True Crime All The Time - Elisa Baker

Episode Date: September 2, 2019

Elisa Baker is a manipulative woman who married more times than we could track. She zeroed in on men who she felt were vulnerable and would be easier to control. She met an Australian man named Adam Baker through online gaming. The two got married and moved to North Carolina. But, when Adam's daughter Zahra Baker was reported missing, the police focused squarely on Elisa.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Elisa Baker of her step-daughter Zahra Baker. Zahra was a sweet girl who had battled cancer and the loss of a leg in her short life. What type of monster would want to harm her? That monster turned out to be the extremely evil Elisa Baker.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise and donation informationSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So everyone and welcome to episode 146 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? I'm doing good, man. I'm doing good. Yeah. Doing great. You and I just had a good dinner. We are ready to record some episodes. We're going to do it. It's fun, man. Oh, I love it, man. Every week. It's a good time. 52 weeks a year. It has been. on true crime all the time for sure. No weeks off on true crime all the time. No. Now before we get into it, let's do our new Patreon shoutouts. Okay. We had Trent Card. Hey, Trent. Annette Quisenberry. Quisenberry. I like that. Yeah, Ricky Haweth. Hey, Ricky. Bianca. Bianca. Tanya. Tanya. Hey, Tony. Robert. What's going on, Robert? Beth Fairbanks. Hey, thanks, Beth. Sharon Perham. Perham. Or Purham. One per ham. Perham. Brittany Dayton. Hey, like Dayton, Ohio.

No, not spelled the same. All right. Well, hey, Brittany. And you have it right in front of you. Well, you know, I got to look. And you know that. Yeah. Heather Leaming.

Hey, Heather. You said, oh, I would have to look. Yeah. Mary Ann Ray McCready jumped out of her highest level. Look at McCready coming through. Exactly. Stacey B. Hey, Stacey B.

Sally Singleton jumped out of our highest level. Hey, thanks, Sally. We had Linda Fritz. Linda. Nate Jelta. What's going on, Jelta? Shea Faulkner jumped up to our high. highest level. Get the Faulkner out of here. Falker. Rob. Hey, Rob. Jennifer Warnke. Hey, you

Warnke. Lorraine. Lerene. Latee Colbert. What's up? Latice. Floufell? Yep. All right. Everybody needs a little flufell in them. Yep. Jennifer West. You know, it's supposed to be like, do you know what flufell is? I don't. You probably shouldn't say that. Yeah, I know. It's probably some, it's a bad word in another country. Who knows what it is. Hey, Jennifer. And Debbie Morris. Hey, thanks, Debbie. Then if we go back into the vault Gibbs. This week we selected Donna Rubba. Hubba Bubba. Hubbubba. She's been with us a long time, a long time Patreon supporter. And we appreciate all the support that we get. We had some great PayPal support as well. Maria Covis. It sounds like a tennis player. Maria Covis. It does sound like a tennis player, doesn't it? Jennifer Wormuth. Hey, Jennifer. Rebecca Phillips. Thanks to Rebecca.

Dale Fandrich. Hey, what's up, Dale? And then Molly Ahern came out, with a sizable donation on PayPal. Well, you know, that's what Mollies do. I know. So we appreciate all that very, very much. We do. Gibbs last night, we released our first ever Patreon only full-length episode. Yeah.

On video. We did. So no costume changes either. Yeah. No costume changes. Not as much editing probably as a real episode because, you know, we clean up the audio to pretty fine detail on the episodes that go out. The problem with the video is if you try to do that,

you have just clip, clip, clip, it was just a lot of little changes in where hand position. It's pretty noticeable. Right. There's still quite a few because I can't, I don't want to put it out where it doesn't sound good. No, you stopped it where you needed hair, makeup to come in. Yeah. And then you picked it back up again. Yeah, when I need a dusting.

Yeah. And on my bald head. A little quick dust. is shining on my bald head. Yeah. If you're a Patreon member, make sure you check that out. And if you're not,

now's a great time to sign up. Jump on board. Now, right now, on true crime all time unsolved, we have an episode out. It's a little different for us. It is.

We're talking about two different unsolved murders. Yeah. Really not related to each other in any way other than the fact that torsosos were found. Yeah. So we're calling it the tors torso murders, right? Two completely separate cases linked by the denominator that a torso was found. One's out in Idaho. A torso is found in a cave. And then the other one takes place in good old Knoxville,

Tennessee, where a torso is found out on a trail. So, and we're kind of go through our normal process and kind of chase down what we can. All right. So check that out. Also, don't forget to check out our new podcast called The Reviews Are In. We have an episode coming out this week on a particular banana slicer that Ghibi has in his kitchen drawer. I do. He's fond of it. I am.

And I make fun of it. And you do. So check that out. All right, Givie. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All Time? I am. Let's give a special shout out for research and writing help on this episode to our good friend Lana Hyatt. Much appreciated. This story takes place on two different continents. So we'll be in

North Carolina here in, in the States for parts of it, but we'll also be heading to Australia. Oh, good day. Always gives you a good chance to practice your horrific Australian accent. I think it's pretty good, mate. I wasn't too bad. Those last couple were not. Have you been practicing at home in the mirror? Be honest. No. No. be honest. No, mate. We're talking about Alyssa Baker and the murder of Zara Baker. And Gibbs, I'll tell you what, I went back and forth on this woman's name. I saw it pronounced or heard it pronounced a couple of different ways, actually three or four different ways. And, you know, I'm going with Alyssa. It could be Elisa. The story is still the same. But first off,

let's get into a little background on Alyssa. Alyssa Net Fairbanks was born June 6th, 1968, in Western North Carolina. She was the middle child of three girls. Her parents worked in the factories. One of them worked in a textile factory, the other in a furniture factory. Pretty big in North Carolina. Yeah, I would say it is. Alyssa's dad was definitely the more laid back of the two.

It was said that he doted on Alyssa. It was her mother that was the disciplinary. I think Gibbs, that is pretty common. No, I'm not saying male-female. I think it's pretty common to have one person in the relationship that is more of the free spirit. Sure. And one that is more of the disciplinarian. Yeah, I think in most cases.

And a lot of relationships, I think that's the case. If you get two disciplinarians, that can be a little rough. And if you get two people that. are too loosey-goosey, well, we know what happens to some of those folks, too. Some of them, yeah. I didn't get doted on, man. You didn't get doted on? I did not get doted on. I did not. It's a shame for you. I wasn't, like, heavily disciplined either. I just, they just didn't care. They were like, hey, Mike, go do what you got to do, climb a building, climb a tree, build a fort. You're playing a game tonight? I'm watching,

I'm watching Matlock. We're seeing after your game. Wait, you're not coming to see me play. That's funny. But it was really this relationship between Alyssa and her mother. It was very strained, right? During the teenage years, it was tough. And it often is between daughters and their mothers during that, you know, 12, 13, 14, 14, 15 year old period. Absolutely.

That can be rough. Oh, yeah. And you and I have talked about it. I'm dealing with the 13 year old now who is for the most part. an angel. Yeah. But when it goes south, it goes south in a hurry. Get out of the way.

Get out of the way. As I come down in the studio, I'm like, hey, I got work to do. I can't be involved in all of this. Yeah, I'd like to help, but I got to go. Yeah. This is when Alyssa started really acting out, and specifically towards her mother. She would cuss at her. She was constantly talking back.

That's not that out of the ordinary. you know, talking back, things like that. What is out of the ordinary, I think in relation to Alyssa was that she was physical with her mother. She would hit her. She would slap her. That's not something I hear a lot about. Kids are mouthy. You know, they like to talk back, but to actually be physical with your mother.

That's rough. That is rough. Those are the kids you might see on. scared straight, that prison show, you know. And then probably later on Jerry Springer. And then back on Jerry Springer. So as she got into high school, Alyssa was pretty popular. You know, she went to all the events, football games, dances.

She was described by some of her old classmates as being pretty popular. They said she was an attractive girl. But really kind of all of a sudden, Alyssa dropped out of high school. So she didn't graduate. And then a year after she dropped out, she got pregnant. She gave birth to her oldest daughter, her first and what would be her oldest daughter. Then she met her husband, her first husband, Jerry Winkler. And Alyssa told Jerry that, you know what?

The dad left me. I don't know what I'm going to do. The thing about Jerry and Alyssa is that they had dated during high school. So they have some history. They had some history. Obviously, he knew her, was probably infatuated with her, may have still been in love with her, but these are essentially 17-year-old kids. Yeah.

One of whom is pregnant. Within a week of them kind of reigniting this relationship, getting back together, Jerry proposed her. And he, uh, he's just going to be a stand-up guy, sounds like. But remember, they're only 17 years old. They could not get married on their own without permission from their parents. So what they did was they lied to Jerry's parents. And they told them that this was his kid. So you know, his dad was probably like what you just said.

You got to step up and do the right thing. Now, Jerry knew this was not his child. Right. But they had to tell his parents this or his parents would have never let him get married. No. So my assumption is dad said, well, you did what you did. You have to step up, be a man and, you know, take care of this new family. Yeah. That you've essentially created. I think Gibbs, this guy must have really loved Alyssa. To get married and to take on the responsibility of raising someone else's child. That's a big thing for anyone.

Sure. But at this age. But it's 17 years old. That is a huge. That is a huge. deal. They got married on September 14th, 1985, but it was a short-lived marriage. That probably does not shock anyone. No, I don't think it's a strange circumstance that, you know, they found themselves in, that they entered into this relationship under. Jerry later said it was very stressful. He just got overwhelmed with being a dad and a husband at the age of 17. Just the responsibilities had to be huge, you know. couldn't even get to school on time at 17. You couldn't even wake up on time. Right. I couldn't wake up on time, let alone get up, help feed, help take care of a baby, you know, where am I getting the money to make sure food is on the table? All I worried about was getting to

school, getting to practice, eating a burrito when I got home. That's all I cared about. Big decisions, right there. Frozen burritos is all I ever ate. Where's my frozen burrito at, mom? Breakfast of champions. But then Jerry's family. learned that the baby wasn't his. And I think, you know, it hit the fan. At that point, his dad was furious. And he went to the judge who had married them and said, you know what? You got to null this marriage.

And that's what happened. So in total, they were only married for about four months. Not very long. Not long at all. But it's important. All of this stuff we're going to talk about with Alyssa is important to show her journey, her character, and how she ultimately, I think, got to the point where she did. A year after her divorce or her annulment from Jerry, she met her second husband, a man named

Joseph Proctor. So Joseph was 28. Alyssa was 19. Joseph had been in a very serious car accident. And it had left him with a limp. And there were some complications from this car accident. Within months of the time that these two began dating, Alyssa became pregnant with a child, a boy.

And this time, it was Joseph's. And like a stand-up guy, he said, you know what? I want to do the right thing. He proposed. They married in September of 1987 and their son was born just a few months after that. Within a year, they had another child. This time, a daughter. So let's think about this, right?

At a very young age, Alyssa has three children. Right. And she's already been married twice. Not even 21 yet. No. No, she's not even, she probably maybe 20 at the most. I'm going to let the cat out of the back. She's going to be married probably at least seven times.

Oh, man. And every one of them is a strange situation unto itself. have some relatives that both were married at least five if not more times. Yeah. I think people get married a lot of times, you know, for whatever reason, it just doesn't work out. Yeah. So they're looking for love.

They keep looking for love. It's not like they stop. No, no. I can see a couple times, you know, two, three times. And my assumption is those people go into it with the best of intentions. That is not the case. We're going to find out with. with Alyssa.

She has a very specific agenda. You know, this marriage was rocky from the start. First of all, they lived on a piece of property that was owned by Joseph's mother. You know, mothers, daughter-in-laws, sometimes that can be a lot of friction. A lot of friction. A lot of times, you know. For one reason or another, they just don't always get along. Sometimes the mom thinks, ah, you stole my little boy.

you're not taking care of him, whatever the reason is. But there's no doubt. She did not like Alyssa all that much at all. By April of 1989, she got a restraining order against her because as she said, Alyssa was stealing. She was destroying things inside the house. She was very destructive. We'll find that out as we go along.

She's a physical person, much more so than I think. you see in a lot of women. She was very physically abusive, verbally abusive too, which men and women can be. Right. And they can both be physically abusive. You just don't hear as much about the physical abuse committed by women against their husbands. It's a pretty common theme, though, with Alyssa. Real common.

She was a sturdy woman. Let's put it that way. Sturdy? Mm-hmm. All right. She was sturdy. She could definitely take care of her own. And she could dole out an ass-wopin if she had to. I heard she gave birth standing up.

Maybe. So that's how sturdy. I didn't see that in the research. So wherever you got that from. But it's what happened when this restraining order was served on Alyssa. You know, allegedly she said, you know what? If you make me leave, I'll burn this house down. Not only that, I'll kill this baby.

I'm going to wreck the car. I'll kill everyone. I'll kill the kids. I mean, she was like, whatever she had to do to stay into that in that house, she was going to threaten to do. She just went berserk, man. Yeah. We'll talk about it more as we get into this case, but this is a very manipulative person who

is always working the angle Gibbs. You know that person. Oh, yeah. Always working the angle to try to get what they. want. Well, what she wants is for someone to take care of her. And now she's being threatened with having to move out. Don't take my gravy away. So I said the relationship strained. The mother-in-law doesn't like her. The couple, they reconciled, you know, after this kind of, like you said, she went berserk. But it just didn't last long. You know it wasn't going to based off of what we've talked about

already. They ended it on Christmas Day 1990. But, what I found very strange was that Alyssa took her two daughters. She left her son with her ex-Joseph. I saw that as a little bit odd. I think most times a mother is going to take all of her children. It is strange. When they leave. And I guess what came to mind because I really couldn't figure it out was that it had to be a gender thing, right? She took the two girls. She loved. She left. And left her son. Did she not want to raise a son? Did she not enjoy raising a son? I don't know. Maybe she saw the father and the son, you know, and it just, she couldn't handle that. Maybe. Maybe there's a lot of things in this case that are not explained because Alyssa never

explains them. So without her explaining it, you know, some of these things are kind of, you're left to wonder. Now, her first marriage ended very quickly. We talked about it. Four months, annulment, boom, done. This one took about two years. to finalize the divorce. Still pretty fast. Still pretty fast in the world of divorce probably. But this is also a woman that cannot go very long without someone by her side, right? She needs a man.

She needs someone to take care of her. She needs someone to put a roof over her head. And it wasn't long. She found her next person, a man named Andrew Harris Jr. She met this guy at a bar. They married in April of 1992. This guy later talked about, you know, hey, she was so easy to talk to in the beginning. I just fell for her.

But very quickly, after they got married, everything went to shit. I tell you, people change when they get married. In a lot of different ways. They do. And I don't know why. It's just a piece of paper, right? Yeah, exactly. Not in every case, but in a lot of cases they do.

And like you said, it's just a piece of paper. So what drives that? Even in good marriages. Yeah. People change. Yeah. Things change. You know, I used to get quite a few back rubs back in the day.

Man, that wedding day hit, I think I've had like 10. I'm not even averaging one a year, man. She's still waiting for you to pick up all those shoes. She is. Alyssa started getting angry. And again, this manifested itself verbally and physically. Not only with Andrew, but with her daughters as well.

She would take everything out on someone. She would make up excuses about why the kids needed to be punished or why they had to be sent to their room. I got the feeling gives from, you know, some of the research that I don't think these kids were doing bad things all the time. She just didn't want to deal with them. Yeah, I think she was inventing reasons to punish them. Yeah.

Go to your room. I don't want to see you. So they had this big blow-up fight in 1994. It was so bad that Andrew had to leave the house. When he got back, the whole house was cleared out. She had taken his guns, all the furniture. Wow. Even took his fishing rods.

Took his fishing rod. That's low to take a man's fishing rods. Don't touch my rod, man. How are you supposed to feed yourself now that your wife's left you if she took your fishing rods? Are you going to catch that catfish? Exactly. Or in your case, a bluegill.

A bluegill. So she's on her own again, but not for long. She was introduced to a man named Daryl Putnam by a neighbor. So just to kind of recap point in time, Alyssa is now 26 years old. Daryl was 30 years old. She's been married three times. She has three children. The thing about Daryl was that he was deaf.

and had been deaf from a very early age. Yeah. He needed hearing aids to even hear a little bit of speech. They met at a bar again, like some of her previous relationships. She lied to him right off the bat, told him that her eight-year-old daughter had cancer. Within weeks of meeting each other, they move in together. So I think this is important, right? you can see a pattern kind of emerge.

Alyssa is attracted, and I don't know if attracted is the right word. She's drawn to men who have some form of either disability or they're vulnerable in some way. Yeah, she's definitely preying on some weakness on their part. Yes. Yeah. You know, my thought is that she believes these men will be easier for her to manipulate. because there's no doubt. She is an extremely manipulative woman.

We'll see that. And like I said, she's also a physical woman. She's a hitter. She's sturdy. She's sturdy and she's a hitter. So really, you know,

when you go online, when you do your dating profile, when you say what you're looking for, most men would not say, I'm looking for a very manipulative person that likes to beat people. Yeah. that would be what you don't want.

But she's not online dating at this point. She's meeting people at a bar. That's a much different scenario. That's a different type of dating application. This may also be somewhat of a hinge moment for Alyssa, because this is around the time that her mother died. She began drinking heavily. She would go out all the time.

She was drinking constantly. And she was smacking her kids a lot. This is something else that came out pretty much everywhere she lived. Her neighbor said that she was very physical with her children to the point where some of them told her, hey, you can't be doing that. Or I'm going to call child protective services. And she did get them called on her quite a number of times, but nothing really ever happened. But I guess the relationship must not have been that bad with this Daryl Putnam, right? He's seeing all this. He still marries her. They married in 1995, went south very quickly. She was cheating on Daryl.

And he actually found her in bed with another man. That's unfortunate. Yeah. That's pretty good evidence, though, when you see it with your own two eyeballs. Yeah. Not good. Can't be a good feeling. No. Never experienced that. I hope I never experienced. that but he didn't hear him you know so but he does the smart thing you know a lot of guys would get so angry they would rush in they would start you know beating up the man doing whatever he doesn't he leaves he goes to his mom's house to cool off he's gone a couple of days right that's gonna you're gonna need a cooling off period from that he got back to the house to find everything was gone gibbs she even took his very expensive hearing aids this is her mo you know

It is. It is. Like get married, two years later, basically, I mean, this one's a little sooner, but screw it up. Sure. When they get mad, take everything and leave. It's almost like she's doing things on purpose to get these guys to leave the house, making them so mad they have to leave. And then she's going to clear them out.

This whole time, you know, one of the things that I kept struggling with was, did this lady work? Right. Because she keeps marrying guys one after the other. Right. My thinking is she needs them, right, to help support herself. I think she did work at a textile factory for a little while. It seems like it might have been just long enough to warm her way in to get some type of disability pay. The other thing is she sold drugs on and off.

That would later catch up to her, which it does to most people. Yeah, normally it's not a good occupation to stay in. On October 3rd, 1997, she got married again. What's this, Gives for? You try to keep track as we go along. This guy's name was Jeffrey Allred. He said, man, this relationship started out aces. We were in love, but it didn't take long before Jeffrey started experiencing physical beatings.

He later said she beat him with a baseball bat. She would chuck rocks at him. So he got fed up and left. But he was very, very sly about this. he was also probably scared of her. So he waited until she left one day with the kids to go get groceries. And he packed up his stuff and ran out of there like Scooby and Shaggy. He pulled a reversal.

Yeah. All right. I guess he was just either so afraid of her or so worried about what the repercussions were going to be. He never even divorced her. I don't think he wanted to face her in court. I don't think he ever wanted to see this. woman again. So I'm just out, man. I'll just never get married again. Don't need to worry about it. The reason why this is important is because they never got divorced. And we know that Alyssa is going to

get married a number of times. So we're going to get into the area of bigamy, illegal in many places, frowned upon in a lot of places. Many, many, many. And she was still married to Jeffrey when she met a man named Aaron Young. Aaron had some health issues. Gibbs as a kid, he had rickets. It's something you hear about, but I never have known anyone that actually had rickets. Apparently, it's a bone disease. Yeah. And it can result in sometimes skeletal deformities, which I think it did with Aaron Young. He had to have some operations on his left leg and then his right leg had a steel rod in it. So you can imagine, right? This guy has gone through a lot. He's not going to be the most confident guy.

No. No, his self-confidence is not going to be very high. I think he was a shy guy. They married in either 98 or 99. I had a hard time with that. There was some conflicting reports. Yeah, but she found another victim because she found his weakness in the fact that he was shy, she gave him probably the right amount of attention. I think you're absolutely right. You know, Aaron Young was third. years old. My assumption is he hadn't dated a lot. He didn't have the self-confidence to probably

ask a woman out. I don't know all of that. I'm making some assumptions, but he's been a very shy guy probably for most of his life. And then here comes this woman who is paying him all this attention, attention that he's not used to, but that he probably likes. She's drawing him into her web. Dark web. The dark web. This is what people like Alyssa do. She changed a lot after she met Aaron. She dyed her hair from blonde to red. She got some tattoos. During the time that she was with Aaron, she found the internet, right? Late 90s, the internet's just kind of finding its way into a lot of people's homes. Super fast. It wasn't super fast. No. But apparently she spent hours and hours in front of the computer.

Most of the time playing a game called instant messaging virtual universe. I have never heard of this game. I don't remember it. But it was a game where people created 3D characters to represent themselves. And then they interacted with each other. Okay. Like an avatar. It created like an avatar.

You act like you don't know. You probably had multiple ones. I was a furry in one of them. Probably were. No, I actually do not remember this game. And I played a lot of computer games back in the day. Seems like you would have. Yeah.

And it kind of reminds me of the Brad Paisley song where he talks about, you know, what I'm like online, six foot five, six pack abs. Yeah. So Alyssa's doing the same thing, right? She's making herself this glamorous woman online. She was married to Aaron for a while. It wasn't until around 2008 that she met a man named Adam Baker. She met him through this online game. That's why it's all important.

Adam Baker is the dad of Zara. So we're getting close to the union that puts all of these people together. So Adam is from Wagga Wagga Australia. Waga, Waga. A town so awesome they had to name it twice. I think they pronounce it. Agawaga, mate. So you're telling me the

W and the first one is silent. Yeah. But then they say the second one. Agawaga. Are you going to argue? I mean, I know my Australian. This is a town of about 50,000 people. And the thing about Adam,

he wasn't a worldly guy, right? This is a down-to-earth man from Australia. He had never been married, but he did have a wonderful daughter named Zara. You know, it's really not that strange today, you know, that even back then, too, but for people to be sitting in, you know, in the United States, talking to somebody anywhere, really, Australia, being a game room, being into a chat room, social media sites, and striking it up.

And, I mean, they're hitting it off. But do they really know who that other person is? I don't think anybody truly does. And we'll talk about that after the two of them get together in the physical. world. Yeah, because it's easy when you message back and forth or text. Sure. Because you've got time to formulate your response. Yeah. And every, you know, when you and I text back and forth, I think, you know what, that kid me, he's a good guy. But when you're here, I'm like, geez, why do I keep letting this guy in? I know it. You're like, now, I know the true side of him now. He gets me every time.

Yeah. But I think you're right. Even more so today. Right. So back before the internet, what did they do? If you wanted to talk to somebody in another country, what did they have? Like, ham radio maybe? That was a way to talk to people in other countries. I mean, obviously, you could call international, but you would have to need to know who you're calling. Right. Today, you could just literally stumble upon an individual in a country halfway around the world. Yeah. That is into the exact same thing that you are. Just look at our fan page, our T-CAT fan page. There's what? 16, 17, 18,000 people in there. I don't know how many, 20. We communicate with people all across the world.

And they're communicating with each other, making actual friends because they have the same interest. Yep. So Zara's mother had been out of the picture since really not very long after she was born. Apparently Gibbs, she had a serious, serious case of postpartum depression so serious that she couldn't take care of Zara. She signed over custody to Adam. I know some women go through that and it's very, very serious. Yeah, very difficult for them, sure. Now, Zara didn't have the easiest life.

She was born November 16th, 1999. And by 2005, she was diagnosed with bone cancer. And this led to the amputation of her left leg, six years old. Got to be tough to go through for anybody but a six year old and with no mom around. Very tough. And if that wasn't enough, by the age of eight, she was also diagnosed with cancer in her lungs. So she had to undergo some surgeries on her lungs. This includes a lot of chemotherapy. And one of the side effects that Zara experienced was partial hearing loss. So now she's not even nine years old. She has a prosthetic leg.

She has hearing aids to be able to hear what people are saying to her. For like you said, for a lot of adults, that would be tough to handle. Extremely tough and a lot of depression would set in. But as a kid. Now, kids are sometimes often very resilient. They are. But you just feel so bad for these kids. But then you look at Zara, right?

this is a girl that always had a smile on her face. She always looked happy. Even after going through all these things that she went through, she had a ton of friends. People talked about, you know, the fact that she could make a friend anywhere she went. And she wanted to live life. She didn't want to let anything that either had happened to her or, you know, anything that was going on now, hold her back in any way. Yeah.

She was going to prevail. That's what that's what type of kid we're talking about. Talking about two sides of a coin there, man, aren't you? Between her and Alyssa. Well, yeah, kind of. But if you think about it, Elissa had a mentality that she was going to prevail. The problem was she would step on anybody she had to to get what she wanted.

That's true. You're right. It's two different sides of a coin. Now, at the same time, you have to talk about Adam, right? Zara's dad couldn't. have been easy on him. No mom in the picture, single dad, dealing with, you know, all of these medical complications that Zara had. He'd never been married. I mentioned that. He was looking for companionship. And that came in the form of like we talked about, right? Being on the computer,

maybe doing some online dating. But I think he met Alyssa through a game, this virtual world. So that same year that Alyssa and Adam found each other, I said it was 2008. Zahar also got some really great news. Her cancer was in remission. So let's celebrate, right? That is cause for celebration. It was also when Alyssa decided, you know what, it's time for me to make the trip. I've got to go to Australia.

I've got to meet this Adam Baker in person. Yeah. It's time. And they met for the first time in the airport. I wonder if they ran towards each other, open arms. Like you see in the movies when they're in the field. Yeah. I don't know.

He jumps up on, well, he jumps up on her or she jumps up on him. He would probably have to jump up on her. Like I said, she's a sturdy woman, no doubt about it. So they meet in the airport within weeks of this first meeting. They got engaged.

Again, I can't stress enough how it seems like everything happens so quickly with Alyssa. I think Gibbs, this woman must have been very good at warming her way into the hearts of men very quickly. I mean, within two weeks, it's like these guys are proposing to her.

Yeah. I don't know what all she was doing, but she was good at it. She knows how to do that sweet talk. Now, when she came to Australia, she didn't exactly come with a clean slate. She left behind in the United States a string of eviction notices.

small claims judgments liens these were from like landlords utility companies this was a train wreck of a woman from everything you read so she just signed things and then turn up and left and didn't pay her bills and because why i'm moving on anyway i'm going to australia i don't care i'm not paying any of you i feel horrible gibbs i really do for this guy adam baker i don't think he had any idea what type of person he was letting not only into his life, but into his daughter's life as well. Yeah, he had zero clue, man, what was coming. So the two of them lived with Adam's mother in southern Australia for a bit,

but it really was just a few years after they got married, that they all moved to the United States. And they moved to Hickory, North Carolina. Man, it's like the furnishal capital of the world. Is it? So we make all the furniture? They do. Make a lot of furniture there in Hickory.

Now, one of the big problems was that in Australia, Zara's medical treatments were free. That's a big deal, given the amount of medical treatments that she needed. That's huge, man. So I think Adam's friends and family, they were very worried about him moving to the United States with Zara. They worried about the cost. they worried about him being able to take care of her. But he told his friends and family, you know what, don't worry. Alyssa has all kinds of money.

She has said, don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. Again, has no idea what he's getting into. No, just excited to come to the USA, man. And being fed, I think, just a line of bull by this woman, whatever he needed to hear. That's what he was hearing. Oh, I'm sure she was just. spot on with the doting and the i'll get us a place oh don't worry about the medical treatments i'll

make sure everything's paid for take care of you baby don't you worry i got it when they first got to north carolina they lived with alissa's dad for a short period of time didn't last long i think he gave them the boot pretty quickly and i think gibbs it had a lot to do with how alissa treated Zara. Family members, neighbors, they later said that they saw Alyssa hit Zara. They said she would lock her in her bedroom for extended periods of time. One day Zara went to school with a black eye. That's not good. They asked questions and should. My wife's a teacher. Right. What happened? Right. They don't want any type of, you know, domestic violence in the house. They're always on the lookout for stuff like that. Social services got involved. And when they came out,

Alyssa told them that Zara fell in the bathroom. And that's how she got the black eye. And Zara backed up that story. Probably out of fear. I guarantee you. She was afraid. If she was being hit at the time, she was afraid that if she said the wrong thing, there will be serious repercussions from Alyssa. It's after the black eye incident that Alyssa took Zara out of fourth grade, just said, you know what? You're not going back. I don't need you there if they're going to tell on me. Sure. Me in trouble is the reason why she really did it. I don't know how people get away with stuff like this. Now, during this time, Adam was working at a logging company. He wasn't around a lot. He was putting in long hours. He didn't see Zara as much as he had before they left Australia.

But you would think he would know whether or not his daughter was in school. You know, you come home, you say, hey, hon, how was your day? It wasn't. I wasn't there. I don't go to school. You would think he would question the black guy too. That too. But we're going to ask a lot of questions about Adam because there are a lot of people online that ask a lot of questions about Adam that they want answered that have never been answered. And I mentioned child protective services prior to October 2010 because that's really when this story turns south in a hurry. There were four child protective service reports made in response to allegations of abuse. All of them focused on improper discipline and they centered around none other than Alyssa Baker.

Fast forward to October 9th, 2010. Alyssa called the fire department. There was a fire outside of the house. This is about 520 in the morning. It was just a little bit of mulch that was on fire. Took police about 10 minutes to get there. But while they're looking at this little fire, right, it's not even the fire department, I don't think. It wasn't like a blaze. While they're investigating it, they found a ransom note on the

windshield of Alyssa's Chevy Tahoe. The ransom note said, Mr. Coffee, you like being in control. Now who is in control. We have your daughter. And your pot smoking redhead son is next unless you do what is asked. One million dollars unmarked will be in touch soon. On the top and the bottom right hand part of the note was written the words no cops because the last thing you want gibbs as a kidnapper in a ransom situation is cops no cops man don't bring no cops don't call the cops we'll be watching and we'll know well who in the heck is mr coffee i was thinking was that guy that invented the mr coffee coffee machine you think his name is mr coffee yeah hey mr coffee or do you think they just called the coffee pot mr coffee because it's coffee you really

think the last guy's last name was coffee? Could have been. We never know. We'll get a thing that says, you know what, his name was coffee. Yeah, his name actually was coffee. Like that guy crapper that invented the toilet. That you know what? That's a brilliant design man. It stood the test of time. Yeah. I don't know what was better. The crapper or the paper that goes with it, what a mess we'd be in if we didn't have them. Well, in the future, we're going to use the three seashells. So, yeah, I'm still waiting on that day as foretold by the movie demolition man. Well, somebody was still screwed up and not put the she seashels back where they need to be. You'd be like, wait a minute.

Who didn't, who didn't refill the seashells? Yeah, well, I only got one seashel. You know I can't do it just with one seashell. All right. So Mr. Coffee was Adam's boss at this logging company where he worked. So this is a serious thing, right? A ransom note that says we've kidnapped somebody.

So they go check on. this guy and his family and they find out that his daughter's there, his son's there, they're all fine. It's a strange thing to find. But I guess once they figured out that it wasn't true, what are they left to do with this ransom note? It's not real. Now, maybe they put some guards or extra patrols around this guy's house. I don't know. I mean, all you, all you can really do is try to figure out why was it placed on the car it was. Mm-hmm. And try to look at the handwriting.

Later on that same day, it's around 2 p.m. Adam Baker called police and said, you know what? Somebody poured gasoline in my car. He also tells them that his daughter is missing. And he believes whoever left the note took his daughter. But when police talk to him, Gibbs,

Adam is not able to tell police really, precise information on the last time he saw Zarar. Things get very strange and murky around all of this. Yeah, he can't really say when he last physically seen her. I will tell you this, it seems like a lot to happen to one household all at the same time. You know, we got a, we got a ransom note. But I think really what Adam thought was that whoever left the ransom note for Mr. Coffee, for whatever reason, left at their house and stole his daughter instead of Mr. Coffees. I think that's what he thinks. What it prompts is the very first Amber alert in all of Kataba County.

This is just a lot of activity for Hickory, North Carolina. And one family in particular, right? Yeah. Yeah. So police are on the scene. They start searching for Zara. They're investigating. They're talking to people in the neighbor. the next day on the 10th, they bring in the rescue dogs. And the dogs alert on both vehicles

owned by the bakers. And these are dogs that are trained to sniff out human remains. Right. These are not drug dogs. Right. These are human remain dogs. So within 15 minutes of getting on the scene, they're hitting on both of these vehicles. I think pretty quickly Gibbs, police knew something's not right. Something's not right with this situation. I think they're pretty good at what they do. The next day, the police hold a press conference. And at the press conference, they said that detectives had been interviewing friends,

neighbors, family. Gibbs, they couldn't find a single person who had seen Zara Baker in weeks. No one. It's not heading a good direction, man. No, not at all. And not just not a good direction. Like I said, it's a very strange direction. I think everything that is going on in this case is strange.

Because I think pretty early on, police are questioning Alyssa and she admits to writing the ransom note. That's not good either. That's also very strange. So police charged her with obstruction of justice in writing this note. and her bond was set at $40,000. So boom, she's in jail, right, for writing this fake ransom note. But the police have to suspect that there's more to it, right?

She had to have had something to do with Zara's disappearance, but they don't know exactly what part she played yet. Not able to weave anything together just yet. No, and they don't know where Zara is. They don't know anything. All they know is that this woman wrote a fake ransom note, and then call police to say, I've got a small mulch fire. And oh, by the way, police happen to find the note.

Yeah. Then you get to October 20th. Alyssa was at a hearing to try to get her bond lowered, right? It's $40,000. She doesn't have that. She can't get out. She's trying to get it lowered. Well, apparently at this bond hearing, one of her daughters testified that she was

afraid of her mother. her mother was a violent person. So the court actually increased her bond to 65,000. Gives, you know you're a bad person when you go to a hearing to reduce your bond. And at the end of the hearing, they up it because your own kids testify about what a piece of duke you are. Yeah, that's not good, man. It's not good at all. But I'm glad the daughter spoke up.

Maybe finally, at that point, she felt. safe enough to tell the truth. By October 23rd, we're not talking about a lot of time here, right? less than two weeks or about two weeks since the October 9th call to police, Alyssa must have known that things were going downhill for her. She's not getting out of this, right? She's being peppered with questions by police. She finally agreed to give the locations of Zara's body parts. Okay. as part of a deal that she worked out with the state in exchange for them taking the death penalty off the table. Body parts.

Not body. No. Multiple parts. So what happened is over the next few days, police took Alyssa out driving around where she tried to help them find these body parts. On the 26th, they found Zara's prosthetic leg. Now, it wouldn't be positively identified as hers until November 1st. But I'm assuming they were pretty sure it was hers at the time. And then you get to November 19th.

Alyssa is sitting down with police again, right? They're still trying to get the truth out of this woman. How can you make a plea deal, Gibbs, to say, I'll take you to where the body parts are, but yet I haven't said what happened yet. Right. this case, I'm telling you, it's what part of what makes this case so very strange. Normally, in a lot of the cases that we do on TCAT, people crack and they say, you know what, you got me.

This is what I did. She makes a deal to say, you know what, I'm not telling you what I did yet. Right. But if you take the death penalty off the table in the future, I'll take you to the body parts. Yeah. I'll help you out there. Now, how would I know where the body parts are? if I didn't have anything to do with it.

Exactly. So it's during this November 19th talk that Alyssa told police that Zara died September 24th. Gibbs, that is more than two weeks before they even thought she was missing. How'd the dad not know that? Well, we're going to talk about that. Yeah. There are a lot of questions that people, one, answered about the activities of Adam will definitely get into it. But I want to talk about what Alyssa's account was.

She said that Zara had been sick that day. And she took a nap in the afternoon. Alyssa said that when she went to check on her, she was unresponsive. She tried to revive her, but she couldn't. Then she went on to tell police that they panicked. They didn't know what to do. One thing I forgot to mention was that Adam was actually in the country illegally. I think he snuck in or however.

he got in, he didn't have the required paperwork visas to actually be in the country. So part of Alyssa's statements are that she was worried that because he was in the country illegally, he would get deported. She didn't want that to happen. But she tells police that it was Adam that dismembered Zara's body. And then they both scattered her body parts around various locations. Because that's what a father of a child would do? I don't think so.

Hard to believe, right? That even some of the coldest-hearted killers we've talked about didn't really do much to their own children, a lot of them. Yeah. People that had no problem cutting up strangers didn't dismember their own kids. Right. Not to say that it hasn't been done. It can be done. People do it.

Just not typical. something we would talk about or see really. No. Now, if you have no empathy, does it matter whether it's a loved one or whether it's a stranger? From my point of view, you know, we could never see, and I'm talking, I'm speaking for you too, we could never see doing any of this stuff to anyone. But even more so, you could never see yourself hurting your own family. No.

Above and beyond anybody else. Those are the people that you're trying to make sure nothing. happens to. But this is what Alyssa says happen. The problem is when they get the cell phone records and they got them for both Adam and Alyssa, wouldn't you know it Gibbs? Alyssa's phone is at all of these various locations at the times that she would have been putting these body parts there. Adam's phone doesn't have him at any of these locations anywhere during that period of time. Now, What does that mean?

Could that just mean he didn't have his, he didn't take his phone with him? Could be. Was he, he was smarter than Alyssa and knew that it was a bad idea to take your phone with you? Maybe. One thing I think is interesting to point out, authorities didn't recover all of Zara's remains. Even with Alyssa helping to guide them to these locations, they didn't recover everything. They did recover her skull, but it wasn't until April 2012. And even then, it was not.

not positively ID'd as Zara's until February of 2013. It's a little bit of time going by. So I guess the reason why it's important is because the medical examiner has some bones, very few body parts to work with. The autopsy is finally released in February of 2011. It was noted that two different tools were used in the dismemberment. And they knew it was. dismemberment. They could tell by the markings on the bones. They also said that Zara had broken a

couple ribs. They could tell that they had been broken. They had healed. The big thing is the medical examiner cites the cause of death as homicide. So I think that right away blows a hole in Alyssa's statement that she died in her sleep. Oh, absolutely. Of natural causes. I think what she said. Not that anybody probably is putting much stock into anything that Alyssa Baker has to say anyway. No, I don't think they're listening to anything coming out of her mouth. I think she's a known liar. She's a manipulator. But not long after the autopsy came out, a grand jury indicted Alyssa Baker on charges of second

degree murder with a laundry list of aggravating factors. And these all had to do with Zara. I'm not going to read them all, but it really. it's the fact that Tsar was vulnerable, partly due to some of her medical conditions due to her age. Yeah. I mean, think about what that little girl went through in her early years with the cancers and the not having a mom around. And then she had to deal with this, this beast, you know, this monster. I know. I know. Adam has always maintained his innocence. But I said there are a lot of people that have questioned his actions. I think you asked the question, why didn't he report Zara missing earlier?

Yeah. What happened in the two weeks prior to October 9th? How could he not have known that she wasn't at home? Was he working late? He just came home and she's like, oh, she's wasn't in bed. She's like, I don't want to wake her. I'll just do it. Did that for two weeks straight. Yeah. Again, this is a case where some of the details are fuzzy on things like that. But I think it's valid to ask the question. There are a lot of people that wonder, you know, did he really have a hand in maybe not her death, but in the dismemberment afterwards, as Alyssa claimed. It's just a two weeks band.

You know, can you imagine coming here two weeks and never seen in your youngest? Never. Does I see her every day? Yeah. And you would. Every single day. If you didn't see her after you, after not seeing her that day, would have questions. Well, I think even somebody that believed that her daughter was sleeping, I don't know,

the second time, I think you would eventually go to the room and just peek in. Well, and that's what I was going to say, you know, years ago, I had a job where for stretches at a time, we worked 60, 70 hours a week. Yeah. I was literally gone from seven to seven or eight. My kids were younger. Yeah. They were already in bed by the time I got home. But you better be doing. You better be. damn sure I was stopping in. I was giving them a kiss. Now, they were asleep. They didn't know I was in there. But you seen them. I saw them because I'm not going to go a week without kissing my kids or seeing them. And we're talking two weeks here. So that throws a weekend in there. It's, it's very strange. And I think it's why a lot of people have questions. There were also some allegations that

Alyssa and Adam had some discussions in their online game community about committing a murder using a chainsaw. So that came out as well. But I will say this, Gibbs, the authorities in North Carolina, they came out and they said that they did not believe based on everything that they looked into that Adam had anything to do with his daughter's death. He was never charged with anything related to his daughter's death. Police came out and said that, you know, they looked into his whereabouts. He was at work during the time that all of this reportedly happened. In September 2011, Alyssa Baker pleaded guilty to nine different felonies and was sentenced to 14 to 18 years. I think at a certain point, Gibbs, they tacked on a bunch of other things.

I think they got her for bigamy because she, you know, failed to divorce her, you know, her husband before she got married again. She was brought up on some identity theft charges related to her daughter. She stole the identity of one of her daughters so that she could open up some utilities and cable and other stuff in her name. She is a winner. Oh, she's a winner. All right. So, you know, I'm talking about September 2011. But earlier in 2011, before she came up for this, they indicted her on some drug-related offenses.

The details are a little sketchy. My assumption is it probably came as a result. of the investigation into Zars disappearance. I just couldn't find all that much stuff about it. There were some court documents that said that she was in possession of 12,000 oxycodone. Wow, man, that's a lot.

10,000 hydrocodone. Whoa. And 29,000 Xanax. That's a party right there, man. Those are huge numbers. Yeah. Wow. Obviously, that amount is not meant for

personal consumption, I don't even think you could take those in a certain amount of time. I'd have to take some time in between. 29,000 Xanax pills. That's a lot, man. You're floating in the sky for good. So obviously they got it for distribution, right? Or with intent. To sell, those are not for personal use.

So she had this hearing where she pleaded guilty. Adam had some very strong words for elicit the hearing, which you can expect. He was very upset. Zara's biological mother even flew in from Australia to attend. I think, you know, Gibbs, it's just a heartbreaking situation all around. It wasn't until 2013 that Alyssa was actually convicted on the drug charges. So she got 10 years for that. She was about 43 years old in 2011, I think.

So even if she serves the max on both of the sentences. And it's strange because, you know, the first set are state charges. These drug charges are federal. So I think she has to do the state first. And then transfer to a federal prison. And then transfer to a federal prison and do 10 years there. But even if she did the max at both, she'd be what in her early 70s? I think so.

Yeah. Chances are that she will get out one day and get to live out the rest of her life. Doesn't seem fair. when you think about Zara and how she never really even got to start her life. She was so young. I can't help but think Gibbs about what her life would be like today if Adam and Zara had never laid eyes on this woman, Alyssa. Yeah, Alyssa was bad for so, so many people, so many times.

She was a reckon ball, man. She just hammered everything. in anyone in her path. She just really was a brutal woman. I must have a hurricane after her. So Gibbs, before we close out this episode, I want to play a quick clip. This was an interview that Alyssa did

with a television station in prison. I played you only to a murder. I didn't do it. And it wasn't even a murder. I got scared. Started doing CPR. We need to go ahead and call out. He said, Lisa, sit down, take you some medicine, calm down.

I'll take care of it. He said, you're going to take your medicine, and everything's going to be fine. I've got a plan. So I thought maybe it was a strange ritual that he done. You know, for all I know, the aborigines, I don't know. So we got to dissect that just a little bit. Just a tad. Obviously, she's talking about Adam.

Right. Right. Placing the blame on Adam saying he said he would take care of everything. He took Zara. He dismembered Zara and he disposed of her remains. Many different locations. But at the end, she says, well, I don't know. Maybe it's an Aboriginal thing.

Maybe it was a cultural thing. they do there that he brought to America. As though people in Australia dismembered their dead loved ones? It's really reaching there. But it wouldn't be the same for me if you couldn't at least, even for, you know, 15, 20 seconds, hear her voice. Yeah. I'll tell you what, Gibbs. And this is not, I'm not trying to stereotype.

She sounds exactly the way I thought she would. based on the research based on everything that we went through. Yeah. She sounds about like how I thought she would sound. You're not surprised. I know that. I'm not. And you think about Adam, right?

If he didn't have anything to do with this, which is what the police say, a lot of people aren't so sure about that, but that's what the police say, how much guilt is that guy carrying around for meeting this woman, letting this woman into his life who ultimately killed his daughter. Yeah. But that's it, Gibbs. That's the case of Alyssa Baker. And again, you feel so much for that poor little girl, Zara. She went through a lot. Yeah, she did. She battled. You know, then to have something like this happened to her and for it to be perpetrated by someone who's supposed to care about her. Yeah. This is not a stranger off the street searching for pray. This is your stepmom, someone that you would hope has your best interest at heart,

is there to take care of you. Tough little girl, man. Sorry for what happened to it. Yeah, I am, I am too. To me, this is a very strange case for a number of different reasons. You know, the way that everything transpired. Alyssa has been very flip-floppy with her statements back and forth, but we mentioned it, right? This is a woman who married what, Gibbs, somewhere in the neighborhood of six, seven, eight times. I don't know if you kept track. I lost count at one point. Yeah. I think she was a person who looked for and prayed upon individuals that she thought were vulnerable. Yeah, she seeked them out, man. She seeked out what I would call for her easy targets. I think the thing I struggle with the most about this case is the why.

So I get why she sought out these vulnerable men. She warmed their way into their homes. They took care of her probably. They gave her, you know, financial support. They put a roof over her head. I don't get it with Zara. Was she vulnerable? Sure.

She was a little kid. All little kids are to some degree vulnerable. She had been through a lot in her life. She had lost some of her hearing. But why? There's nothing to gain. Is there? And if there is, I'm missing it.

And the problem is, Alyssa never came out and said, as far as I know, this is why I did what I did. Yeah, it wasn't like she, she didn't say she was a roadblock to something. She didn't say she was hindering her day-to-day activity. Right. Nothing. Adam was going to leave me because I was mean to Zara. I mean, there was just nothing that came out like that. The only thing they ever talked about was the additional medical cost, right?

That's the only thing that they ever talked about. Yeah. And I'm glad you bring that up because I actually had not thought about it. You know, could it be that Alyssa did tell Adam, hey, don't worry. Come on over to the States. We'll be fine. Financially. I've got money.

I'll be able to pay for whatever Zara needs. At a certain point, Gibbs, she realized she doesn't have money. What is she going to? to do. Yeah. To back up all these statements that she's made. Could that be the reason? Oh my gosh.

If it is, I mean, we've had some heartbreaking reasons for people getting killed. I mean, they all are to some degree. Yeah, absolutely. This would be right up there at the top. Yeah. Selfish. For, for a woman to kill, you know, a small girl. But that's what, that's what troubles me, you know, the why.

When I don't know the why, I have a hard time. Yeah, I think she's a type of woman that's probably never going to say what the why is. No, because it's so asinine. Yeah. Probably, right? Whatever the reason is is horrible, but her real reason is probably so assinine. She's never going to admit it. We got some voicemails.

You want to hear those? Let's hear them. Hi, I was a longtime listener, and I'm really pumped about the podcast, and I just wanted to make a suggestion on an upcoming show I think you should do. It's about William Sanderson. He was a student at Dalhousie University, a med student actually, and he was convicted in 2017 of first-degree murder of another Dalhousie student over drug-related things. It said that he'd murdered him over a bunch of weed and that the body has never been found. And then there's just a bunch of evidence going into it.

It's really interesting, and I'd really love to have you guys do a show on it. Thank you. Bye. All right. That's one I'm not familiar with. Me neither. But we'll put it on the list. Yeah. Do some research and see if there's enough out there to make a good episode. Thank you for that. Hi, this is Malcolm Cornwall in England. It's just to say that Gibby, actually, I think he's got a very sexy voice. I'm not usually heavily into the American accent, but you make me laugh.

Every time you sit there, just repeating everybody's surname, especially when it's preceded by an ooh. People got sent out a class for that when they can. Beach used to take the register. We used to call it past the sarcasm bomb. The one left holding the bomb was the one who got sent out. Anyway, enjoy your bank holiday weekend or do you not have that there? Thanks for everything. Keep your own time ticking.

It doesn't sound quite right coming from an English person, does it? Also, why don't you rather swear? It's not like kids are listening in. Well, but she didn't be. Yeah, I like that voicemail for a couple of different reasons. So, but I'll take the last part first. Sure. You know, a lot of people have asked us, Gibbs, why we don't swear a lot.

We do every now and then, you know. I think it's because you and I just don't cuss a lot in our regular everyday lives. No. So I think to come on here and introduce a bunch of cuss words, if it's not natural, it would sound very strange to us. But again, it's not like I care whether people cuss or not. My wife cusses all the time. It, you know, it doesn't bother me. It's just not what I'm used to.

And maybe it's because you and I were in the business environment so long. Yeah, that corporate environment, you know, just. You had to watch what you said. I mean, look, when I was in a different corporate environment, when I was working for UPS, I mean. Every other word was a customer. Yeah, I mean, you got those shipping docs, man. Let me tell you.

That's just what you said and what you did. That's where I got the best jokes ever, man. But that's the explanation. It has nothing to do with being prudish or anything like that. I mean, I don't have a problem with foul language at all. I just don't use it that much. So I feel like it would be disingenuous to use a lot of it on this podcast. And by the way, how are you doing?

How are you doing? Hi, guys. My name's Christy. I'm from Salinas, California. I just wanted to say that I love your guys' podcast. I've been listening to it nonstop. I don't know if someone has mentioned this before on a voicemail. But when I was younger, there was this show I used to watch called I Carly.

And there was a boy named Gibby on it. and he would do this really funny shirtless dance. So I just wanted you guys to know that every time I hear Givy's name mentioned, that is exactly what I picture. You guys should definitely look it up. Well, it was funny to me back then. I think it's so funny. But okay, you guys keep doing awesome and keep your own time ticking.

Bye, bye. All right. Love the voicemail. So I don't have to look it up because my daughters are probably not that much younger than she is. I have seen every episode of I Carly, I bet you 20 times. I've seen, because my, you know, my, my daughter watched I Carly. So, yeah, I know, I know it.

And really, it might be from that show that I started calling you Gibby. I don't know. I did like Gibby as a character. I liked it when he jumped on tables. He would take his shirt off. And that was called Gibby in high school. But, you know, Magic Mike. Magic, yeah.

And I do that dance. And you do. I do do that shirtless dance. Hey, Mike and Mike. This is Sam calling from Connecticut. I want to say I enjoy your podcast very much. I'm a huge true crime fan, as so is my fiancé. I am wondering why you guys have not discussed the Wayne Williams' serial killer case,

which would be the Atlanta murder, the Atlanta child murders. He is definitely a big timer, and he is someone I would like to. to see you guys do. So with that, keep your own time ticking, and I really appreciate your podcast. It's very insightful. And have a great day, guys. All right.

I think that's a timely voicemail for people that are watching Mind Hunter. Absolutely. Which I know you've watched the whole thing. I've done, done it. I've only watched two episodes. And then as always happens with me, my wife comes in, says, you know,

that looks pretty good. Yeah. I said, yeah, honey, I've been telling you about it since it first came out. She says, I'd like to watch that. So now I'm rewatching season one that I've already seen five times. Yeah. So that I can try to catch up with her.

I don't mind it. She does this to me on every good show, sons of anarchy, Dexter, every show. Sometimes the Walking Dead. She'll wait until I'm four or five season in. Now I want to see it. Now I want to see it. So back to Wayne Williams. I consider Wayne Williams.

to be a big timer, you know, in the pantheon of serial killers, infamy, he's pretty, he's pretty up there. Yeah. We are coming up on episode 150, Gibbs, and we have something slated for that milestone. It's a big timer. Now, is it Wayne Williams? I don't know. Everybody will have to wait to find out.

Hang in there. Hang in. Stay tuned, as they used to say on the old Batman. All right. That's it for voicemails. we had mailbag. So our great friend Lottie. Yeah.

Send us Gibbs the world's largest gummy bear. This thing weighs five pounds. It's a solid five pounds. It is massive. And obviously this is in reference to our reviews or in podcast where we did the review on the sugar-free gummy bears that caused you quite a bit of distress. Quite a bit. Pretty funny.

I got a kick out of it. They're not that funny over here. But so we got to. that. Amber Pultz sent us in a bunch of Harley Chips. Those are for me. She sent a whole bunch of honey. Yeah. That I know you're going to take home. You like that, honey? Drizzled on myself. I wouldn't, I wouldn't advise that. I wouldn't advise it. She also sent a very cool badge, all of this from Minnesota. Cool. Thank you. Janet Hart, also a very good friend of the show. Absolutely. She sent us some belated birthday gifts. Sent me some Harley chips. She sent you some stuff from

Japan. Janice been traveling a lot. Yeah, she just is over there to see. Yeah. Yeah. Um, was it her son? Her son. Yeah. So she sent you Japan's number one hot sauce. Yeah. Comes in a real cool bottle. But I'm most interested in something called sake kick cats. There you go, man. So you're going to have to let me know. Absolutely. She also sent us both a bunch of different bottles of water burger ketchup. Yeah. Which we actually ate at a water burger for the very first time. he told us, coming back from CrimeCon, when you're in that airport, go to Waterburger. Yeah, you're right. That's why we ended up

at Waterberg. We did. We said, you know what? That's a pretty good burger. Yeah. And they're kind of known for their catch-ups. They got a bunch of different, you know, spicy, regular. We don't want to say fry sauce, do we? It gets the whole world all shaking up. It's not fry sauce. There's no mayo in it. No, this is just spicy ketchup.

Yeah, this is just different types of ketchup. Yeah. All right, everyone. That is it for another episode of True Crime All the Time. So for Mike, And Gabby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.