True Crime All The Time - Colin Ferguson

Episode Date: July 30, 2017

Colin Ferguson came to believe that other people and even more so other races were keeping him from reaching his desired station in life. On December 7th, 1993 he decided to board a commuter train out of New York City and would ultimately open fire on the passengers killing 7 and seriously wounding 19.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Ferguson's upbringing in Jamaica, his journey to the United States, and the events that transpired in his life that lead to his downward spiral. How was Ferguson able to obtain the gun that he used to commit this tragic mass murder? Ferguson chose to represent himself at trial which led to some very bizarre moments. There are a lot of things that happen in the aftermath of the shooting that are discussed as well.Visit the show's website at the truecrimeallthetime.com for contact and merchandise information.You can support the show by going to patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeAn Emash Digital ProductionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to episode 38 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you? Man, I'm USDA fine. Really? I just heard it on a song on my way in. Great A. Great A.

That's good to hear. Yeah. The song by the killers. Now you're just showing off. This is kind of seemed appropriate, you know? So let's get to Patreon supporters Gibbs. we have Brittany Fila, Jason Abercrombie, Ariel Melton, Joan Kosinovich, who jumped out at our highest level. Impressive, you got her name right.

It is impressive. She sent it to me. It's still impressive. Yeah. Well, impressive if I actually did. Yeah, let's say you did. Let's say I did. She'll let me know.

Ed Hawkins, Heather Pereira, appreciate everybody that has started supporting us. we always appreciate everybody that continues to support us and because of that we went back into the archives Gibbs and we're giving a special shout out to Lindsay Whitehead who started supporting us very, very early on and continues to do so to this day. So we appreciate you, Lindsay. Thank you. Thank you. Everybody. And everybody else that does the same. So Gibbs got to talk about true crime all the time unsolved. Yes. Very interesting episode this Sunday from the UK. Going overseas. You went out overseas. I flew over there, got the data, researched and came back. Got all the deeds, came back and we recorded. Exactly. So it is the story of Claudia. Claudia Elizabeth Lawrence.

and she was a chef, went home from work, was never seen or heard from again. And a lot of twists and turns, a lot of pleas from her mom and dad, as you would have in a situation like that. Right. But a very interesting story, and I think one that needs to be told. The next thing I have to talk about is a new project that I have with Mike Moore. Morford. Some people may know him as the true crime guy. He's out on social media a lot. And we've just launched a new podcast called Criminology. Right now it's out with just the introduction. And this is going to be a podcast with season. And the first season is going to be the Zodiac.

So we're talking eight, maybe even 10 episodes on one case diving as deep as you. you can possibly dive with every detail, every nook and cranny. So go out, check that out. Subscribe now. The first episode will be out in a couple of weeks. So Gibbs, we've been listening to everybody, say, get to the story quicker. And we're going to start trying real hard to do that. And because of that, we've decided that we're going to move all the voicemails to the end.

So stick around at the end. We'll play the voicemails, talk about them, all that good stuff. Well, right now we're going to jump into the story of Colin Ferguson. No relation. No relation. And Gibbs, this is going to be a little different from most of the episodes that we've done on true crime all the time. Because Colin Ferguson is a mass murderer. And that's not something that you and I, I don't believe, have done yet.

So we did all to Nolan, but I consider that more of a workplace killing. I mean, this is a true mass murder. Yeah, pre-planned. Pre-planned. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't just spur of the moment all of a sudden. And we'll get into that. You know, the story takes place back in the 90s,

but, you know, we know Gibbs from, you know, looking at the news, reading the news. These types of crimes have become way too common. It seems to me like you're seeing it on the news every time you turn around. And it's happening here in the U.S. And it's happening overseas everywhere. Well, yeah, no doubt. I mean, Paris is a great example of that.

But Colin Ferguson goes on a shooting rampage. We're going to get into all the details on December 7, 1993. And when it's all said and done, he's going to kill six people and leave 19 others seriously injured. Now, we're talking about horrific incident. But it's when you get into the reasons behind this rampage, you know, his upbringing, what led to this. And then you get into what happened after the fact, the trial. It's just a lot of strange and unusual things that some of this is hard to believe. But we're going to dive into all of those details.

And then the other thing is Gibbs, this is not the first time on TCAT that we've talked about Colin Ferguson. Because if you remember, we mentioned him in the Joel Rifkin episode. Towards the end, we talk about an incident that happens when Rifkin gets to prison. He ends up getting in a fight with a man over some phone privileges or there's some stuff about, you know, my crimes were better than yours, whatever it was. And, you know, Colin Ferguson kicks the shit out of it. So I don't know if you remember that. But yeah.

All right, Gibbs. So let's get to early life. Colin Ferguson is actually born in Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica, 1958 to parents Von Herman and May Ferguson. Now, Von Herman, that's a name you don't hear every day. Unique. Yeah, very unique. I had a friend named Vaughn, though. Well, Vaughn I've heard of.

Yeah. Spelled a bunch of different ways. Sure. This one spelled V-O-N. I've seen them V-A-U-G-H-N. Yep, seen them both ways. But Von Herman in Jamaica was a very wealthy pharmacist. They have pharmacies there?

I figure they have homegrown pharmacy. Well, I'm sure they have those too. Yeah. But he was also the managing director of one of the largest wholesale drug companies in Jamaica. So this guy had money. The family had money. But Colin's father, Von Herman, had been born in Cuba.

And it's kind of the reason why I say, interesting, unique name because in Cuba, his grandfather had worked at the German embassy. And Colin's father, Von Herman, was actually named after Herman Goring, the German Nazi air marshal.

That's a little freaky. It is very strange. It's a weird name. I mean, It's a weird reason to name your kid after somebody like that. So you really have to think about it, Gibbs. How strange is it for somebody to be born in Cuba to be named after a Nazi? When you know the Nazis didn't like anybody of any other types of races,

it just seems like a very strange person to name your son after. For sure, man. Definitely bizarre to me. The Ferguson family consisted of, of four brothers that growing up in Jamaica like we talked about, they lived in a place called Havondale and this was described as an upper middle class suburb of Kingston. I've been to Kingston. Have you really?

Yeah. God, where have you not been? I wasn't allowed to take my knife with me though. You wouldn't. You wouldn't be. Yeah. Even to open up like a coconut or, because that's really what else would you need it for in Jamaica.

It's it just for the coconut. Maybe to pop off the top on a red stripe or... Yeah, got to have a red stripe if you're in Jamaica. You didn't have it with you, huh? No. Now, it was also said that the family had both a nanny and a housekeeper. So it really just goes to show you how wealthy these folks were by where they lived, having both a nanny and a housekeeper.

And then you have where they live, this place called Havondale, being described as, you know, just a community filled with large houses, unbelievably manicured lawns, all of the streets being lined with palm trees. I mean, it sounds like a great place. And as you can imagine, Colin ends up leading the life of a child of affluent parents. He attends an exclusive prep school. and then from 1969 to 1974, he attends Calabar High School.

And this is one of Jamaica's most prestigious private schools. Joseph Earl was the principal at Calabar at the time Ferguson was there and would later describe him as a well-rounded student. He played cricket. He was the star goalkeeper on the soccer team. and he graduated in the top third of his class. So the guy had a lot going on. Yeah, I mean, top third of your class,

depends on what the whole of the class was. Well, I just said Gibbs, he went to the most prestigious private school in Jamaica. He didn't go to podunk high school like you and I. Yeah, but still. So I'm assuming top third at the place that he went is a little bit better than top third. of where we graduated from.

Yeah, maybe. I don't know. You could argue with me about that one? Money got him there. You know, money doesn't make you smart. No, but he still graduated top third of his class. Yeah, well, my curriculum was tougher. Clearly, as you can tell on this podcast, Illinois.

Well, we know you excelled at phonics. English. Yes. That had to have been your top subject. Absolutely, man. Second to that would have been geography. Oh, man. And naming.

Yeah, and then math, right? And then naming places. Future calculations of monies. Really good at that. Currency calculating. Yes. So we talk about 1978. And at this point, Colin Ferguson is 20 years old.

And something very tragic happens in his life. his father dies in a car crash. And we talked about his dad was a big deal, very prominent, very wealthy. It was said that his funeral was attended by, you know, all kinds of dignitaries in Jamaica. But then not long after his dad dies in this car crash, Colin's mom dies from cancer. And what these two deaths would do, you know, aside from losing your parents, which would be horrific in that span of time. But it also meant that the family fortune went very quickly, right?

Because that money was no longer coming in. People would say later that it was at this point that they started to notice that Colin Ferguson was deeply disturbed. Now, obviously Gibbs, he's disturbed by the tragedy that happened in his family. But as we're going to see, it's almost like, I don't know if this was the catalyst. He's not going to come out of this. So in 1982, Colin leaves Jamaica and heads to the U.S. He's looking to make a fresh start.

He's looking to find a good job on the East Coast and build a life. But he's never able to recreate the life that he had back in Jamaica. And this is going to be a trend. is something we're going to talk about throughout this episode. Colin Ferguson came from such privilege. His family was wealthy. He probably had a lot given to him from a very early age all the way up until he was 20 years old. Now all of a sudden, he's in America trying to live the American dream, finding out sometimes that's not as easy as people portray it to be.

Well, and he's also coming from a country where his race would have been the majority to a country where he decided to move. He was more of a minority. Well, there's no doubt. So that has an impact. Race plays a big factor in this whole case. Sure. So we're going to be talking about race. Because one thing that friends say later on is that he has a real hard time.

dealing with racism in the U.S. Well, I bet, because he didn't have to deal with it back in Jamaica. Right. I mean, back to your point, it was a very valid point. But he starts to get frustrated and feel like the reason why he can't find work or the only jobs that he can find are what he considers menial are because of the color of his skin. Now, Gibbs, it very well could have been that. Could have.

You know, back in the early 80s, I don't know. Could have been that. It could have been that he was from Jamaica. It could have been a number of reasons. Yeah, a combination. Because he comes over on a visitor's visa. So, you know, is that part of it? Are there places that don't want to give him a job

because he's only over for a certain period of time? So Colin Ferguson originally lands in Miami. very quickly moves all the way out to Long Beach, California. And in 1984, he's working as a clerk at a liquor store. Again, not to put any type of job down, these are Colin Ferguson's words, not mine. This was a job that he felt was beneath him. And he had this kind of philosophy about all the jobs that he was able to get. he considered a menial.

He thought he was much better than all the jobs he was able to get. But this must have been like a chain of liquor stores because I found this story Gibbs from a man that worked for this chain. And he said in an interview that he remembered Colin Ferguson as what he called a defensive loner and that Colin was easily offended and would get angry at the drop of a hat, especially when it came to racial matters. And this guy went on to say that he was basically just uncomfortable being around Ferguson anytime he had to work in the same store as Colin.

And this guy talked about it. It was his attitude. And at this point, he's starting to show a lot of prejudice. He's starting to show a lot of hatred towards not only Caucasians, but towards everybody. You know, Asians, African Americans, this is what people would say about him later, that he just didn't seem to like anybody or any race. And I thought that was an important story to talk about Gibbs because as we get further down, there's going to be a lot of talk about race and how, Colin Ferguson selected his victim. So I thought this was an important story to point out. So we jump forward just a little bit to 1986 and Colin is now 28 years old and he ends up moving all the

way across the country to Long Island, New York, because he's not happy in California. He's not finding what he wants. He's not getting the jobs that he wants. He has no family to speak of, but that's going to change because in Long Island, he meets a woman named Audrey Warren. And Audrey was of Jamaican descent, but at this point, she was an American citizen. And they end up getting married, which qualifies Colin Ferguson for permanent U.S. resident. But this is not going to be a happy marriage. You know, at first, they move into a house in Long Island, but pretty early on, their relationship was described as very rocky, you know, fighting all the time to the point where neighbors were routinely calling the police

because they were fighting so often so loudly. In 1987, Ferguson enrolls at Nassau Community College, part-time. And what is so bizarre about that Gibbs is we've already. talked about Joel Rifkin. Nassau Community College is the same place that Joel Rifkin went to. So it's just amazing the connection. They went to the same college. They end up in the same prison eventually. And they ended up getting in a fight. Yeah, who wins? Call him Ferguson. Kicks his ass. Yeah. Goes all Jamaican on him. He does. Whatever that means. It was like cool runnings. Cool running. He went all cool runnings on him. Didn't MTV or somebody used to do

some fake cartoon match where they put different celebrities in the ring and see who would win. I'd like to see like the real put killer against killer. I don't remember a cartoon. They used to put real people. I remember like Danny Bonaducci fighting Screech from Save the Bell or some crazy stuff like that. Danny kicked his ass. Don't you remember that? No, I don't remember that.

Like Tanya Harding fight some other woman. Did she bring a weapon? No. You don't remember that? I don't. Yeah, they used to have like these celebrity boxing matches. Really? I like to have like killers, pay-per-view.

The money goes to charity or to family victims. But you get to watch them beat the crap out of each other. Dude, people would pay big-time money for that. Who would be your main match? Your first main match. I know we're getting off topic, but... Wow. See, a lot of these guys are really super old now.

Well, let's just say if you could go... At any point in time? You go back time, even if they're dead, pull them back out, put them in the ring. Who would you put them in? To top two side by side. All right, Gibbs. I think I'm going to go Richard Ramirez, the Nightstalker, versus Tommy Linsells, just based on hair alone. Or like the battle of the mullet?

Yeah. Sweet. I just want to see the hair flowing back and forth. You would. As they circle the ring. Don't make fun of me for my jealousness over. flocking hair. Yeah.

All right. We got to get back to this story. So Ferguson's at Nassau Community College part-time, but college doesn't agree with him. He's not getting good grades. Now, why is that? He came from the top school, private school in Jamaica, and he was in the top one-third. Dude, I don't know. Maybe Nassau Community College was much tougher than his affluent Jamaican private school.

Point Gibby. Go ahead. Or could it be that he's changed so much during that time because it's not, I don't think it's because he wasn't smart enough to do the work. He didn't get very good grades. It was said that he was also very aggressive with not only fellow students, but with teachers. And he ends up having a disciplinary hearing over some type of,

of action or interaction that he has with a teacher. Now, that's got to be pretty bad to have a hearing over that in college. Yes. You got to do something physical or threatening to get to that point. But it's not going to be the last time for Colin Ferguson. Now, in 88, his life continues to spiral because his wife divorces him. And people would say that this was another crux. brushing blow for Ferguson. So after this, Ferguson gets a job doing clerical work for this place

that manufacturers, alarms and other types of security equipment. But again, Gibbs, I said clerical work, right? He's still not getting the types of jobs that he thinks he should have. He wants to run the company. Oh, and he's going to tell people that, you know, I'm too good for this. all of this work is beneath me. It's just a pattern with every job that he ever has. But something happens in 1989 while he's working at this company because he's standing on a stool reaching high to get some invoices. He ends up falling.

And he injures his head, his neck, and his back. And he ends up getting fired over this, which would lead to him filing. complaint with the New York State Workers' Compensation Board. And this is going to be a fight that he's going to carry on for quite some time. Because in the beginning, he's awarded $75 a week in workers' compensation benefits. That's not very much. Doesn't seem like a lot, even for 1989. I mean, you're talking $300 a month.

You couldn't even pay rent. Well, as I was going to say, who can live off of $75 a week? This is 1989. $75 a week was not a lot of money back then. He's drawing the workers' compensation benefit. He's unable to work because of these injuries. And he ends up enrolling back at Nassau Community College. And this time, he goes full time.

And for some reason, his academic performance is totally different this time around. He's able to make the dean's list three times. So he goes from same school a few years ago making very poor grades to now all of a sudden he's consistently on the dean's list. But again, he gets kicked out. And it's over a teacher filing a complaint about Ferguson being aggressive towards him in a class. And back to your point, Gibbs. I mean, what do you have to do?

in a college level class to get kicked out of school altogether. Gotta be pretty bad. It really does. Now, keep saying aggressive. It doesn't say that he hit anybody, but there's got to be more to it than, it has to be some type of threatening action, right?

That's the only thing that makes sense. So he's kicked out of Nassau Community College and he transfers to Adelphi University. Now, we're into 1990. And while he's at Adelphi, People are going to come out later, both students and professors, and they're going to say that during this time, Colin Ferguson was obsessed with racism, detecting the slightest thing in any type of interaction. You know, he was perceiving slights against him is the way it was stated. And even more over the top, he starts to come out publicly.

against coexistence with whites. So he has a couple incidents, Gibbs, we have to talk about at Adelphi. One is that he makes a formal complaint that a Caucasian woman in the library was shouting racial slurs at him. There's an investigation, and it's concluded that the incident never occurred.

Was it just the librarian wanting to see the library card? I don't know. It said woman in the library. librarian. We'll go with that. Sounds better. Yeah. I don't think it was, but I have to give you a little something every now and then.

Oh, yeah. To make you feel better. Appreciate that. Keep you going. Keep me, yeah. Keep me going. Keep your spirits up. And the other incident is with a faculty member.

He seems to have a lot of issues with professors, faculty member. You mean authority? Authority figures. And this is a person that is giving. a talk about a trip to South Africa. And what would be stated by people in attendance is that Ferguson jumps up and he starts shouting that we should be talking about revolution

and how to get rid of white people. And at one point, he actually makes the statement, quote, kill everybody white, unquote. That's a pretty bold statement. But he doesn't stop their Gibbs because as people are trying to calm him down, getting to settle down, he starts threatening them saying, quote, the black revolution will get you. He gets suspended because of the threats, I guess, and this would be his last time in school. He would never graduate. But it just goes to show

what his mindset is right now at this point in his life about the racism or the racial aspects. You know, he does think that people are out to get him. He's making very bold proclamations about killing members of other races, particularly Caucasian. And he's starting to talk about a black revolution. None of this, Gibbs, and we say this, is leading down a good path, right? You can see the writing on the wall. This is not going to turn out well.

So 1991 Gibbs, Ferguson is renting a room in, the Flatbush area of Brooklyn. And this room is costing him $150 a month. Now, we talked about how do you live on $300 a month? Well, the first thing that you do is you find an apartment that is $150 a month. Not even an apartment, just a room. Well, you're right because we're talking about the room is described as being six foot wide by 10 foot long.

Now, can I forecast forward? It's like a cell, right? Yeah. That's what you're going to say. Yeah. Because that's what it seems like. But he doesn't have a television. He has nothing on the walls.

He's got a little bitty bed and a radio. These are the conditions that he's living in. And think back to about what we talked about him growing up. He was little Lord Fauntleroy in Jamaica. And now he's living in a tractor. shed in Flatbush. Yeah. It's a big change.

Big change. And no TV. And no, yeah, no TV, man. How do you make it? I don't know.

Because, you know, you didn't have podcasts back then. That'd be like having no internet today. No internet. You didn't have podcasts. What do you, you know,

he's got a radio. That's all he's got. So his neighbor said that he kept to himself, didn't smile, didn't speak to anybody. Very rarely every now and then he would say hello. But his landlord, by the name of Patrick Dennis,

he would come out later on and say some things about Ferguson. And the couple of them were interesting. One of the things he said that Ferguson would say a lot was that he was an extraordinary person, Ferguson talking about himself. Oh, like third party? Yeah. Well, I think he was telling it to this guy. Okay.

And then he would go on to talk about all the different people that were holding him back. and the conversation would always come back around to white people. So he's this great person. He should be doing great things, but these white people are holding him back and keeping him from getting to the station in life that he wants to get to. Gotcha. This is what's, you know,

going on in his mind. Sure. And he's starting to verbalize this to other people. But over the next year or so, Gibbs, he starts to have some run-ins with the law. Because up to this point, he really hadn't. You know, he'd been kicked out of school, suspended, expelled from a couple of different schools.

But his wife, his ex-wife, files a complaint against him in 1992. And that same year, he gets arrested and charged with harassment of a Caucasian woman on the subway. And as the story goes gives, this woman tried to sit next to Ferguson on the subway and he was taken up, I guess a lot of room on the seat. And she asked him to move over. And he just went off on her, started screaming at her. And police officers had to pin him down. Now, Ferguson would end up writing letters to a bunch of different places in New York, right?

the New York City Police Commissioner, the New York City Transit Authority, you know, bigwigs. And an investigation was done. Because what he was claiming is that he was brutalized by these officers. But the investigation didn't show that he was. Now, in September of 92, Ferguson gets a payout from his workers' compensation claim

against that security company. And he actually gets over $26,000. right he up to this point he'd been getting i think what do we say gives 75 dollars a week yeah not very much no so to him i mean you know 26 000 you know that's a big payday but he was still not happy with that he wanted them to reopen the case because he said he was still in pain he was going to need more medical treatment in the years to come and he thought he should get more money and he actually met with an attorney in New York. And this attorney would come out later on and say that this meeting with Ferguson was so uncomfortable that she actually had to ask a law clerk to come in to the meeting

because she was scared to be alone with him. And this is, I mean, how long into the meeting, Gibbs, the alarm bells are going off that quick to this woman that this is, that this is, somebody that I'm scared of. Yeah, he probably wasn't making a whole lot of sense. Well, and it turned out to be correct because a few months later, Ferguson starts calling this law firm and he was claiming that they had discriminated against him and he's making all these calls and in one of the calls, he talks about a massacre that happened in California. And this scared some of the attorneys so bad that they had to start locking all the doors, right?

So they were only letting people in that they knew that they could verify. So Colin Ferguson's not doing great in New York. He gets fed up. He decides he's going to move to California in April of 93 to look for better opportunities. He checks into a motel on April 22nd and the very next day Gibbs

he goes to a place called Turner's Outdoorsman, and he puts down an $82 deposit on a $300 gun. Now, this is a 15-shot semi-automatic Ruger P89 pistol, 9mm. And we have to talk about Gibbs how he's able to buy this gun because it's important. And it comes up a lot later on both in the trial and then a lot after the trial. And kind of what we'll talk about and call the aftermath. But we did talk about the fact that Ferguson had been to California shortly after arriving to the U.S. And he actually had a California driver's license from that period of time. And he used that at the gun store.

and the other thing he used was to establish proof of residency, he used the address of this royal motel that he had been staying at. And he ends up staying at this hotel for about three weeks. And the reason why he has to stay Gibbs is because back at that point, he had to wait 15 days for the security check in order to buy the handgun. Wow. I don't know if you remember back in, and California still has some very strict gun laws, but back then they had a 15-day waiting period.

So once the 15 days was up, he goes back to this gun store, pays the remaining balance, and walks out with the gun. At some point, while he's still in California, he does get robbed by two African-American men. and after this point he starts carrying the gun around with him at all times and it was said that he was carrying it in like a brown paper bag so he's been to California he's bought the gun he doesn't stay very long

because in May of 93 he moves back to New York City and when he gets back to New York he's going to tell a friend that what he didn't like about California was having to compete with Hispanics and other immigrants for jobs. I mean, this guy just doesn't like people, other people. And in a lot of cases, he doesn't even like his own race. I mean, there's a lot of examples of that as well, but he sure doesn't like other races. And he ends up back at that flat bush room

slash apartment. You can't really call it an apartment. But with that same landlord. And the landlord said that when Ferguson got back from California, he was much more unstable than he was before he left. And this is when he starts talking about, you know, black people rising up and revolution and just a lot of stuff that really, you know, kind of worried this landlord, I think would worry a lot of people if they heard it. The other bizarre thing or what I thought was kind of bizarre Gibbs is that

it was said that when he got back to New York, Colin Ferguson started taking five showers a day. Man, five showers a day. I know. I mean, the one you take once a week, that's hard to get in,

right? If I take it. If. Yeah. Sometimes I just use that. And you wouldn't know this, but there's this dry shampoo you can use when you have hair. Yeah.

For people that have hair? Yeah. See, I tried to get you, but you got me back. I got you back. Jack. But five showers a day, that's a lot.

That's a heck of a lot. Now, there are people that have certain types of OCD and things like that that are compelled to maybe do that. They can't stop themselves. I don't know that if he's in, if he's getting into that type of area. Maybe he just like hot water. Well, it's not only the fact that he's taking the showers. The neighbors are hearing him take the showers. We're not talking about the penthouse suite here where nobody knows what you're doing.

Yeah, they're sharing a bathroom. They know he's taking showers because at the same time, he's chanting while he's in the shower about black people rising up and killing all the white people. Oh, so like some soothing chants. Yeah. I mean, just something to calm the nerves. But imagine being a neighbor, regardless of what race you are. And five times a day, the shower's running.

And all you hear is black people, rise up and kill the white people. That's got to signal something to you that there might be something strange going on in the little room apartment next to you. Yeah. Now, what you choose to do about it, that's a different story. maybe that place had a lot of strange things going on and that was just one of them. People thought, you know what? I'm just going to watch my jeopardy and let whatever's happening happen. The landlord's concerned because he's seeing firsthand Ferguson's obsession with this,

I guess what you'd call racism or racial inequality. And again, not to say that a lot of this stuff wasn't happening, did happen. does happen, still happens, right? That's not what I'm saying. What the landlord was concerned about was Ferguson's reaction to what he felt was this inequality. I mean, when you're talking about wiping out a whole race of people, that should be setting off the alarm bells. And it does for the landlord, because he asks Ferguson to move out.

So, gives, we have to go back and talk about this. workers' comp case that Ferguson wanted reopened because he was under the impression that they were going to reopen his case on December 3rd. And he learns right after this that it's not true. They've decided that they're not going to reopen his case. He's not going to get any more money. And this is the last straw in the mind of Colin Ferguson. So it brings us up to the day of the shooting, Gibbs and this is December 7th, 1993, and the daily 533 p.m. Long Island Railroad train leaves Penn Station in New York City for Hicksville, New York. This is a 12-car train Gibbs and it's carrying commuters home from work. And Colin Ferguson and 80 other passengers are sitting in the third train car of.

of this 12-car train. Ferguson had purchased his ticket at the Pennsylvania station in New York City and boarded the train. And he had brought with him on the train his Ruger handgun that he had purchased in California. And he had a canvas bag filled with 160 rounds of ammo. That's a boatload. That's a lot of ammunition. Now we talked about it, right? That 9mm, that Ruger handgun

Gibbs that he bought held 15 rounds in each magazine. So as the train approached the Maryland Avenue station, Colin Ferguson got up, very calmly, walked down the aisle of the third car, and he just started firing that pistol on those 80 passengers at random. And you just have to picture this scene. You know, you've got 80 other people in this train car, nowhere to go, essentially trapped with a person that has a gun and the amount of ammo that we talked about. Just think about putting yourself in that situation.

And it was said Gibbs that as he walked the aisle, Colin Ferguson was pulling the trigger about every half a second. So you have passengers on the train trying to hide, some trying to get into the next car. I mean, it had to be pandemonium, had to be chaos. Couldn't even imagine. No, I can't. I have a hard time putting myself in that position. Now, there's going to be survivors of this incident. And this is where a lot of this information is going to come from about what happened on the train. So you're talking about first. You're talking about first, Ferguson walking down the aisle. And think about a seat to his right, a seat to his left. As he's walking down the aisle, he is turning to face whoever's in that seat and pulling the trigger,

turning around to the other seat and pulling the trigger. As he's doing this, he's repeating one phrase over and over as he walks down the aisle. I'm going to get you. That is what people would say, he was saying over and over as he methodically walked down the aisle. So during the shooting Gibbs, Ferguson emptied two of the 15 round magazine. And while he was trying to reload a third, a bunch of passengers got up and rushed him. So you had Michael O'Connor, Kevin Blum, Mark McEntee, these three guys got up. they tackled Colin Ferguson pending to one of the seats and then from there a whole bunch of other passengers ran forward they were grabbing his arms and legs everybody was just trying to pin him down and what these people said is as they had Ferguson pinned down he said quote oh god what did I do what did I do I deserve whatever I get now there just happened to be an off-duty policeman named Andrew Rodrick,

he was there to get his wife off the train to pick her up. And he was able to rush into the train car and handcuff Colin Ferguson. But we have to talk a little bit more about this shooting, Gibbs, because this whole incident took about three minutes to wrap your head around that. Pretty damn fast.

He fired 30 shots in three minutes, was about ready to reload with another 50. before he got stopped. But in those three minutes, he killed six people and he seriously injured 19 others. And I want to take a minute and talk about the six individuals that died. You had Amy Federici, she was 27 years old, a corporate interior designer from Mineola, James Garicki, 51 years old. He was an account executive, also from.

Miniola. Me Kuhn Kim, 27 years old from New Hyde Park. Maria Magtoto, a 30-year-old lawyer from Westbury. Dennis McCarthy, 52 years old. He was an office manager from Minneola. And Richard Nettleton, a 24-year-old college student from Roslyn Heights. So those were the six people that ended up losing their lives that day. Now, I want to go back and talk a little bit about what was going on in some of the other cars and other parts of the train while this gunfire or while this shooting was happening. Because there were other passengers and other cars. They didn't even realize there was a shooting going on until this thing was all over. And one of the most interesting or bizarre facts of this whole thing was that at some point,

the trains engineer was notified about the shooting as it was going on and he made the decision that he was not going to open the train doors right then and there because there were two cars of the 12 car train that had not yet made it to the platform so he actually makes an announcement over the speakers instructing the conductors not to open the doors now keep in mind he He knows there's a madman with a gun in one of these train cars. But there was one conductor that said, screw it. He climbed out of one of the train windows, and he opened one of the doors on the third car from the outside, pride it open. And this allowed a bunch of the passengers to get out.

So I just thought that was a very interesting aspect to this whole thing. And I'm not saying the guy did anything wrong. know, right? I don't know what his training was. I don't know what the rules are or were at that time, but it's something to talk about. You know, you know a shooting's going on and you consciously make the decision that you're not going to open the doors. I don't know, good. That's a tough call, right? Because you're trying to protect some. Yeah, no, I get it. You've got two cars that aren't at the platform and you're going to open the door where somebody could step out and maybe be killed that way. Maybe I don't know how far down it goes. Bad position. Yeah. And it's one of those ones that

you don't have time to really think about it. Right. No, the whole thing lasted three minutes. So he couldn't have had very long to ponder this decision. The other thing I don't know is what ramifications the decision had. Did more people die because of the decision or not? I don't know. Yeah. I don't know how you could ever measure that. No, we don't have that information. So they arrest Ferguson. And as they're searching him, they find a bunch of scraps of paper in his pockets. And what he has on these scraps of paper at the top, it says reasons for this.

And then underneath he has written racism by Caucasians and a whole bunch of other things, you know, related to things that he thought people of his race had done. as well to either keep him down or things that he didn't like. And he had one very specific line on one of these pieces of paper. And it said the false allegations against me by the filthy Caucasian racist female on the number one line. And this goes back to his 1992 arrest. And Gibbs, this goes back to what we talked about where there was a white woman that sat next to him. he didn't like it he got upset he got threatening and he ended up getting arrested over

some of the other things they found on him were names and telephone numbers of some very important people i mean we're talking about the lieutenant governor the attorney general that law firm that we talked about that he had kind of made some threatening remarks to and i got to talk about this gives because I find it very, very interesting. Part of what the police was able to put together from the notes that they found on Ferguson was a clear indication that he had a plan of exactly when he was going to start shooting.

And that plan was to wait until the train got outside of the New York City limits. And the reasoning for that was because, at the time, New York City had an African-American mayor, David Dinkins. And Colin Ferguson didn't want to make David Dinkins look bad. This is what he was writing in these notes. So he specifically timed the shooting at a point where the car had left the city limits. Now, if that's not pre-planning, I don't know what is.

Talk about premeditation. Yeah, I don't know how you could get much better evidence. of number one, the fact that he knew what he was doing. He clearly planned it out in a very, very specific way. So Ferguson's questioned, and it was said that he showed no remorse at all during any of the questioning. They never do. No, they don't.

And all of these people that we profile, we don't find hardly any that have what you would call remorse. Now, I think a lot of times Gibbs, that's because we're talking about serial killers. a lot of times psychopaths that have no empathy at all. But I think Colin Ferguson, he did what he wanted to do. He didn't have any qualms about it. So Colin Ferguson ends up getting arraigned on December 8, 1993. He didn't say a peep during the arraignment.

So he didn't have any qualms, then? No, he didn't have any qualms. And when I say a peep, I mean a peep. He wouldn't even talk to enter a plea. and at one point he's being escorted out of the courthouse and a reporter runs up to him and asks him if he hated white people and Ferguson replied that quote it's a lie all right gifts we've got to talk about the reaction to this shooting

no doubt it was what you see in these types of situations you know at the time Bill Clinton was president he came out calling it a terrible tragedy but what this did and we're probably going going to talk about it more towards the end, but very quickly kicks off, you know, some of the anti-gun talk or the strengthening, I shouldn't say anti-gun, more of the strengthening of the background slash licensing system to buy a gun. And they would use this incident by Colin Ferguson as one of the reasons why it should happen.

The other person that would come out pretty quickly was Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor at the time. And he would also use the Colin Ferguson incident in his platform of calling for reinstitution of the death penalty. So let's talk about Ferguson's first court appearance. Right off the bat, he does not go insanity. In fact, he goes the opposite. He tells the court he's 100% sane.

Even though his court appointed attorney wanted to put a insanity plea in. Exactly. Yeah. And that was smart because what other defense could he launch? I mean, you had 80 people on this train. You had 74 survivors. A lot of those people, if not all, I don't know how. many of them, they saw

firsthand Colin Ferguson walking up and down the aisles shooting people. The state couldn't want or have better witnesses. Yeah, this is not one of those that you and I talk about where crimes committed and nobody sees it. There's a whole bunch of people that saw this.

But not only does Ferguson say that he's sane, he doesn't want the insanity plea, he comes out and says that he wasn't the killer. He goes on to tell the court that a white guy stole his gun, killed everybody, and then jumped off the train and escaped. So one of the first things they do is a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation.

And it pretty quickly comes back that he meets the requirements to be called sane in order to stand trial in New York. So basically they determine that he should have known better. Yeah. Or that he did know. That he did know better. They actually come out and say that he knew right from wrong at the time of the shootings. Yeah, I believe that.

I don't have any qualms with that. No qualms. So he's declared mentally competent. But like you said, Gibbs, his court-appointed attorney wants to put in this insanity plea. And even at this point, after all the evaluations, he still wants to move forward with that. But Colin Ferguson's not having it. He doesn't want to plead insanity at all. And in fact, he tells the judge that he thinks his attorney's out to get him.

Of course. He thinks his attorney's a crook, a sheister. And ultimately, he's going to end up firing this court-appointed attorney. This is where it gets good. It does because Colin Ferguson gets indicted on January 19, 1994. The grand jury hands down in 93,000. count indictment. 93 counts against Colin Ferguson. At the same time, the Nassau County District Attorney comes out and says, there will be no plea bargain with Colin Ferguson. They're going after him

all the way. So I want to talk a little bit, Gibbs, about what made up this 93 counts. Two counts of murder for each of the victims that died. So that's 12. Yeah, so that 12 was made up of one count, for each murder victim, for intentional murder, and one count for each for depraved indifference to human life, which sounds fitting in this case. So you had 19 counts of attempted murder, 34 counts of assault, criminal possession of a weapon,

intent to use a weapon, violation of civil rights for all the 25 victims. And then you had intent to harass and a whole bunch of other stuff. And then at the end of that, they throw on kind of like hate crime language. Because at the end of those counts, it says in talking about the victims

because of their race, color, or national origin. That's where you get into the area of like hate crime. But ultimately Gibbs, they don't prosecute this as a hate crime. So we talked about Ferguson firing his court appointed attorney at one point he gets a couple of, you know, well-known attorneys to represent him. And they say they're going to take on the case pro bono. And they had no qualms about that.

No qualms. But what these attorneys do is they come out and they're making a lot of statements to the media. And because of that, the district attorney asked for a gag order. But the judge rejects it. And the reason why he rejects it is he says the. trial's going to be so far down the line that whatever statements have been made are not going to impact the jury that that far down. Well, that's germane.

Is that germane? You have no qualms about saying germane. No. So Ferguson is incarcerated at this point. And about a week into this whole thing, Gibbs, of him being in in the county jail, he starts claiming that everybody is out to get him. And even more than that, he starts saying that all the correction officers are attacking him, beating him. Now, at one point, Colin Ferguson really is attacked in jail.

It's not by the guards, but by a group of inmates. And he ends up with a broken nose and a black eye. Is that because he is a, I would say celebrity, but because his notoriety? I mean, I think that could have had something to do with it. It could have also had something to do Gibbs. If he was spouting out or off all of these anti-other culture sentiments. So kind of like the Aryan brothers or... Yeah, whoever.

Yeah. You know, somebody's going to come after you if you're saying a bunch of stuff against one race or the other. Right. There's a bunch of different races in prisons and jails. Almost every one of them have their own gang. So somebody's going to come after. you at some point. So these two attorneys gives that are representing Ferguson at this time,

they come up with a very controversial defense and they call it the black rage defense. And the basic premise of it is that Colin Ferguson had been rendered insane by racial prejudice. And because of that, there's no way that he could be held liable for these murders. But Gibbs, these two attorneys, they're not going to get to use this black rage defense that they've come up with because in the end, Colin Ferguson's going to fire them too. And he's going to represent himself. And it's always extremely interesting when somebody represents himself in this type of high profile, high stakes type of case. Yeah. Never good.

No, it's never good. I would say you should never, ever represent yourself. Pro se. Well, when have you ever heard of a famous case where it worked out for somebody? Yeah. I can't think of one. I'm sure there, maybe there's an exception. There's one out there.

Somebody can point out. But I can't think of it. Now, as you would expect, the judge strenuously warned Ferguson against doing this. He said, this is not your best interest. It's not a good idea. You should let these attorneys handle your defense. Clearly, he had a qualm. Oh, the judge had a qualm.

Absolutely. For sure. But Ferguson didn't listen. Now, one thing we have to talk about as we get into this trial is the trial of Colin Ferguson was going on at the same time as the O.J. Simpson case. Really? Yes. No, I didn't put that together, but that's fascinating.

Yeah. they were kind of overlapping each other. And Ferguson's case was broadcast on local media. It was even broadcast on court TV, but nobody paid any attention to it. Well, I shouldn't say no one. Mainstream. Yeah, we know that the whole world was glued to the O.J. Simpson trial. So the Colin Ferguson trial got overshadowed, but probably would have been much, much bigger

and had a much bigger audience had it not had to compete with the O.J. Simpson trial. Today in question, the entire file spilled in the backseat of the vehicle, and I think it's totally unacceptable. You also were here at 9 o'clock this morning and had up in about two and a half hours to rearrange the work, and as I understand it, you did absolutely nothing during that period of time while you were in the detention cell. judge I at this point at this point to say that you need

more time when it's absurd to the court so that's a clip of Colin Ferguson in court representing himself basically saying he needs more time Gibbs

because something spilled on his bag I think or you know again you have to imagine this was probably a circus like atmosphere you have somebody that's not a trained attorney

so Gibbs what Ferguson would argue in court is that, first of all, he shouldn't have been charged with 93 counts. He made some kind of weird argument that if it had been, if it had been 70 years ago, he would have only been charged with 25 counts, which seems like a strange argument. It was really weird. I mean, if it was 19, 20 something. 25, it'd be 25 counts. If it's 1935, it'd be 35 accounts.

He was just, you know, not there. Yeah, I mean, there was an element here where he was, I don't think he was firing on all cylinders. At the same time, when you hear him talk in court, there are times where he actually sounds like an attorney. Yeah, I mean, I think they say he comes across very calm, right? He's not showing the nerves that you would think one would have that they're up for what they are up for, plus the lack of experience and knowledge that you would need to be. in that type of court situation. So, and we kind of talked about this before, but he does admit to bringing the gun on the train.

But in court, he says again that it was another man that took the gun, shot everyone, dropped the gun, and then jumped off the train and got away. Sure. You're just trying to set up a reasonable doubt, right? Yeah. But then he gets a little off the rails because he makes some statements about, an unknown man named Mr. Sue, who apparently has information about some kind of conspiracy against him.

And then he's got another man that is going to testify that the government implanted some kind of chip in his, in Ferguson's brain. Oh. And was controlling his actions. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. He doesn't call this guy to the stand. Maybe he thinks better of it. Maybe he thinks it's not the best course of action.

I don't know, what stopped him from doing it. The evidence will show that Colin Ferguson was in fact a well-meaning passenger on the train. This is a case of stereotype victimization of a black man and subsequent conspiracy to destroy him. What's the sense of people pointing fingers when there were inconsistencies in their police statements and their grand jury statements? Who do you believe? Someone opened the bag, took the weapon out of the bag, and proceeded to shoot.

because at that point that Mr. Ferguson was awakened by the gunfire and himself, amidst the confusion, sought to protect himself, sought to run for cover like any other person on their train. So the first thing we have to talk about Gibbs is how he has to talk about himself in the third person. Yeah, it's like listen to George on Seinfeld. Yeah, but he has to act like he's his own attorney. Right. and therefore talk about himself in the third person.

It's very strange. It is strange. But you can actually hear Colin Ferguson talking about how he thought this was a witch hunt, how he thought people were after him because of his race. He mentioned that. He also mentioned what we talked about where somebody took the gun. Yeah. And at that point, he was in self-defense mode, just trying to save himself.

Right. But again, keep in mind, and we're going to find out, there's a whole parade of witnesses that saw him do this. But right now he's trying to throw doubt out, right? With all the, even in the Manterian candidate defense. But at some point, and this had to be, so these victims, the ones that survived, they went through a tremendous ordeal inside that train car, right? Locked in there for the three minutes where the gunfire was going off. for sure. Now you get to the trial and because Ferguson is representing himself, they have to be cross-examined by the person that tried to kill them. It would have taken a lot for me to sit there and

not want to beat his ass right then. I really would have to step my game up not to want to jump out of my chair and just beat his ass. Disagree? No, I don't disagree at all. And I have to believe that there were some people that were thinking that very thing. Yeah. Other than they probably thought if I did that. It doesn't help the case. It doesn't. It would probably cause a mistrial or something along this line.

And I'm sure the prosecution talked to them about it and the bailiff. Keep your cool. Right. I know this is going to be hard for you. And I even think one of the witnesses said, just give me five minutes alone with them. I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah.

I think you're right. So he starts to cross-examination. the witnesses, right? The prosecution has asked them questions. Now Ferguson gets to come back and cross-examine them. And not being an attorney, all he really does is say he starts every cross-examination out with, is it your testimony? And then he would just make the witness say what they had already said to the prosecutor.

I'm not sure what he thought that was going to accomplish. other than reinforcing the testimony that they had already yet. Yeah, just making it concrete, making them hear it again, how important it was. Representing yourself rarely pays off. And it was said that any time that one of the witnesses slash victims, right, these were victims that ultimately got called as witnesses, any time that they would answer a question in a way that he didn't like, he would turn to the judge and ask the judge to get on him

because they weren't answering his questions the way that he wanted him to. So I want to play this clip of him during the cross-examination, then we'll talk about it, Gibbs. The defendant Ferguson stood right in front of you and shot you. You weren't right in front of me. You were about 10 to 12 feet away. Proximately distance we're at about now. So that's just kind of a small glimpse into what,

it was like. So this was a person on the train and this happened witness after witness. He would say, did you see Colin Ferguson shooting? And almost everybody would say it's the same way. I saw you shoot me. You were standing right next to me. You shot me. Because remember, 19 of these people had been shot. They stood within mere feet of Colin Ferguson as he walked up and down the these aisles. There was no doubt in their mind who had done it. And you had, as you always do, Gibbs, especially on court TV, right? After that day's testimony, you have all the experts that weigh in. And every expert would say that everything that he did in the trial was pointless. You know, back to asking witnesses to reiterate what they'd already said to the prosecution. It was just a farce.

Yeah. Not only that, but, you know, You and I talked about it. He wasn't an attorney. He didn't know when to object. He didn't know how to do closing arguments. He just didn't know how to do what an attorney is supposed to do. And that's what you go to law school for. Go to law school and practice.

Practice apprenticeship type of things, right? With a good defense attorney to learn the craft. One of the strangest things is that at one point, Colin Ferguson tried to call Bill Clinton to the stand. He wanted Bill Clinton as a defense witness. Now, obviously that didn't happen. And then Ferguson thought he had this idea that he was going to question himself on the stand.

Oh, how sweet would that have been? So I don't know how he was going to do it. Was he going to stand by the desk, ask the question, then run real quick, jump in the box, answer the question, run back real quick, Ask a follow-up question. I really don't know how that works when you represent yourself. Yeah, I don't either.

But it wouldn't surprise me if that's the way he had planned to do it. Now, he ends up not taking the stand or deciding not to take the stand. Probably the only smart thing he did. Probably. Didn't matter right at this point. He could have. Yeah. He already buried himself.

Yeah. There was nothing he was going to do to get out of this. But he tried to put on a show. I mean, he talked about calling all kinds of different witnesses from. from ballistics experts, handwriting experts, other eyewitnesses. But that's the problem. He was representing himself. So his firm, which is himself, wouldn't have funds to get these experts.

Me, myself, and I? Yeah. You know, when you hire a firm, they have the whereabouts and the funds to get the experts that you need. Well, to your point, he ends up not calling any of these people either because I don't think they were real. because what's a ballistic expert going to say other than everything recovered matched the Ruger 9 millimeter that you owned that you owned that was in your hand what's the handwriting expert going to say that the handwriting on all the notes found in your pockets matched your handwriting well he just didn't have the resources well and even if he did I don't know who he's going to call that's going to refute some of that stuff now right you're right you're right a real attorney would have maybe figured out a strategy. They weren't going to get him off.

No. But they could have mounted some type of defense. Right. So it's no shock Gibbs that Ferguson's convicted on February 17, 1995. He's convicted for the murder of the six passengers who died, convicted of attempted murder for the 19 people that were injured, that he's shocked. all in all, he got 315 years to life. That's quite a long time, but very well deserved. Exactly.

The one thing we have to talk about, we kind of foreshadowed it is New York did not have the death penalty. So that was off the table. His earliest parole date was set at August 6, 2,309. I mean, that's some kind of like Star Trek date. Yeah. Captain's log. So the good thing is he'll never get out. Never. He'll have to spend his time in that 6x8 cell for the rest of his life, 23 and a half hours a day besides his little half hour walk around your little outdoor space.

I hope he's chained to like a track like in Silence of the Land. Oh yeah. Where he only gets like this little small radius. That'd be great. So we have to talk about the judge because there's a quote from the judge. at the sentencing. And he says, you Colin Ferguson will never again return to society, but will rather spend the rest of your natural life in prison. But he doesn't stop there. He lets him have it. You know, he calls him selfish. He calls him a coward. And so here's one thing

that came out of the fact that he represented himself Gibbs, because in the appeal process, he had to argue that his counsel was incompetent. Third person, he had to talk about how. So he had to talk about the firm of me, myself, and I, and how incompetent they were in representing him at trial. So he's currently serving his sentence at Attica. Adica. Adica.

Which may not be the friendliest place to be. Clearly. I hope it's not for him. Yeah. So what's in the show Gibbs, I'm going to talk a little bit about what happened in the wake of this case. We touched a little bit about the call for stronger gun control. And that happened.

You have that all the time. And especially in the school shooting, Sandy Hook. And you know, you're always going to have those type of calls to action. Now, one thing that was said Gibbs was after this incident occurred, most of the people that took that 533 train, they got back on it the next day because it ran.

And they interviewed a lot of the passengers. And what they said was that they had to ride the train to face their fears and get over the trauma. Sure. Makes sense. That it wasn't going to do any good to avoid that train and get on a different train or find a different mode of transportation. You got to get your life back going. Life moves on. Got to keep your own time ticking.

You do. But I have to imagine that wasn't the easiest thing to make that decision. No, I think it would be tough. But again, you got to keep moving forward. And then I want to talk about Carolyn McCarthy because Carolyn was the wife of Dennis McCarthy. We talked about him as one of the six individuals that was killed by Colin Ferguson. And also her son, Kevin, was on the train and he was one of the individuals that was severely injured.

She, after this, ends up running for Congress and winning. And I believe Gibbs that she served like eight consecutive terms and just retired within the last year or so. Really? Yeah. Interesting. Now, she ran on like a gun control platform. Which would have been pretty hot at the time.

It was hot at the time. And she could speak from experience and tell her story. And I don't think someone's going to challenge her when it's a personal story. No, not at all. But everything I read was that she was really good. And she must have been to get reelected that many times. I would think so. Yeah.

Eight consecutive terms. Impressive. So we talked about the 12 car train running the next day. And what they did is they refurbished the car eventually. I don't know how long it took. There's no way they could have done it that day for the next day. Right. But they ultimately refurbished the car and they renumbered it.

But it stayed in operation from the time the shooting occurred all the way up until just the last year or two. Wow. Until it was retired. Now, the other thing we have to talk about is all. all of the lawsuits that came out from this shooting. There was a lot of gun manufacturers that were sued, ammunition manufacturers that were sued. And you see that a lot.

You also see that when there's school shootings and other types of shootings. And it was actually the congresswoman, I think, that led some of these lawsuits. But they all ended up getting thrown out. And it was said that the reason they were thrown out is that, New York law did not place any responsibility or burden on manufacturers for the misuse of their products criminally, which I think is tough to do, right? I mean, take your K bar, right? Yeah. The manufacturer of the K bar. It's not responsible for what I do with it. If I choose to do something bad with that, it's really tough to hold him responsible. Right. You know, it really is. They sold it for one purpose.

I used it for another. Exactly. Or a few times. Railroad should have some responsibility to provide safety to their passengers. Attorney Daniel Flanzig represents several victims' families. Ten separate civil lawsuits were filed against the LIRR and MTA on ground, but there was no security on board the train, and the cabin doors were locked, leaving passengers with no place to turn.

But just last week, five of the ten cases were dismissed. According to the judge, the railroad was not responsible for the murders. The ruling made a couple of decisions. decisions and one was that Long Island Railroad is a public entity that's not liable or is entitled to certain immunities under the law and also the attack of Colin Ferguson was not foreseeable by the Long Island Railroad at the time. So that's related to the other lawsuits that were filed and those were against the Long Island Railroad and the company that owned them and they also found that they were not responsible for what happened. It gives, we talked about

the Ferguson versus Rifkin fistfight, you know, kind of got sparked by a couple of different things. I think phone privileges. There was also some talk back and forth about whose murders were better than whose. Seems like an odd thing to brag about. But I guess if you're a serial killer or a mass murderer, not sure what else you have. Yeah, I guess it's going to be there for rest of your life. You're going to try to keep the notoriety. And the very last thing that I want to talk about is something that happened to Colin Ferguson in 2011. And what happens is he tries to incite a riot within the Attica prison on September 11th, 2011.

So 9-11, the 10-year anniversary. And he gets brought up on disciplinary charges and found guilty for trying to incite this big riot. You're going to represent himself? He probably did. That's it. That's the case of Colin Ferguson. You know, you feel for the victims Gibbs, both the ones that lost their lives, the ones that were injured, but also the ones that were just on the train. Yeah. Or the neighboring car. Yeah. I mean, there's. How scary? There's physical damage. There's psychological damage and trauma that would have occurred to a lot of people because of what Colin Ferguson did. And I'm still struggling with the.

why. We talked about some of it. Yeah. But there is something that that went a little haywire, I think in his mind as it relates to some type of paranoia that he thought people were out to get him, especially people of other races. There could have been some more underlying things there that I think there was that maybe we don't have the facts for or the the diagnoses for. I think there's something there. But that's it. Another episode of True Crime all the time.

We've got a couple of voicemails to play Gibbs before we do the sign-off. Yeah. Let's hit it. So let's hear those. Hey, this is Steve Cantrell from Black Mountain, North Carolina. I'm a new listener. Love the show.

About Zeb Quinn. It's a story here in Nashville. Took a lot of twist. I think there's a lot more to the story that's not allowed now right now. Thanks again, I love the show. Keep your on-time ticket. man steve's all over the place big steve man got a cool voice nice southern draw you're into those men's voices

don't paint me don't paint me gibbs i'm currently listening to your podcast we're having out of work gets to do a lot of those hours i do have a suggestion for your true time all the time the salt show and that would be the wine bill chicken coop murders in california it's a great great story thank you name is Sean, by the way. So, Sean, by the way, we appreciate that voicemail. That's a strange last name. Yeah, by the way. Yeah.

You don't hear that a lot. No, it's pretty rare. I like it, though. Yeah. Sean, thanks, man. I'll have to look into that case for sure. You think it's German? By the way?

By the way? Scandinavian, maybe. Maybe Scandinavian. But, you know, what's funny, Gibbs is that... East Coast. We've had a lot of people suggest that case. The Wineville Chicken Coop murders. Yeah.

It sounds like something I'll have to dive into. Apparently they've made a movie. Angelina Joe Lee was in it. I don't think I've even seen it. I haven't seen that. I've watched that. Not for her, but, you know. Yeah, we're going to have to look at it.

Yeah. All right. So that's it for Mike. And Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.