True Crime All The Time - Richard Farley

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

When Richard Farley met a 22-year-old woman named Laura Black, he said it was love at first sight. Richard pursued Laura, but, she was not interested in seeing him romantically. This was something that Richard Farley could not understand. His infatuation turned to obsession and he began stalking Laura daily. This obsession ultimately led Farley to commit a workplace mass murder that left seven dead and four wounded.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the workplace shooting committed by Richard Farley. This is a man who just could not get it through his head that someone he was infatuated with didn't want to be with him. His stalking increased over the years and became darker and more ominous until it led to murder.You can support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 183 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 good, man. How about you? I'm doing pretty good. Yeah?

Yeah. Hanging in there. Trying to find some new things to watch. I know you've got a couple suggestions of things that you want me to watch. Right. Sometimes I find myself on YouTube. The other day, I was watching old episodes of To Catch a Predator. You remember to catch Predbert.

Yeah. I was fascinated by that show of how these people thought it was a good idea to show up at a random person's house, thinking that they were going to have, you know, sex with an underaged person. If that was going to be okay. Yeah. And then the fact that they were willing to sit there and talk with Chris Hansen and I was just always fascinated by that show. Yeah, I always thought it was kind of weird how they hung out. And then would be like, oh, man, I don't know why I was doing this. I should have known better.

They start doing that because they know they're in hot water. Yeah, the one guy said, I'm a minister. I don't know why I'm here. Yeah, nobody knows why you're here. But anyway, I find myself getting hooked on things like that. And you know how it is. You'll be on YouTube or something. The next thing you know, you've wasted quite a few hours.

Well, it goes really quick. It goes very quickly, especially when you're binging things. Yeah. whether it's on YouTube or, you know, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, any of them. Right. And you can lose track of time quickly. Really quick. But I hope everybody's doing good.

Staying safe. You know, you and I continue to do what we do. We're trying to help out. We are. It's nothing like nurses or, you know, the people that are keeping our grocery stores stocked. It's nothing like that. No, we're close.

We're no heroes. But we are trying to put out. some content that hopefully helps people in some way. We continue to have an amazing amount of Patreon support. So let's give some shoutouts. We had Sabrina and Eduardo jump up to our highest level. Hey, Sabrina and El Mardo. Did you say El Mardo?

Maybe. Okay. Yeah. Because there's a couple of Ds in there. Uh, I'm just saying. All right. Maybe, maybe not. We had Allison.

Hey, Allison. Victoria Knight. What's going on, Victoria? Alice Gordon. Hey, Alice Gordon. Eva Settters. What's going on, Eva? Lillian Snyder jumped up to our highest level.

Hey, Lilian. Paula Worthen Barker jumped out to our highest level. What's happened, Paula? Jessica Chansey. Hey, Chancy. Georgia Smith. What's going on, Georgia? Jennifer Wilson.

Hey, Jennifer. Ian Adamich. Adamich? Mm-hmm. Thanks, Adamich. Kristen Stevens. Hey, Kristen Stevens. Danny Cooper jumped up, no, jumped out to our highest level.

Hey, Danny. Linda Reyes. Hey, Linda. Adam Philp. What's going on, Phil? Heather Sorgatz jumped out at our highest level. Sorgoss. We had Tanya Poyier.

Cindy Poyer's relative. It's poignant. He's got a T in his, doesn't he? Isn't there a T in his last name? I don't know. It drops off at one point in his, you know. In his career. When he got big, he dropped off.

It dropped off. When he got big, he dropped the T. Yeah. Alison Hoyt. Hey, Allison. Jessica Mabry. What's going on, Maber. And last but not least, Elise Paveglio.

jumped out at our highest level. Pavegillio. Yeah. So much appreciated all this brand new Patreon support. Then if we go back into the vault, Gibbs. That's cool. This week we selected Robin Hannah. Hey, Robin.

Huge supporter, big on social media. She's just been with us a very long time. Yeah, she's our buddy. Yep, we appreciate it greatly. We had some great PayPal donations, Wayne Barnes. Hey, Wayne. Christine Hazel, our good friend Christine Hazel. Oh yeah.

She actually sent us a sizable donation. Thank you, Christine. And she's doing great and that makes you and I feel wonderful. Really good, really good. Bettina Evers Johnson. Hey, how are you, Johnson? Heather Green. What's going on, Heather?

And Kate Wilson. Hey, Kate. So thank you all as well. All right, Gibbs, right now we have a brand new episode out on True Crime All the Time Unsold. Okay. We're talking about two separate cases. We are. in the Bay Area, California.

The first case goes back to a 1986 unsolved murder, the murder of Harvey Perry Ringman and his wife Kiko. Yeah. So we'll dive into that, get into all the twists and turns of that. But then we actually have a second case that we're going to profile in that episode. and it's the 1968 unsolved Walker murders. Now, we've done a Walker family massacre episode.

This is something different. This is an arson. Stole mass murder. Right. But it's an arson. It's a different case. No, not similar at all. No, much different case.

But, you know, again, get into the suspects and, you know, there are some people that we'll kind of dive into. Somebody that they think, you know, is it possible that this person had something to do with it. But good episode. Make sure you check that out. It's a must. Speaking of Patreon, we have a new Patreon only episode that'll come out next Saturday night. So those of you that are already Patreon members look for that.

Those of you that want more content. Come on. This will be episode what? Is it 22, 23? I think. Yeah. So there's quite a bit of extra content in the way of episodes. on top of the weekly videos and things that we do.

And the secret videos that are out there too. Yeah, but those aren't rated PG-13. The ones that you do and upload? No, no. The uncensored ones? No, I don't do that. Oh, okay. I'm talking about the secret.

You don't know, but I installed cameras down here a long time ago. Hmm. So I take little video clips of our normal day stuff down here, and I put them out there. Okay. But you have to have the special secret code. probation accent. Yeah. And you have to click on the cert.

So when you're on Patreon, there's like a picture of us. A hidden. You have to click on the right picture, on the right object in that picture. And it will take you to, yeah. Gotcha. It's good. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time?

Let's do it. We're talking about a stalker named Richard Farley who committed a mass murder at his former place of employment that left seven. dead and four wounded. And Gibbs, to me, this is such a fascinating case because Farley was so consumed by a female co-worker that he stalked her relentlessly for almost four years. But this woman, her name was Laura Black, wanted nothing to do with him. So Richard decided that his best strategy to win her over was to walk into his former place of employment. And, you know, he was to walk into his former place of employment and shoot everyone he could, including Laura.

I know that doesn't make any logical sense. Right. There's a lot of things in this story that are not going to. So let's dive into a little background on Farley. This is not a huge background case at all. But Richard Wade Farley was born in Texas in 1948. His father was in the Air Force and his mother was a homemaker. After Richard, the couple had five more.

children. And being in the Air Force, they moved around a lot. When Richard was young, they eventually settled in Petaluma, California when Richard was eight years old. And that's something that, you know, here where we're located, we kind of know a lot about, right? Having an Air Force base in our backyard. My wife actually teaches up by the base. So, yeah, she's right there. She's a lot of her students are, you know, military families. And, and, and, she's, she's, she's, a lot of her students are, you know, military families. And it's not uncommon for them to not finish out the school year, you know, get shipped off somewhere else and have new students coming in and out very different than probably what most of us were used to. And it has to be very tough. Oh, to be a, in the military, traveling all the time going to new schools.

Well, especially as a child. Oh, yeah. What they used to call those military brats, didn't they? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if they still do that. that that's probably one of those politically incorrect sayings that you can't say now because there's

there's quite a few i got into it with my 19 year old daughter the other day and we were talking about and i said pretty soon it's going to be you know here's the list of things you can say yeah everything else is rubbing somebody the wrong way yeah i would need somebody to stand by me and click a zz like a buzzer every time i said something because i wouldn't know i'd be like i told you i was going to buy you that shock collar with the remote and if you got you know if i thought you were getting ready across the line i'd just zap you you would zap me just because you wanted to well i would but yeah i do think you're close to getting over the line sometimes so i just just in case like a preemptive zap i kind of test the water sometimes friends and neighbors describe richard as a quiet loner we hear that

quite a bit some of the neighbors said he could be rough with other children in the neighborhood and with his siblings. One person said that one time he stabbed one of his siblings with a nail. Oh, just some fun play. Yeah, but I mean, isn't that just brothers being brothers, Gibbs? Absolutely. I mean, you can't tell me that you haven't stabbed at least one of your brothers. Oh, maybe two.

At least two probably. On multiple occasions, maybe. It was kind of a yearly thing. Once a year, somebody's getting stabbed. Yeah, who's it going to be now? But the overall impression that I got about Richard Farley was that he was a pretty good kid. I don't think he got into much trouble as a youngster. Most people said he was nice.

He was helpful. I guess what I'm getting at is that we're not going to see the warning signs here. Right. Right. With Richard Farley that we would see with a lot of serial killers because he wasn't a serial killer. And we'll find that out as we go along. but there was no evidence of animal abuse that I could find or any of the other things,

head trauma, things that we often talk about. I don't think anyone could have predicted from his childhood that he would go on to become a killer. And these are the same type of sentiments relayed by neighbors and coworkers after they found out about his shooting rampage. Again, most people said he was quiet, but a pretty friendly guy. They described him as kind of an average Joe. Yeah. You know, your everyday typical average Joe.

I kind of think about it a lot, right? So what happens if my neighbor all of a sudden is outed as this killer? And they come to my front door and want to interview me. I mean, first of all, I have way too many teeth because, you know, around here, right. Normally you can only have so many teeth to be interviewed by the local news. That's one. That's one thing I've picked up on.

That is very true. I don't know why that is, but. I don't know either. But if I were to be interviewed, what would I say? I'd be saying the same things. He seemed like a normal guy. Yeah. He seemed pretty nice.

He always threw his hand up and waved when I was getting the mail or taking out the garbage. And that's kind of how like, you know, when I used to live over in Huber, the guy across the street when, you know, we lived over there. One day, he was out cutting his grass. He turned out to be a killer. right yeah he killed his wife and his daughter but he would always just be out cutting his grass he'd wave he'd ask you if you want a beer like no thanks you know i don't really know you so um you know and uh that day he was out just cutting his grass you know next thing you find out you know he killed his wife and right kid that the night before you just you just don't know yeah i mean i would have no idea

if any of my neighbors are you know some type of depraved criminal mastermind now i do you know i I did used to have a next door neighbor that I thought was questionable. Questionable just because they, they weren't big waivers, wouldn't acknowledge me when I talk to them. I often see that as red flags, but I live by them for so many years that eventually I just thought, that's just the way they are. And as far as I know, they never killed anybody that you don't love that I know. I just said as far as I know. Richard was pretty intelligent.

He did well in school after graduating from high school. He went briefly to a local community college, but I think like a lot of people, he decided, you know what, this is just not for me. So he joined the Navy and he spent the next 10 years in the Navy learning a lot about electronics, computers. It's been reported that some of the things Richard worked on required him to have a high security clearance. So to me, Gibbs, I'm thinking that means the Navy would have checked into him, right, background check. And they didn't find anything that scared them because he was able to get, you know, this high clearance. Now, I don't know how in depth some of these investigations go. I did one time have a neighbor that lived right behind me who

worked at Air Force Base. And somebody, I don't know, the men in black, whoever, they would call me every few years. But from what I remember, the questioning was, not very in-depth at all. Yeah. Pretty high level. Yeah, it was high level. And I really didn't know the guy anyway. So I couldn't give them any details or really answer anything but questions that were very general.

And I don't know if today if they would do that, if that would even be fair, because all the practical jokers out there now, you never know. I mean, if someone called you and said, hey, this is such and such from such and such and such. Yeah. Tell me about your neighbor. You'd be like, oh, I'm glad you called. Yeah. Let me tell you. Because the getting naked in his backyard and howling at the moon, that's starting to get on my nerves.

Exactly. And do you know why and what he's bearing in that one corner all the time? I think it probably varies by level of security. Right. Right. I mean, if you have a very high level, I don't think they're just calling random neighbors and that's going to suffice. There's got to be more to it than that, right? You know.

You know. Now, I know you have Alpha, Bravo, Tango, something, something. Is that the Greek alphabet? Level security. Okay. So they go very in depth with you. They do. They do.

But, you know. They can tell me things that. By intimidation and force, you've trained everybody that's going to be called to only say certain things. Exactly. Like I said, Farley spent 10 years in the Navy. And I think that's the other thing that we have seen. with a lot of killers. And I'm really talking more about serial killers, a lot of them in the military. But what's common with most of them gives? They can't hack it. No, they got to go.

They're dishonorably discharged after a year. They're doing this. They're doing that. They're doing something to get kicked out. Richard Farley didn't do that. I mean, 10 years is a long time. It is a long time. Yeah. And he received an honorable discharge in 1977. after that he got a job at a company called ESL, which stands for electromagnetic system laboratory. Some interesting stuff right there. Yeah. This is located in Sunnyvale, California.

He bought a house in San Jose. So, I mean, really if you look at him, he's doing very well for himself. He's the software guy at ESL, a company that received a lot of contracts from the U.S. military for about seven years. Richard Farley thrived in this environment.

They got along great with his coworkers. So. Yeah, for the most part. I think there was the odd guy that would later come out and say, when I say odd, I don't mean strange, but would come out later and say, uh, you know, he was kind of a dick and I didn't like him or this or that. But for the most part, people said he was a well liked guy. I mean, he was a hard worker.

He got his stuff done. It's going to happen. I think there was quite a few people, though, that thought he was a little arrogant. But, you know, some of us are. That happens. We make it work despite our arrogance. We all know somebody like that. We all do.

I mean, face of Gibbs, not everyone at a job is going to like you. No. And we know that. We've seen that. We've been written that in that arena so long. Yeah. And you can be as nice as you can be to some people. and it's just not going to work.

I mean, there's one person that thinks you're a hard worker, and they view that as a good trait, that very next person sees that as you being a kiss-ass because, hey, you're working too hard, you're outshining them, you're making them look bad. How many times did I get called that? I don't know. Okay.

Don't remember. I just ask guys. Maybe you recalled it. It's like, all right, and who said it was my next question. But one thing that I think does say, say something about his time, his early time at ESL was that he received nothing but outstanding evaluations during this seven year period at the company. That's impressive. Yeah. I mean, outstanding. You get a great review. At least your bosses think you're doing a good job.

That's really all matters. But where this story turns dark is during 1984. This is when Richard Farley first met 22-year-old Laura Black. Laura was an extremely bright, extremely beautiful electrical engineer at ESL. The two met at lunch, I think. They were just happened to be with people and meet it at some type of lunch. But I'm telling you what? Something happened inside Richard Farley the minute he laid eyes on Laura Black. I kind of envision it. I kind of envision it. it gives, you know, it must have been something like you see in those old cartoons where, you have the male cartoon character. Right.

Who gets a glimpse at the female cartoon character. All of a sudden, his eyes pop out of his head. They go about three feet in front of his face. That's where I picture it. Obviously, this man's eyes didn't jump out of his head, but he was really attracted to her. Yeah. I mean, later on, he would say it was love at first sight. Now, some people buy it.

that some people don't. I think it didn't happen. I think it can, well, it happened for him. Yeah. There is no doubt about it. I think he was awestruck, love struck, whatever word you want to use. Okay, that happens to people, right? There's really nothing wrong with it. But for Richard Farley, his infatuation with Laura Black would turn into an obsession. He was absolutely obsessed with this woman. He turned all of his attention onto Laura. He started constantly inviting her out. But here's the problem. Laura Black didn't want to go out with Richard Farle.

It was a one-way street. It was absolutely a one-way street. She turned him down every time he asked her out. I can only speculate as to the reason. I mean, he was 14 years older than she was. He was not a particularly good-looking man. I'll say that. She was a very pretty 22-year-old woman.

Gibbs, I'm sure she had no, you know, shortage of suitors lined up wanting to date her. She had a great job. She was working on her master's degree. Aside from being very attractive, this was a woman who really had a lot going for her. Yeah. At a young age, 22 years old to have a high-paying job be, you know, just short of finishing up your masters. Things are going our way. Yeah, definitely. I think Farley was fighting above his weight class, right? He was trying to outkick his coverage. There's a whole host of other sayings I could

use, but look at him. Use a lot of different things. You've heard it. Yeah. No, I haven't. Never used against me. Oh, they've been used against me before. Oh, okay. I mean, people have looked at my wife and I and right in front of my face said, you married this guy? I remember the first time I met her. I was like, you could have done better. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, right? Well, for your information, number one, I had charisma.

You do have charisma. No, I said I had. Oh, yeah, yeah. That went a long way. Yeah. I had a massive head of hair. Back then, yeah. This was 20 plus years ago.

Yeah. And my wife has aged a little better than I have. Uh, yes. So, you know, nah, nah, nah, no, no, boo-boo for all those people that said that. Yeah. Who's the real winner? That's the question. Hey, you're still together. Exactly. There you go. But I think the bottom line is, on paper, it doesn't seem as though Richard Farley would be the type of guy that Laura Black would want to date at this point in her life. Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, some people, when they decide to be with someone, it's,

I mean, you're going to have initial attraction. If you don't have the initial attraction, probably never going to get to know each other anyway. Unless you're on one of those shows where they put you in, you're in one room and the other guys in the other room and you talk through the wall and you're supposed to see if you're going to be attracted to them. I don't know. My daughter, she watches something called 90-day fiancé or something.

It's probably one of those things. Yeah. No, I think you're right. I mean, as much as people don't like to admit it, physical attraction is kind of the start of things. most of the time. It really is. Now, you might in some situation, talk to somebody on the internet that you've never met,

you got to know them so well that when you finally did meet face to face, okay, it doesn't matter what they look like. You've already gotten to know them. But outside of that, I completely agree with you that physical attraction is kind of normally the start of things for you to want to get to know somebody. Yeah, to maintain it. In that way. I mean, yeah, you might want to be friends with somebody.

but you're not going to have that desire to take it further in a lot of instances. So she was rejecting him left and right. Now, I think most people would take these types of rejections and realize, you know, okay, this is not going to happen. I got to move on with my life. Yeah. I'll see her at work. We'll say hi.

That'll be the end of it. I can't constantly keep asking her out for her to say no. Right. And I think here's the thing about Laura. she was such a nice person that I really think she was trying to, you know, let this man down easy. But at a certain point, she got frustrated. As anybody would, you can only turn somebody down so many times until there comes a point where you're just like, hey, you're not getting this. I do not want to date you.

I think if you don't want to date somebody, you don't need to be nice. Just, I think most people, guys, gals, whatever, prefer just the, be up front. Be very blunt. Well, I think you can be nice and still be direct. Direct. I think direct is the key. I think you have to be direct. You can't beat around the bush and be vague about it and leave it open for interpretation.

I don't think she was, though. I think she was direct. I just think she was trying to be nice. She wasn't trying to hurt his feelings or anything. But at a certain point, she just got fed up with it. And then it was like, okay, I'm not answering your calls. I'm not responding to you anymore because what else can I say that I haven't already said? But that didn't happen with Richard Farley.

He didn't, he didn't, you know, take the rejection. He didn't realize what most people would. His obsession in pursuit of Laura Black continued over the next four years. And if anything, Gibbs, it intensified. It grew stronger. and it became darker. You know, for whatever reason, his obsession just would not let him walk away.

It's estimated that he wrote her a couple of letters a week, maybe as many as 200 over this three, four year period. Wow, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, it's a lot of letters. Yeah, now today, you know, some people are listening to this saying,

what's a letter? Yeah. So it'd be like you getting a thousand text messages from some guy, or gal you don't want to. Yeah. But he didn't stop there. I mean, he constantly cruised by her home. Sometimes he would just sit outside and... That's the way to do it, man. Stare. Get an ice cream cone, eat the ice cream cone while you sit at the edge of their driveway.

Just stare. Oh, I thought you were going to say, like, Parker crossed the street. At least be a little... No, no, no, no, no. Be direct. Get right up there. But don't cross the line. Stay on the... I feel like you've already crossed the line. if you're eating an ice cream cone in my driveway. At the end of your drive way. I don't care. You're at the end of my driveway.

Or it's a public property, you know, yeah. Why is it that I feel like you're trying to tell people how to do this correctly? And I'm saying that using my airport. You're giving off a creepy vibe. Yeah, no creepy vibe here. Just trying to help ice cream sales out across the U.S. He called her repeatedly. And like I mentioned, she didn't want to talk to him.

when Laura joined a gym. Richard joined the same gym. Yeah, that's a bit much, man. And somehow, you know, through his stalking,

he just happened to know when Laura was there. And he just happened to show up, right? Every time she was at the gym, he'd be there. He'd be at the gym. He would break into her desk at work. Okay.

Rifle through it, get her personal information. One time she went to, to visit her parents in Virginia, and he sent her at least a letter, maybe two, to her parents' house. I mean, that's like, come on, man. This is full-blown stalking. Yeah.

Once you start going to the places they go outside of work, now you're, like, sending messages, mail, whatever to their family members where they're staying. That's, yeah, that's just crossed the line. Well, and how did he get her parents' address? Yeah. by breaking into her office and rifling through her stuff. He also made a copy of her house key. Okay.

So one day she inadvertently, I think, left her house, her keys on her desk and she probably locked her office door. Well, he got in, made a copy of the house key. Right. He never used it to enter her house. What he did was he left the key inside her car with a note pretty much. saying, hey, if I want to get to you, I'll get to you. Yeah.

When somebody leaves a key to your house that you didn't know existed, what else are what type of message are they trying to send? Well, exactly. That's really scary. It's very scary. Yeah. So scary that Laura was forced to change her phone number countless times. Gibbs, she actually had to move three different times in a four year span.

That's how bad it was. I mean, this was nonstop, very scary stalking type stuff. Today, that would be stomped out pretty quick, I think. I would hope it would be. Yeah, and we'll talk about that maybe, you know, towards the end of the episode. This is the 1980s. You know, laws have changed quite a bit over the years, especially when it comes to stalking. You know, eventually Laura Black got so fed up with Richard's harassment that in the fall of

1985. She turned to the human resources department at ESL for help. They both worked there at the time. They met with Farley. That group did. And he agreed to stop harassing Laura. But he never did. No. He just told them he would. Over the next year, Laura filed numerous complaints with human resources. And basically, they would pull him in. They would admonish him. They'd write him up. they'd put something in his record, but that was about the extent of it. There was nothing really they could do to stop him from stalking her. Especially outside of work. Well, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's been reported that he threatened coworkers at ESL and even threatened a manager saying that, you know what, I've got a bunch of guns at home. So let's not do anything rash. You know, basically kind of doing a. veil threat by saying slow your role. Yeah. Because you don't want to do something that you'll regret. Because I got the guns at home to back it up. He may have, it may have gone beyond a

veiled threat. I think he actually, one of the managers said, are you threatening me? And he said, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it went beyond that. Eventually he got fired. You know, they, they only put up with it for so long. Now, you could argue, and many people probably would, they put up with it longer than what they should have and probably longer than most companies or any company would do today. Oh, today that would not go very far whatsoever. Yeah. They're not going to let it go for that long of a period of time, especially with the documented things that he was doing. Right. So finally in 1986, ESL fired Richard Farley. He was devastating. He was devastating. stated. He had lost this really good job, you know, that he'd had for nearly 10 years. He was making

good money, but now all of a sudden he's broke. He had to sell his house. He had to move into a more modest type rental. He had to sell some of his possessions. Now, I don't know who's feeling sorry for this guy. We all know whose fault it was that he was fired. But who do you think Richard Farley blamed? Well, of course. Laura Black. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. you know, all of his misery was caused by Laura Black. It was Laura Black that was turning him down. It was Laura Black that went to human resources and started this whole kerfuffle in the first place. And all he ever wanted was for her to love him.

Yeah. That's all he wanted. That's really simple. But you kind of foreshadowed it, right? His firing from ESL didn't stop his stalking. If anything, it got worse. He kept calling Laura all the time. he had more time on his hands.

Yeah. Yeah. He called her at work. He called her at home. He went to the company softball games because I guess Laura was on the softball team, followed her to the gym. Gibbs, he went to some of her classes that she was taking at the local college as she

was finishing up her master's degree. And again, this is really scary stuff. And, you know, we'll dissect it a little bit later on. but just how scary this is. Hope nobody tries to do that with my daughter because I...

Oh, my gosh. Take them out. The level of fear, and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but the level of fear that this woman must have experienced over that three, four year period, because how do you know? Where is this person? Is he following me? Is he in the car in the parking lot?

At what point is he going to do something? Right. You know, he's already crossed the line. When is he going to cross it into physical violence? Exactly. He kept sending letters and the letters became more and more ominous. He would start to write things in the letters about being in a certain class at a certain time. Hey, saw you in whatever it was, computer science 401 the other night.

I'm not in that class, but I saw you there. But I saw you. I was hiding in the back or I saw you come out of it or whatever he was writing. he was even putting things in the letter about her softball batting stance hey you know you don't have your hands up high enough all of these things just letting her know i'm watching you at all times no matter where you go i'll be there sounds like a name of a song i'll be there yeah i think it is the song i think so too but again how scary right to think that someone's always around they're always lurking.

In one letter he told Laura that he wrote down the license plates of the cars that showed up at her house so that he could keep tabs on who he thought she was dating. Very scary stuff. Gibbs, I read somewhere, or I heard it somewhere, I don't know, that one in every five women are the victims of stalking at some point in their lives. One in five. It's quite a bit. Yeah.

It's a real shame that you can't just leave your house, go to the store, and come back without having to worry about somebody, you know, locking in on you. Oh, I like how she looks. Oh, I think she would want to be my girlfriend, right? And they start following her around the store, wherever they're at, you know. I mean, it's just, it shouldn't be like that. No, it shouldn't. I mean, I knew it happened. I knew it happened quite a bit.

The one in five number really kind of drives us. at home, if that's, if that's accurate. I know we've received emails from some of our Patreon members who have asked that we not read their names out on the podcast because they have a stalker. Yeah. And they don't even want to take that chance that the person knows that they're listening or supporting the show because they've had to move literally to get away from this person. Exactly.

Yeah. Now, I know the laws. like I said, have been strengthened over the years. But I also think the internet and especially social media has added a new dynamic to stalking. Huge, right? Because now people are stalking you from their couches. Yeah. They don't even have to leave the house.

No. It's kind of like the identity theft or some of the crimes that occur today. Some of these people don't even need to leave their couches to steal your stuff. No. And I think the same goes with. stalking as well. Some of these stalkers will build multiple social media accounts. Yeah. With fake everything to befriend you and then circle you and push you in the direction they want to go by playing these different fake accounts against you. And you're like, that's how they do it. They stalk you

and they push you to where they want you to go because you think, oh, this is the only nice person here. Right. I actually watched, I was watching one of the British true crime shows on Netflix. And they had a case. They called it grooming. Grooming. Where a person was grooming someone else by pretending to be this person or that person. Yeah. Pretending to be their friend.

But yeah, I don't know. The whole world is scary for sure. And I definitely don't want to exclude men. I mean, men get stalked. Oh, absolutely. But you know proportionately it happens to women much more often. Yeah. I don't know, Gibbs.

Sometimes I feel ashamed to be a man because of. of what all these other dipshit men do. I shouldn't feel that way, but every now and then I do. It's just I feel bad that it's our sex that is doing most of the really bad stuff. And a lot of times it's towards women. I hate it. So Farley got fired. Lost everything.

He owed the IRS a bunch of money. But he started, you know, over time to get his life back in order. he started taking classes at San Jose State where he met a woman named My Chek, who would let her become his fiancee. He landed a pretty good job as a programmer with another company in Sunnyvale called Covalent Systems. You would think, all right, sounds like he's got it going on again. But incredibly none of this lessened his obsession with Laura Black, not even the fact

that he now had a fiancé at some point. Best up. It just, it didn't change his obsession one bit. I'm sure it made his, uh, fiance feel really happy about that. After she found out,

I'm sure it did. In early 1987, Farley sent a letter to Laura that said, you can't push me. Do you have any idea what I'm willing to do if I'm pushed beyond what I'm willing to accept? I don't know how you can take that. any other way than threatening.

Oh, it's definitely a threat. That's all there is to it. In July of 87, he wrote to Laura, if I have to choose between being with my, his fiance, and fighting with you, my will lose. He would rather duke it out with a woman that does not want to be with him than be with his fiance who reportedly loved him. Then in November of that year, he wrote in a letter, I wouldn't show my letters to anyone anymore. They might get the wrong impression and do something stupid, which would make me do something stupid,

and it would spiral beyond any hope of recovery. You cost me a job, $40,000 in equity taxes that I can't pay, and a foreclosure. Yet, I still like you. why do you want to find out how far I'll go? I absolutely will not be pushed around and I'm beginning to get tired of being nice. Okay. I'm not sure at what point he thought he was being nice. Exactly.

Now he's going to go to the place where he's not nice. She never asked you to be in her life in the first place, Jack asked. She doesn't even want to hear from you. Well, no. So why are you? But now I'm not going to be nice any longer. Right. He wrote in one letter.

you could always end your own life. He's talking to her. But since I don't have much regard for human life, that isn't going to hurt me. I have your parents address. So if you run, I can follow. I think it's very easy to see that these writings get darker and darker. That's where you would hope that the police would have stepped in and said, hey, this is gone too far. I think it's a good point you're making.

What I'm not sure about, what I couldn't find in the research is where Laura during this time frame actually went to police and said, hey, help me. Here's these letters. This guy is threatening me. I couldn't find that part. We're going to talk about here in a little bit. She's going to take a step towards that. In January of 1988, a male friend of Laura's confronted Farley and told him. him, you know what, you're going to jail.

If you don't stop harassing Laura, it was after that that Farley sent Laura a letter that said, it's not in your best interest for him to interfere. He doesn't have any idea what he's getting into. You better tell him, I better not see any police around me. Pretty direct. Yeah. So now he's not only threatening her, he's threatening her friends or boyfriends, whoever these people are. By early February of 88, Laura was at her breaking point. She might have been there before,

but for sure by this point, Gibbs, for me, it's really hard to fully comprehend how horrible this must have been for her. I mean, imagine opening your door to find one of these notes or walking out to your car and finding one under your windshield. That was something he did quite a bit. The constant concern for your safety wondering, okay, is he watching me now? Is today the day that he's going to cross the line or take a step further. He's already crossed the line. He's been on the other side. But this is when Laura met with an attorney.

So she took all her letters, all the evidence she had, and she worked with this attorney to get a temporary restraining order against Richard. Farley. And her attorney was successful in obtaining this restraining order, which prohibited Richard Farley from contacting Laura in any way. And it also mandated that he not come within 300 yards of her. So that's three football fields. Yeah. It's a good distance. You can still react if you see somebody, you know, coming at you that way. Yeah. Yeah. But here's the thing. This could not have set well with Richard Farley. And I think Gibbs, the moment he got this restraining order, because he would have received it a few days after, you know, she went for it. Right. But I think right after he got it is when he began planning. Richard already owned a number of guns. I mentioned it earlier. He would tell coworkers, hey, I got a bunch of guns. I know how to use them. Yeah. It's kind of a veiled threat of stay out of my way. But he went out and he bought a new shotgun as well as a

bunch of ammo. Okay. So timing wise, he was served with the TRO on February 8th. A hearing was set for February 17th. It's not that far down the road, right? He's got about a week to put whatever plan he's thinking about into motion. The other thing he did was he apparently removed Laura Black as a beneficiary in his will. I'm not sure why he had her named in his will.

as a beneficiary. Really strange. It is. I mean, you have no relationship with this person whatsoever other than an obsession, but yet she's in your will. Yeah. I love her, man.

I'm putting her in my will. She doesn't know me. You sound like the pizza guy from something, uh, there's something about married. I love her man. I love her man. Very strange though, right?

Oh, really strange. Coupled with the fact that, hey, you want to put her in the will? Yeah. Or do you want to put this person you're obsessed with that doesn't want to have anything to do with you? I feel bad for her.

I feel bad for his fiance. Oh, I do too. And I don't have a lot of information on her. But obviously, this, it wasn't going to work out well for her. Oh, of course not. I think it tells you something about maybe the feelings that he had towards his fiance. The other thing he did Gibbs is he went to the shooting range. to practice.

So he's getting ready for something bit. He went out. He rented a motor home. I'm kind of picturing the motorhome from Breaking Bad. Oh, yeah. You know, real rundown. I mean,

knowing what he's about to do, you don't need the rock star tour bus type motorhome. They are nice, though. You need the meth lab mobile meth lab motorhome. Oh, those, the ones that the rock stars have?

Oh, yeah. Have you ever seen the show? where they take you on the tour of it. Amazing. Yeah. What they can do now with some of these motor homes. I mean,

but they're also got millions of dollars. Well, they're really expensive. Yeah, man, they are cool. I mean, you could buy one with your money. I cannot.

With your Gibby money. It's not going to happen. I would like, I wouldn't mind buying one of those air streams. Those little air streams that you hook up behind your truck? Mm-hmm. The ones that the astronauts always used to get on the shuttle

and all the other missions? Is that what they, I've never seen what they used? They used the airstream. Do they? Because that's what they used when the flight program started. Oh. And they kept that tradition alive.

I'm pretty sure all the way through the last shuttle mission. That's well. I want this little airstream. I pull behind that I can sleep in. So you don't want one you can drive. You just want one you can pull. Yeah. That way wherever I get, I can just on a hook.

Are you going to pull it with your little four door car? No, no. I'm in my truck again. No, all man up. Don't work. You have not thought this through. That much is clear. Hey, it's a work in progress.

So it was on February 16th. The day before his restraining order hearing was set to take place, he drove to his former place of employment. ESL, this was a little bit before 3 p.m. And Gibbs, he walked out of this vehicle towards the building. He must have looked like a rambo. This guy had multiple shotguns, a rifle. I think he had three or four pistols tucked into his belt.

He was dressed in military fatigues. And he had a bunch of extra ammo draped across his chest. It was said he had some of it stuffed in his pockets. But we're talking about like a thousand rounds of ammo. That's a lot of weight. Yeah. I mean, when I go to the range at most, I would normally take a couple hundred. Right.

There's some weight to that. Yeah. It makes the bag heavy. It's going to weigh you down for sure. Yeah. Now, it didn't say what type of ammo that was. Yeah. I know he's going to fire a lot with the shotgun.

The thing about shotgun shells, you know, getting the 12-gauge shotgun shells, they're big. Yeah. Much bigger than, let's say, a 9-millimeter bullet. A thousand of those takes up a lot of room. Yeah, it'd be hard to. I can't imagine what that would look like carrying a thousand shotgun shells around you. you'd be completely covered. Yeah.

I don't even think you'd have enough room to carry him. He shot and killed his first victim right there in the parking lot. Then he got up to the building and he fired a shot through a locked glass door to gain entrance. So the door was locked, but it was all glass. So shoot it and walk right? And he just walked right through it. Near the entrance, Farley shot and killed his second victim who was sitting behind a desk in a first floor office. He shot and killed his third victim in the stairwell as he was making his

way up. When he got to the second floor, he began firing at anything and everything. He ended up killing someone through a locked door, just firing randomly. But we know, right? Richard Farley was headed to one specific office. Yeah. The office of Laura Black. It's the whole reason he's at ESL. I've seen some conflicting reports about how this went down. He got to her office. I've seen reports that said, okay, she had her door lock. She would have heard the shooting and he fired through the door. I've heard some where he was able to open the door and they were grappling, right? She was holding on trying to keep it shut. He was trying to wedge his way in. Either way, a shot or two was fired. I think two shots were fired. The first one missed. The second one hit her in the shoulder.

But you know, a shotgun. It kind of spreads out a little bit. Sure. So it definitely hit her in the shoulder, but she also, as a result, suffered a collapsed lung. Farley turned and essentially left her alone. Continued his rampage firing at will. My understanding gives that for the most part, used a shotgun and specifically a Benelli 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun. It's a very high-end shotgun. It is. It's a very nice shotgun. You and I know someone that owns one.

It's very nice. But I think the key here is that this shotgun was semi-automatic, meaning that every time you pull the trigger, it's going to fire. And you can do that quite rapidly. There's no pumping, right? It's not a pump action. Though pump action is kind of cool. It is cool.

It takes a little bit longer. It's also not the breakdown kind where you got to break down the barrel, pull the two empty ones out. Right. Reload and you only have, you know, like a double barrel shotgun. Yeah. I think that's important because he was able to get off quite a few shots. Yeah. I can't remember how many shells a semi-automatic shotgun holds.

Well, they vary. And you can actually buy extension tubes for him as a small. well to make them hold more. It's been reported, though, that the shooting lasted 30 to 40 minutes. Wow. That's a long time for someone to be shooting inside a building. At one point, after it started, he picked up a phone and he called the security there at the company, and he told them that it was him that was inside firing the shots.

Oh. Kind of as if to say, I'm here. Come on. I'm not trying to hide who I am. And then over the next five hours or so, police negotiated with Richard Farley. They had the SWAT team. They had snipers. They had about 75 officers in total on the scene.

There was some talk about, you know, they had the snipers perched. Right. And they just could not get a clear shot on him or they probably would have taken him out. Even though I think by this point he had stopped shooting. Yeah. They still might have taken him out. I think they would have. Because here's the thing.

There's still a bunch of people inside the building. Yeah. You know, they're either locked in a room. They're hiding somewhere. So negotiators were having these phone calls with Farley. They're trying to get him to surrender. They said he wasn't agitated. They actually used the word mellow.

Really? Yeah. They said he was mellow. It was really mellow, man. After shooting up the place and killing people that, yeah. almost as if he was about ready to take a nap. I might take a nap here in a little bit. Yeah.

I'm super mellow. Really mellow today. Drinking my mellow yellow. By 7 p.m. The SWAT team has secured the ground floor. So keep in mind, he's on the second floor. They got in, they secured the ground floor. This allowed some of the people who were on the ground floor to escape.

And then it was just about an hour later. Around 8 p.m., Richard Farley put all of his guns down in one of the, the second story rooms and he walked down the stairs to surrender to police. But it's the reason why he surrendered, Gibbs that really got me. He got hungry. He didn't have anything to eat. I need food, man. I give up. He's only been there for five hours. Now granted, you know, you can't pack an energy bar. I don't, I don't want this to go on longer than it did. Right. It just seems to me to be, I don't want to use the word comical, very strange, that he's going to go through all this planning and he's going to do all these things, but yet by the time

it's 8 o'clock, he's so hungry, he has to give up. Right. What do you get? He got a togo sandwich, which I don't actually know what togoes is. I didn't look it up. To go? Yeah. To go. Maybe. To go sandwich. I'm going to me a to go sandwich. What is that? Get it to go. No, I was thinking this was like an actual brand. Maybe it's Greek. I don't know. We could look it up. but we don't. Just don't. Because people, we won't be able to email.

Yeah. I just assumed it was a sandwich shop or a place out in California. But he also got a diet Pepsi. So I want a sandwich and I want a diet Pepsi. And if I get those, I'll surrender. Well, I even get a diet Pepsi.

Just drink the Pepsi. You're going to jail, man. Go ahead and get the extra splurge and get the extra calories. This didn't come out until trial, but I wanted to say it now because I just thought it was, it was so strange that that's how it. went down. Now, maybe he was ready to surrender and he just wanted to get a sandwich and a diet Pepsi out of it. Police found even more ammo in the motor home. They also found some

explosives. So in total, seven people were killed that day. Police said most were killed by shotgun blasts at close range. They were. 36-year-old Ron Doni, 46-year-old Lawrence Kane, 49-year-old Helen LaParter, 27-year-old Glenda Moritz, 26-year-old Ron Reed, 43-year-old Joe Silva, and 23-year-old Buddy Williams. So those are the seven individuals that lost their lives. Four people were wounded but survived. We talked about Laura Black. She was shot in the shoulder. Richard Townsley was shot in the chest.

Greg Scott was shot in the forehead. Wow. And Patty Marquotti suffered a broken arm. I believe as she was trying to hurriedly make her way down the stairs, she fell and broke her arm. Laura Black ultimately underwent seven different operations to try to repair her shoulder. And I'm not sure it ever got back to normal. Well, because it was a shotgun blast. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it really is a wonder that these three people that were shot survived. And we're talking about a 12 gauge at fairly close range does quite a bit of damage. And I couldn't find much information on the guy that got shot in the forehead, but I have to imagine that was a glancing sort of blow. Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing.

You're not getting shot, you know, head on or, you know, in the forehead and making. it out, I don't think. But either way, the guy got shot in the forehead with a 12-gauge shotgun. So all of this happened on the 16th, right? The murders, he surrendered, they got him. The very next day, Wednesday, the 17th, the hearing went on his schedule to make the temporary restraining order permanent. The family court commissioner cried from the bench. As she made the order permanent, she said, quote, this was a conscious raising incident. It shows that pieces of paper do not stop bullets. And that's absolutely true. You and I have talked about that a number of times. You can get a restraining order. Sure. And in a lot of instances, it's a very good step to take.

It's not a shield. It will not stop somebody from doing you harm. They're determined. They're determined. Yes. You can't hold. that piece of paper up and say, hey, I got this. And that magically stops it. Right. Yeah. You're hoping that they get notified like they should when you put a restraining order out.

And if they say, you know what, enough is enough, I can't keep doing this. And they don't want to get in trouble. They don't want to get in trouble. But that's the whole thing. To me, that's the thing with any criminal. If you have a criminal that does not care about the consequences, then all the other stuff doesn't matter. Exactly.

Because if they're willing to either get, give up their life or give up their freedom to get to you. Yeah. Those people are pretty hard to stop. Yeah. Well, you know someone's not afraid to go to jail. Yeah. They don't care about a temporary restraining order. They don't care about a sign that says you can't carry guns in this public place. Right. They don't care about that stuff.

You know, who cares about that stuff, us law abiding a citizen? But I just thought that was so the timing of it. Right. And it wasn't random. He knew this hearing was getting ready to happen. Right. It's, it's not random that he chose the day before this hearing was going to happen to go on this

rampage. But the fact that they still went through with it, the, the order was made permanent. And it was said that they had to do it because what if he got out? Right. She's still alive. Laura is. So she needed that protection. Richard Farley was charged with seven counts of first degree murder, three counts of attempted murder, and one count of assault with a deadly weapon.

He pleaded not guilty to all the charges. His trial wouldn't begin until July of 1991. So it took them a while. Yeah. To get to trial. Not surprised. No, I'm not surprised. It does seem kind of long to actually start the trial.

But in their opening statements, the prosecutors. revealed a letter that Farley had written to Laura from his jail cell. This was just weeks after the mass shootings. Oh, nice, because that can be used as evidence. Yeah. In it, he wrote, quote, when I go to the gas chamber, I'll smile for the cameras, and you'll know that you won in the end. Obsessed much?

Yeah, exactly. He's doing this from jail. Still can't let go. Still cannot let go. The prosecutor played a videotape for the jury. And this was pretty brutal. This was a videotape made by police just after the rampage. And it showed the victims, very gruesome.

It showed, you know, the shotgun blast that killed them. Oh, wow. It was described Gibbs that, I mean, skulls were blown apart. Faces completely gone. It showed body parts. It showed blood in the hallways. You think that's going to stick with the jury throughout this trial? Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely it will. I mean, you see the picture of a victim and that person's face and skull is no longer there because it was blown away by a 12-gauge shotgun. Two former coworkers of Farleys testified that in 1986, so this would have been two years before the massacre, he talked about committing a mass murder. Oh. Pretty much in the exact same vein as the 1984 McDonald's mass murder where 21 people lost their lives. So he actually premeditated?

And that was the whole reason, I think, for them to testify. Because, you know, the defense is going to argue, right? This wasn't premeditated. He didn't mean to go there and kill. We'll talk about it here in a minute. it now you know when you're strapped with 17 guns and 8,000 rounds of ammo something bad's going to happen yeah it's a little hard to tell that story the way he wants it you know didn't I wasn't going to hurt anybody I just got a lot of guns and ammo and this military fatigues you

know everybody everybody has military fatigues right well I know you own a number of sets of them if I'm going to go but they're for work yeah exactly clandestine operations we're not supposed to talk about that on the podcast. Well, it's clandestine. That's why I said the word clandestine. That it's not giving it away. It's clandestine. But the fact that we're talking about it.

Gibbs Laura Black was on the witness stand for two days to tell her story of what Richard Farley had put her through. At one point, she even bared her shoulder. Like she cast aside whatever clothing she had on that was covering her shoulder. she wanted the jury to see just how badly she had been injured. One article I read said that when she walked into the courtroom, her arm, the one that was shot, she couldn't move it. Oh, really?

That's how bad off she was. It's almost like she lost the use of this arm completely. Somebody had a stroke on that side. Almost, yeah. She told jurors that her only thought was to stay a lot and to try. to get out of the building. But get this, Gibbs. She said her shoulder was so bad that at one point she stuck her hand into her shoulder.

Really? And grabbed onto the artery to try to squeeze it so that the blood would stop spurting out. Oh, I guess. Imagine that. Rough. Yeah. Imagine what type of wound you'd have to suffer so that you could stick your whole hand in there.

Sure. And grab an artery. And imagine what that does to a jury. Oh. Here's the, here's a person that was involved firsthand, a victim. I mean, to tell that story and to be so graphic with it that they can actually visualize that day, that has to be a win. Oh, yeah. She described how she saw her dead coworkers and she was trying to find her way out.

And she could even hear at one point Farley talking on the phone with the negotiation. in one of the adjacent rooms. But when you think about it, you know, when it came to Richard's defense team, what could they really do? They couldn't dispute the fact that he went into the ESL building. Right. And he murdered seven people and wounded four. Now, he pleaded not guilty, but everybody knew he did it.

Right. There was, there was no question about that. All they could really talk about was his obsession with Laura, black and how that's what really drove him to do what he did, right? The fact that he had lost everything after being fired from the company, his defense attorney told the jury for Richard Farley, letting go was tantamount to jumping off an emotional cliff. In the face of rejection, he followed the only path he could. The evidence will show that he was unable to stop himself or even acknowledge what was happening.

Really? I mean, I know they have to mount a defense, but that sounds like so much BS to me. Oh, and I think the jury probably said this is total BS. You're telling me he followed the only path he could. Now, I think what they mean is in his mind, right? He felt like there was no other path. I get that. But to say that he was unable to stop.

himself. I don't, I don't buy it. Well, they said it was tantamount. He did use the word tantamount. And I know you're just trying to work it back into the podcast. I did. I used it myself. But you didn't use it in a sentence, really. You didn't explain it. You didn't further the cause. You just said, it's not the spelling bee. He said it was tantamount. Yeah. I don't know. There really was not much talk of mental illness and whether or not, you know, Farley suffered from that. I didn't see a lot on that. So for the defense to try to offer up that he was unable to stop himself. Right.

I just really struggle with that. Richard did take the stand. I think he was on the stand for about three days. He tried to convince the jury that he didn't go there to kill anyone that day. He went there to win Laura back and change her mind about the restraining order. By showing up there with his military fatigues and all his guns strapped him. Yeah. He added that. He intended to kill himself to make Laura regret the fact that she spurned his advances. And at what point did he think? She hasn't paid one ounce of attention to you.

No. Now all of a sudden you're going to come into her work. And win her back? Went her back. Dress like that. I think that that's going to be okay. Because you have guns on you, she's going to be like, oh, thank God. This is what I've been waiting for. You finally stepped it up. to see from you a show of force. I've been waiting this whole time. Now, now we can be an item. Well, we all know it's bullshit.

It is. Right? We know it is. I mean, he's got to say something. And you have to come up with a story. Just be a man and say, no,

these people can't do it. They're not, that's not what they are. I screwed up. If you were a real man, you would have taken the rejection. Yeah. like a man and said, you know what?

Okay, she's not interested. Exactly. I move on with my life. Right. But you're not a man. You're this kind of troll-like person living under a bridge. And again, I don't get it. I don't get it.

But that's what he told the jury. He went on to say that he only began shooting because people at the workplace started confronting him. He wasn't setting out too. start shooting. Does he mean because they went up and said, hey, you can't be in here with that stuff that strapped to your back and you have 17 guns. Yeah. But again, I don't think the evidence really corroborated that statement.

Most of the eyewitnesses said that, hey, there was nobody confronting this guy that had, you know, was outfitted like Rambo. Right. Everybody was high tailing it. They were trying to run away from him. No one was trying to stand up and fight this guy, which makes total sense. What unarmed person runs up or runs towards a guy that is strapped with six or seven guns, a thousand rounds of ammo and is going to do what?

Catching with the roundhouse before he can chew you. Yeah, so unless he's Jason Boren or Jack Reacher. Yeah, they weren't. And that's why it's preposterous. But luckily the jury saw through it and they usually do. sure they do yeah the jury of eight women and four men found richard farley guilty after six days of deliberation that's quite a bit six days took a little bit in time then on november first the jury recommended that richard farley should die in the california gas chamber i mean during the penalty

phase his mom got up on the stand and said oh don't kill my baby and he doesn't deserve to die and all that stuff. Can't falter for that. I don't think any mother wants their child to die, even though they can probably admit that he's done something very, very bad. You still don't want your child to die. Yeah, I get that.

Yeah. It's a mom's love, you know. Yeah. Gibbs, as far as I can tell, he's still sitting on San Quentin's death row. Been there a long time. Yeah. Not going anywhere. You know, there are over 700 people on death row in California.

And that number just keeps climbing because they haven't executed anybody in quite some time. Yeah, they're on that moratorium. I think if anything, people now are just dying of natural causes. Yeah. Because they've been on there so long. Did make a movie about this in 1993 called, I Can Make You Love Me. Never heard of it. Never saw it.

Me neither. But Brooke Shields did play the part of Laura Black. Really? Mm-hmm. And Richard Thomas, who was John Boy from the Waltons, played Farley. Well, maybe it's not too bad of a movie then. Based on Brook Shields and John Boy or... Brook Shields.

Based on Brook Shields. And actually, it's a very good casting. Brook Shield's obviously a very attractive woman always has been. I'm telling you, Laura Black was very attractive. You'll see pictures of both of them when we put it out on social media. A lot of people will look it up ahead of time. It's easy to see why this man, Richard Farley, was captivated by this 22-year-old Laura Black. She was very attractive.

He went for it, right? He went for a date. He put himself out there. I get that. I don't fault anybody for that. The problem is he didn't take the feedback. and then, you know, readjust as you're supposed to, as most people would. Yeah, you know, if they say, sorry, I'm not interested.

Sorry, no, that's what that means. I mean, stop pursuing me. Are you saying no means no? Because it absolutely does. Exactly. No means no. On all levels. But that's it, Gibbs.

That's it for the case of Richard Farley. I found it interesting. And it's one of the reasons why I wanted to do it. you know, the two main people in this case, Richard Farley sitting in prison, Laura Black lived. Now, she was very seriously injured and that injury stays with her today. And then, you know, obviously add on top of that the fact that there were other people injured, but seven people lost their lives. You know, that's the big thing.

But to me, the stalking really grabbed my attention, the severity of it. Right. You know, I really got like a, almost like a sleeping with the enemy type vibe here. Have you ever seen that with Julia Roberts? That's the one where she has to put the cans and the cans. I really got this vibe of, you know, he wanted to control her. Now, he didn't have any real control over. No.

But he was like trying to force it. Sure. By threatening, by scaring, intimidating. Well, he definitely used intimidation factors. and all his letters. He did. You know, the way that he,

you know, made a copy of the key. Right. And I, and I, I keep going back to just wondering, you know, what went through her head

every single day. Those three or four years. Yeah. Where the stalking was, was really bad, that must have been absolute hell. I'm thinking she was probably, why is no one helping me?

You know, why is no one doing anything? Why is no one, doing anything about this guy. Because I think maybe she didn't say much, maybe at first, I don't know. But you know she had to start when she would go to HR and they're like, we got this and they talked to them, but it continues on. It took a while to get rid of them, right?

I just think the HR departments have to take it a little bit more serious. I think they do the day. Back then, I don't know if they really did. Well, that's the thing. And I mentioned it earlier. I mean, the stalking laws have changed. Right. dramatically over the last 20, 30 years.

I didn't look them up and I didn't put all the changes in here. But we know they have. It's taken much more seriously than it was 20, 30, 40 years ago. Oh, sure. I don't think there's any doubt about that. And I think, you know, when you're looking at a case that goes back to the 80s, you could probably make the argument that there were a lot of people that were being stocked that may have felt that there was no recourse.

for them. They couldn't go to the police because the police didn't really take that stuff seriously. I'm not saying they did or they did. And I'm saying there are people that could have felt like that. Yeah. Or they thought, well, if I go to the police, it's just going to agitate. And man, that is very true. Yeah. Because you look at the restraining order. And in no way am I blaming Laura Black. She rightfully so should have applied for this restraining order, but what did it do? It really set him off. And there is an absolute danger there. And you got to take every avenue that's available to you.

But I think it was the thing that broke him, that caused him to make the decision that he was going to do what he was going to do. All right, we got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yes, here. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Cassie from Georgia. Um, first time ever I have contributed to any podcast. I have listened to you guys for a long time.

Um, decided today I really needed to join Patreon because I had zero new content to listen to. I just want to say thanks for all you guys do and keep your own time chicken. Bye. Patreon. Yeah. Well, we sure appreciate it. And you've got 20 some full length. episodes on Patreon, about to be, you know, we're going to add another one probably next week.

In about three years of mini clips. Yeah, many weekly updates. Minisodes or whatever you want to call them. But we appreciate it. Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. Hey, Mike and Gibby. This is Kira, Eli, from Wisconsin.

And I've been a fan for a little over a year now. and I wanted to recommend a case for you guys to do. The Wessons, they were a family cult, Marcus Weston. He ended up killing nine of his kids, and it was, like, incestuous, and he had kids with his kids and stuff like that. And it was really interesting. I just read a book on it, and I don't think you guys have covered it. I've listened to all the T-Cat episodes and Unsolved episodes.

For my memory, I don't think you guys have, But if you could, that'd be cool. They were in California. And it happened in the early 2000. So, yeah, just hope that you guys can cover that sooner or later. And stay safe and healthy. Whenever I hear people say, stay safe recently because of the pandemic. I always think they're going to say and keep your own time ticking afterwards, but they never do.

So stay safe. Keep your own time ticking. All right. Great voicemail. And that name is very familiar. I think I've heard of the case. I don't think I've ever, you know, done any kind of dive into it. I just kind of know it a little bit on the periphery.

But it's definitely a case that we'll look into for sure. Sounds messed up, you know. Very, very. Have a kid with your kid. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Nicole from Lawrenceville, Georgia. Just wanted to say I've been listening to you guys for about two years now. And I think I've listened to every single episode that you have ever come out.

Ever since I was a little kid, I can tell you I was the seven-year-old who watched Forensic files and I've always been a huge true crime buff. I also like to paint. I like to draw. So I'd like to keep something in my ear while my hands are busy. And I got to say, you guys cover these cases so well that it just keeps me enraptured and I love it. I have no suggestions. I have no favorites. You guys are both my favorites. And if you're ever in the Atlanta area, give me a call. We can have a beer and keep your own time ticking. She's just like me. I've got to have something in my ears when my hands are busy. Meaning you have to have your headphones on?

Exactly. Which I'm the opposite. I don't like my headphones on. It makes me feel constricted. You do. My voice doesn't sound the same and it throws me off. Messes you up, man. It does.

But if we're ever in Atlanta. Yeah. I have a beer. I keep thinking when all this is over, we should get a party bus. Yeah. And just do a tour around the country. Do I have to pay for it? Yeah.

Stopping at play. and we'll just have a beer with fans and that would be so cool. T-Cat. I don't know how we're going to put out the episodes doing one of them on the bus. Maybe. We'd probably have to. Yeah, that'd be quite. I'm not sure my wife would be a big fan of it either.

I'm not sure if my other job would be able to be doing with it. Yeah, I don't think your job would let you have off that much. Okay, there are some roadblocks to that. Yeah, but they haven't thought it all the way through. The thought was good. The execution might be tough. There you go. Hi, my name's Corey.

I'm calling you from Rochester, New York. I'm listening to you guys for a while. I love the podcast. I'm bingeing it at work for a network pro-hour today, so I bing it much as I can. I loved your podcast about Arthur Shalgrass. I thought it was very interesting, and my dad used to work at a diner here in Rochester, and he told me after Shalkhast he got and caught that he used to come in there in the morning and make breakfast for him, like, I'm morning, and I always wondered, like, how many times had he just

got done doing something really awful? and then my dad is just having a normal conversation. Again, I hope this show. Can we listen to more and keep your own time taking? Thank you. Now, those are the ones that fascinate me. Yeah. Because, number one, Arthur Shawcross is right up there.

For me, on the cases that we covered as far as, number one, just being downright, filthy. Yeah, absolutely. But also being fascinating in a way. So to think that you may have had breakfast with Arthur Shawcross after he is done some of these really dirty deeds. Wow. That. Bizarre. That is.

And you don't know if you did or if you didn't. Or maybe you did multiple times. I mean, that would just blow my mind. No mailbag. No mail bag. No mail bag today. No mail bag. That's all right.

That's it, Gibbs. for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike, and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.