down before sharing some final thoughts, time for another, just sponsors a quick message. I forgot to put in earlier, sorry about that, but this will be it here. Today's time suck is brought to you by the Ant Hill Kids Surgical Care Center. Hey, boys and girls, one of the fun facts of life is that everybody gets sick. If you're lucky to live long enough, you're going to eventually need a doctor. And our clinic has the best doctor, Dr. Rock. And unlike most doctors, Dr. Rock has not been corrupted by an exploitive capitalist medical system.

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The Anheel Kids Surgical Care Center where everyone, and I mean everyone, goes under the knife. Huh. I know I just ran that ad, but I don't, that doesn't sound safe at all. I would avoid Dr. Rock at all costs. The Ant Hill Kid surgical care center, uh, it sounds pretty fucked. Let's talk about Carol Eddie Cole again now. Carol Edward Cole, excuse me, was born May 9th, 1938 in Sioux City, Iowa to Laverne and Vest to Cole.

and grew up in Richmond, California, in the tumultuous atmosphere of the 1940s, a time defined by, you know, World War II, hard work, patriotism, a booming economy, but also some shifting attitudes around gender roles, sexuality and authority. His childhood was deeply troubled. His dad was drafted into World War II, absent for several years, leaving Cole in the care of his emotionally and sometimes physically abusive mother. As a little kid, Vesta would take him to meet her lovers, then later beat him to ensure he kept these episodes secret,

or maybe just because she, I don't know, thought it was fun, or was fucking nuts. Also reportedly dressed him in girls' clothing, was violent towards him for minor mistakes, paraded him in front of friends in that clothing to mock him. Seems like she just abused him a lot for her own amusement. At eight years old, Cole may have committed his first known murder when according to his later confession,

he drowned a classmate, Dwayne Owen, in a harbor in Richmond. The boy's death was originally ruled an accident, and it was the first time that Eddie slipped through the cracks when it came to being punished for a, you know, major violent crime, but far from the last time. As a teen, he committed a number of petty crimes, struggled with alcohol, had repeated run-ins with authorities, none of which would change at all as he got older. After high school, he briefly joined the Navy but was discharged for theft and misconduct, set off a preposterous series of well over 30 arrests.

In the early 1960s, he would make his first confession to authorities about being tormented by dark urges, visions of wrapping his hands around women's throat squeezing until they stop breathing despite these disturbing admissions or omissions excuse me, admissions I was right the first time despite those disturbing admissions

he spent only brief periods in mental institutions in California where evaluators noted his intense fear and resentment towards women one doctor wrote that he must kill her before he could have sex with the woman and yet he was repeatedly released they didn't know what to do with this guy

Cole spent almost an entire adult life drifting around, you know, various states across the western U.S., bouncing between menial jobs and short prison terms for burglary, arson, vagrancy, you know, random other crimes. For a while when it came to murder, he fortunately, not very good at it. Try to shoot at cars when he was in the Navy, as far as we know. That didn't result in any deaths. Repeatedly followed women, attack them. But for a long time, they managed to alert someone or otherwise get away. And Eddie had to run, praying that, you know, they didn't see enough of him to make an identification.

but that would unfortunately change May 7th, 1971 in San Diego when he picked up woman named Essey Buck from a tavern, strangled her in his car and later dumped her body. However, it would take authorities nearly a decade to catch up with him. And during that time, he would kill again, and again, and again. While he was ultimately convicted of killing

five women, Catherine Blum, Marie Cushman, Sally Thompson, Dorothy King, and Wanda Faye Roberts, he almost certainly killed many more. At least a dozen. Possibly up to 35. and he was able to keep killing largely because he caught a ridiculous amount of lucky breaks. The cops initially chalked up so many of his victims' death to natural causes. Could something have been done to stop any of these women? What do you do when somebody confesses to having an irrepressible urge to murder?

Do you put them away for life? Do you send them to a psychiatric institution? I mean, it's not illegal to want to kill. It's not illegal to confess an urge to want to strangle women to death. Should it be? Probably not because if it was less people would admit to having urges like that. And even if a confession like that was grounds for some kind of institutionalization, how long should you be able to keep somebody like that?

Until they're cured? How do you know if they're cured? Couldn't they just easily lie and tell you that the urge is gone just to be released? It's very complicated. Unfortunately, there currently is no universal. This is going to work treatment or medication for homicidal fantasies. Maybe someday there will be. For now, unfortunately, I think we do have to wait and see if the person

acts on the urge and then if they do, the punishment needs to be so much harsher than it is now. If you're found guilty of choking one woman to death, you should fucking never be eligible for parole. You're too great a risk to society. Will more governments ever come around to understanding that? I guess time will tell. Until then, I guess if you know somebody who has these urges, be fucking careful around them, and I don't know, try and keep an eye on them. Wish I had a better answer. What I do have is today's top five takeaways. Time suck. Top five takeaways.

Number one. Born on May 9, 1938, Eddie Cole did not exactly face the kind of childhood that many serial killers have been known for. You know, chronic neglect, traumatic brain injuries, constant horrific physical abuse. But there were definitely seeds of similar themes around abuse, sexuality, shame, and control.

And they all coalesced around one figure, his mother, Vesta Cole, Trapped at home with her children while her husband was deployed during World War II, Vesta began looking for an outlet and found one in sex parties, sometimes bringing Eddie along while he was still a child, which is definitely a form of abuse. Afterwards, she would beat Eddie, force him to wear girls' clothes, parade him around her friends to laugh at him,

make sure he understood that it was her who called the shots, not his dad, whom Eddie grew to hate for failing to assert his masculine control over the family. Domineering, abusive mother, plus spineless cuck of a father, that actually does come up a lot. the backstories of serial killers. Number two, Eddie may have committed his first murder when he was only eight years old. Killing a neighborhood kid, excuse me, named Dwayne in a nearby harbor, which police wrote off as a random drowning.

As Eddie grew older, his fixation with women, women he perceived as mocking men, flaunting their bodies, making a spectacle of their infidelity, like Mama did, would take center stage in his violent fantasies. Reportedly, it's possible that he murdered up to 35 women, often returning to many of their bodies to engage in necrophilia. And depending on whether or not you believe him, he once even a cannibalized woman during a blackout over Thanksgiving in 1977,

later disposing of her body and garbage bags. It is possible, however, that he exaggerated that for his trial in order to try and get his insanity defense. Number three, in 1960, Cole attacked two couples, parked in cars on a lover's lane. Soon afterward, he spoke with the police in Richmond, California, where he was still living, and told him he was plagued by violent fantasies involving strangling women.

And yet, the psychiatric system over and over, again as he was jailed for more crimes, so many crimes and confessed to various legal authorities, this community, this system found that there was nothing wrong with him, or at least nothing wrong with him that they could fix. His diagnosis was most often some type of antisocial personality disorder. To be fair, this wasn't entirely the fault of the doctors. Cole did not give them the key they needed to attach his upbringing to the violent fantasies that plagued him, and he certainly did not tell them about the murders he had committed once he had started to commit them. Still, this puts Cole in an interesting spot.

amongst our serial killing alumni. He didn't seem to want to kill, or at least he knew that killing was wrong, and it would land him in trouble, which he didn't want to be in. But he also didn't have much sympathy for any of his victims either. He believed at the time when he killed them

that they deserved their fates, and over time, he seemed to try and stop himself less and less. Number four, part of the reason Eddie Cole got away with murder for so long, besides the failure of hospitals and psychologists, was the police across various states kept describing his victim's death

to natural causes. In an era before sophisticated toxicology and forensic profiling, investigators believed that the women's blood alcohol levels and torn clothing were evidence that their bodies had simply given up. Okay? Not sure about the torn clothes part there, but that's what they thought. When Eddie confessed to the murders of not just Wanda Roberts, the murder he was originally picked up for in November of 1980,

but also Dorothy King and Sally Thompson, both of whom had supposedly died in natural causes, many investigators realized they had been way off base. except for people in San Diego. They would not formally admit to their fuck-ups ever. Guess that department's egos were just too fragile for them to admit they made a mistake. And number five, new info, Cole was executed by lethal injection. December 6, 1985, but Nevada has not always done it that way.

The state has a very interesting history with the death penalty, how it's administered. The first recorded execution in the area that is now Nevada was the hanging of John Carr for murdering Bernard Cherry of Carson City, November 30th, 1860. Then in 1911, a legislative change allowed inmates to choose between hanging or facing a firing squad. But then when one inmate and Drizzo Mikovic

chose the firing squad claiming that he wanted to die like a soldier, the prison ran into a problem. Nobody wanted to be the one to kill him. After a bunch of guards quit over this, Nevada finally invented in an automated firing squad comprised of three rifles mounted on an iron frame that fired simultaneously. True to his wishes,

Andresa Mikovic would face that in 1913. After the firing squad was phased out, the Nevada or Nevada tried to use cyanide gas in 1924. G. John was the first person in the U.S. executed by lethal gas. They tried to pump it in John's cell while he slept at first, but that proved impossible. And so a proper gas chamber was constructed. After 58 years, though, the gas chamber started to show its age,

and prison's director Charles Wolfe thought that executing anyone there might lead to leaks, leaks it could be deadly. 1983, the lethal injection was adopted as a supposedly more humane technique and it's also a lot cheaper. To this day, lethal injection remains the sole authorized method of execution in Nevada. For some reason, burning some sexually violent

motherfuckers alive or letting a pack of feral dogs, eat them, or death via chainsaw, has not been formally proposed by the state legislature as a new possibility. Who knows why? Time shock. Top five takeaways. Help me before I kill,

the chilling story of Eddie Cole has been sucked. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for their help in making time suck. Thanks to Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins. Thanks also to Logan Keith, helping to publish this episode and designing merch for the store at badmagicproductions.com.

Got a lot of new stuff in there. Thank you to including an Ant Hill Kids t-shirt for last week. Thanks to Sophie Evans for her research. Also thanks to... Also thanks to the all seen eyes moderating the cult of the Curest Facebook group, the Mod Squad, making sure Discord keeps running smooth, and everybody on the TimeSuck and Bad Magic subredits. And now let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker updates. Get your Time Sucker updates.

Starting off today with a great bit of info and a correction sent into Bojangles at Timesuckpodcast.com from a badass and compassionate meat sack named Beth, who wrote him with a subject line of Narcan, Does. not work on cocaine odies. Yeah, Beth wrote, good morning. A long-time listener, I love your podcast, got me through a lot of deployments when I was in the Navy. I just wanted to clarify something because you have a larger following. I'm an ER nurse. I've unfortunately seen a lot of overdoses.

Narcan does not work for cocaine overdoses. Narcan only works to perverse opioids, like fentanyl, oxycodone, percocet, et cetera. It's great that you have it on standby in your drug, if your drugs relates with something bad. But I'm concerned people hear the 500 episode and think that it's safer to do coke if they have Narcan at the ready.

Three out of five stars wouldn't change a thing. Love time, sucking scared to death. Your podcast have helped me decompress from some very tough shifts. Beth. Well, Beth, first off, thank you for your service, both in the military and working as an ER nurse. Hot damn, you've been doing a lot of important shit.

So good on you. And yes, you are 100% correct. Narcan will not stop a cocaine overdose. I should have clarified that better. I had it on hand in case somehow my multiple test strips failed to find some sneaky clump of fentanyl. It was just an extra layer of safety for the possibility of an opioid overdose, but yeah, it does not work for cocaine.

Some of the most common cocaine overdose symptoms are slowed breathing, respiratory arrest, extreme paranoia, elevated body temperature, tremors, seizures, heart attack, and cardiac arrest. And those last two are the biggest dangers, right? I can give you a heart attack. Generally, though, that's only going to happen if you have an underlying heart condition or if you've just taken way too much. You know, most drugs have a toxicity level.

Just like too much alcohol can kill you. You can obviously snort too much cocaine. Most cocaine overdoses occur when you're taking it with alcohol or other drugs. But, you know, not all. It is dangerous, of course, on its own. If you do start to experience problems with your heart, you know, it's time for the ER. It's time to call emergency services. Maybe get an ambulance out.

And while you wait, drink a lot of water. Get as hydrated as possible to help thin your blood and help cool and calm. calm your body down. And I'm sure there's more to it. I'm not a, this is not, you know, official advice. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a, but I'm just sharing a little bit of what I know. But also, on this one, truly, do your own research. Look into it if you're going to fuck around with that stuff. And thanks again for catching that, Beth. And now one more safety message from another safety-minded, Carrie Meetsack, sending with a subject line of episode 500 in the fentanyl epidemic. Chandler wrote, hey Dan, I wanted to reach out to in regards to something

you brought up in the beginning of the episode for episode 500. You mentioned that you procured, or somebody else procured some special K for you, to use for the episode, and you tested it, and it came back positive for fentanyl. First of all, I want to say, I'm glad you were able to test it yourself and that you were aware that this was a resource

you had access to because fentanyl's a scary, scary drug. I contacted Lindsay a while back about something like this. I'm not sure if she shared it with you, she did. But I had my best friend pass away because someone had laced her weed with fentanyl, and she was unaware. It was a devastating and heartbreaking experience. I agree for her every day, even two and a half years later. I miss her dearly and

wish I could have done something about it. Now, I know your stance on drugs is pretty mellow, and you believe everything has its place for benefits, but in all honesty, I cannot see any sort of benefit to it. I understand that it is used as a pain relief medication in severe cases, but it seems to me that there's a lot of other opioids out there already. The epidemic of laced drugs in this country is, in my opinion, way out of hand. Fentanyl is a huge contributing factor. Yes, it is. It's so fucking strong. That being said, I obviously cannot do anything about this myself, but I can ask you if you might be able to use your voice to at least share info about where you got those testers. And if there are any places to do testing for

free or for a low price, my friend that passed on was on a disability slash fixed income. She could not afford much, even if she was aware, it was something she could do to begin with, or even if she was aware. I know this may seem like a selfish ass, but I don't want anyone else to have to suffer that kind of loss. If I can help it, even the slightest bit, thanks for everything you do to help educate us on these things. Thanks for all the laughs. you provide in hard times. Best regards Chandler. Well, Chandler to start,

I'm so sorry for your loss, man, losing a friend, especially like that is so devastating. The kind that I bought and used, the test strips I bought and used, you catch, like the letter U dash catch fentanyl test strips. Well, they're,

I got them off Amazon, but they are currently out of stock. There's a bunch of similar ones. One very similar one is the Defent, like D-E-F-E-N-T, at-home test strip kit. also on Amazon. Five pack is $9.99.

There's a bunch of options for under $10.00. I recommend getting at least five strips. I was able to get $20 for $20. You'll want to test at least one of the strips, if not two, on some water with no powder shirt into it to make sure the strips from the batch work.

And they work in a very similar way to a home pregnancy test. In my kid, it was two lines for a negative test, which is no fentanyl. So that's what you want. One strip for a positive test. But each kit might be different. Again, I'm not an expert. If you can afford it, ideally, you want to get two different companies kits, test them both for extra security. And you can also look online. There's a number of places, at least there

has been in the past, that will send you these things for free. And sometimes there's places in your area where you can go pick them up for free. And yeah, fentanyl's fucking way at a hand. It's a super powerful pharmaceutical that was never meant to be out on the street and snorted. You know, if Coke was always pure, it would be so much less dangerous, which is where my stance for its legalization comes from. But I won't get on a soapbox again for that. Not today. And I just want to say, yeah, thanks for caring, Chandler.

And now let's end on something just entertaining. An anonymous and disgusting pervert of a fucking degenerate. Send in an email with a subject line of extortion story. Keep anonymous, please. Well, I won't keep you anonymous. Their name is Dick Bird. No, I will keep it anonymous. Here's what they wrote.

Good morning. Good morning snort master's supreme. That is where I got that from. that I used earlier. Writing in to share a very pathetic and very funny story. This could be too long for the podcast, but it's fucking great. It's not too long. A couple of months ago, I blew up my entire life.

No more girlfriend, no more house, no more dogs. That part was particularly upsetting. But for the first time, in a long time, I feel like I can breathe. Not all acts of love or these grand romantic gestures. Sometimes they look and feel awful. I've developed a lot of rules to live by, which I'll include in the bottom. One of which is this. The right thing to do is often the hardest thing to do.

Man, that is so true. Well, now I'll get to my, uh, well, now I get to add a new phrase to my rules. At your lowest moments, you may find yourself at your best. And story time. I was lonely and I wanted to feel desired. Also, I wanted to come. In all my genius, I decided to attempt to find a lonely, horny lady that maybe also wanted to come. Now, I can't find somebody out of my friend group because I'm too, because I'm too fresh out of a breakup, start chasing tail that I know.

That seems disrespectful. So I scroll through the scum-filled pond of Reddit. just because you can't see through the water. It doesn't mean you can't catch a fish, you know. After some light stocking, I finally found a profile that appeared legit. We started chatting, then she asked for ASL, which if you were unaware and unpracticed like me, you'll have to Google. It means age, sex, location.

My interpretation to this was that it is a safeguard. How old are you? Do you have the genitals I'm looking for? Do I have a chance of running into you in real life? Note for listeners, this should have been red flag number one. It can also be used to find. find exactly who you are and where you live. So, get flirty.

Send some selfies back and forth. She's a solid six to my solid six, not a dick joke. So I think this is going to work out quite nicely. Give each other some attention, have a wink, never think about it again, mutually beneficial interaction. Then she asked to move over to another app to send each other some explicit images. Note for listeners, this should have been red flag number two. We start sending nudes, and shortly after that, the phone rings.

This is more of a black flag with a skull and crossbones on it. I did not miss this one. The phone rang a few times without me answering. Then I get a text message from a different number. I have your nudes, and I'm going to send them to your family if you don't pay me $1,500, they say. Ooh. Oh, no, yeah, that's a text message. The phone rings again, so I answer, it's a man.

Turns out that in the scum-filled pond, I had indeed caught a catfish. He repeats the threat. Sends me another text of my cousin's name and phone number, both of which are accurate. Holy fuck, I blew up my life, I have nothing, and now on top of that, I have fallen for a fucking scammer. Now, much like beauty, perception is in the eye of the beholder. You could read that in a sad tone, and you could read that in a sad tone and feel pathetic the way I did when I first thought it, or you can read it with enthusiasm, like a label went off in your head, and that this stupid, stupid mistake can become something else. Holy fuck, I blew up my life, I have nothing. And now this guy has no ammo.

I spent the next two hours on the phone with this guy knowing full well that even if I gave him money, he would still have my photos and come back for more money. So I ask him how he wants his money and have him walk me through several tasks intentionally putting in the wrong CV code to ensure that everything I do fails. I fuck with him at every turn. I talk shit to him while he guides me along because everything keeps failing. He keeps giving me different usernames to send money to. I got like five different account names, a handful of different phone numbers he used, and in the end, he got nothing. He tells me that since nothing's working, I need to go to the store and buy him gift cards, so I agree. I hang up and immediately contact the police and file a report.

They advise me to block his number to not engage with him and warn that he will likely continue to call me from other numbers until he finds a new victim he can make money from. Unfortunately, they were correct. He adds four more members of my family to his list when I don't call him back. But even though he got the names correct, half the numbers were wrong. He then sent the photos out. Now I spend the next day calling my entire family explaining to them that I'm a dirty pervert and that I'm stupid and then I was terribly sorry if they get anything. My mom, my dad, my sister, my brother, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, thank God my grandparents are already dead. We haven't had a family reunion since they

passed either, less things to worry about. I also asked the police to apologize to whoever the wrong number, wrong numbers were. Two strangers were on the receiving end of my stupidity, those poor fuckers. So far, I haven't heard much other than the police think they knew who it was by tracing IP address, or they know who it is, by tracing IP addresses and phone numbers and other things that I don't understand. I don't care about my shit. That fucking loser doesn't get to go after people anymore if I can help it.

I will update you if my penis sends someone to jail. How fucking funny would that be? Fuck that guy. Fuck his family. Drink Whipple for the makers of Thrive. If you ain't getting extorted for dickpicks and you're dying! Love, don't forget to keep me anonymous, please. Screenshot to show you this was real and funnier

than I could ever describe. Yeah, the screener. screenshot is I love how, like, they're trying to get this anonymous person to send $700, and they fuck up

who they're sending it to intentionally, the anonymous person does. But when the person requested it, the scammer under the line four, they put, oh, no, no, I'm sorry, the anonymous person. When they went under the line four

in that little box, they wrote blackmail. And then this person texted them, the scammer, why did you add blackmail? Are you crazy? And then he wrote, because that's what four. And then they put, don't write it. Don't piss me off. Dude. Then he wrote, I don't know the rules. Dude, what the

fuck else would I write? Okay, hold. And then here's the golden rules to live by from Anonymous. One, only ever break one rule at a time. Two, know who is in the room. Three, let it die quietly. Four, the hardest thing to do is often the right thing to do in five at your lowest moments. You may find yourself of your best. Oh, my God, Anonymous. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? maybe that's another rule. While you survived, your whole family has seen you holding your hard dick, I'm guessing. I'm assuming it was hard and you're holding it. And you're still here and you're able to laugh.

I love it. Kind of makes me want to send a picture of my hard dick to my parents and some other family members without being extorted just to terrorize them. Great job not giving it and sending them money because you're right. They would have just kept asking for more money and they would have in the end probably just sent those picks anyway. Fucking scum, man. Extorters like that, pure scum. Try and take some solace in knowing that this dude's life is almost certainly an Eddie Cole level of a dumpster fire. I don't think any happy, well-adjusted, stable human beings are doing this for a living.

Just hateful fucks, who honestly probably hate themselves more than they hate anybody else. So at least you got a good story out of it. Thanks for sharing it. Hail Nimrod. I hope your future hookups are way more successful than that one. Lucepina does as well. She's rooting for you. And thank you, everybody, for the messages. I'm suckers. I needed that. We all did. Well, thank you for listening to another.

bad magic productions podcast be sure and rate and review time suck if you haven't already uh please don't choke anybody this week not to death anyway i mean if they've requested that you choke them if it helps them come harder well then by all means choke away and keep on sucking bad magic productions i was obviously uh really captivated by this by this guy eddie being arrested so many times can you imagine being arrested over 30 times and it got me wondering can any of you top that longer rap sheet than Eddie Cole did? Or do you know somebody with a longer rap sheet and you know what the crimes are?

If so, email me, please, motherfucker. Bojangos at timeswarkpodcast.com. I want the dirt. The detail. We all do. We all want to hear about it.