True Crime All The Time - Steven Ray Thacker

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

Steven Ray Thacker had a fear of rejection and abandonment. He suffered quite a bit of it during his childhood. He turned to drugs and alcohol and racked up a long rap sheet by the time he was in his twenties. After one stint in prison, he met and fell in love with a woman who had two children. Thacker now had a ready made family and he craved their attention and approval. But, when he lost his job, and couldn't provide for them, he made a fateful decision that would lead him to commit three murders in three different states.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the life and crimes of Steven Ray Thacker. Thacker's killing spree began just before Christmas 1999 when he feared that he wouldn't be able to provide the Christmas that his family deserved. Was it the fear of rejection and abandonment of his new family that drove him to rob and commit murder? What part did his diagnosed mental illness, for which he refused to take his prescribed medication, play into his decision making?You can help 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.

everyone and welcome to episode 187 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? Hey man, I'm doing good. How about you? I'm doing well. Yeah. I'm doing well. You and I just got done recording our weekly Patreon video and audio. We did, which we put out separately. Yeah. This time a little different. It is. We spent pretty much the entire episode and it was long. It probably went 30, 40 minutes, right, talking about what's going on in our country right now.

We did. The social injustices, the racial injustices, um, Black Lives Matter. We talked about it all. We did. We laid it out there.

And you and I knew we wanted to talk about these issues, but we didn't want to spend 30, 40 minutes on the beginning of a T-CAD episode doing it. So we came up with the idea that we put it out on Patreon. on. Yeah. But unlike our other videos and audio that we do, this one is made available for anyone. Yeah. So any T-Cat listener can go out. And I urge you to. If you want to hear, you know, what we have to say on the subject, you can go to patreon.com slash true crime all the time. And this is unlocked. Anybody can either watch the video or listen to the audio. Right. It's there for you. We continue to have a tremendous

amount of Patreon support and just support in general, Gibbs. It blows me away. Let's give some shoutouts. We had Lindsay Serio. Hey, Lindsay. Laura. What's going on, Laura? Diana Jones. Hey, thanks, Diana. Andrea Lukescu. That's what I'm going with. Debbie Esquilant jumped out at our highest level. Like that. Esculant. And Kayla Dawes. What's going on, Kayla? Ashley Zerkowski. Hey, Zorkowski. Carrie McGinty. What's up? Miginty sounds like a drink or something or an Irish pub. You want to go down to McGinties and get a pint? Let's go to McGinties.

And Bjorn Vahl. Hey, Bjorn Vahl. Carrie. What's up, Carrie? Sean Solz. Hey, Sean. Jana Hart. What's going on, Johnna?

Miss Pincess, Jess. Hey, Miss Pincennes. Yes. There's no R's in there. It's all Ws. It makes it kind of hard to say. It does. Amanda Gross jumped out at our highest level.

Hey, Amanda. Carolyn Murphy. Hey, thanks, Carolyn. Barb Hodges. What's going on, Barb. Barbara Klein. Thank you, Barbara. Dora Turgeon.

Hey, Turgeon. Christine Ross. Thank you, Christine. Tracy. Hey, appreciate that, Tracy. Leslie. Hey, Leslie. Hope and Sean Copeland.

Hey, what's up, Copeland? And last but not least, Chris jumped out at our highest level. Thank you, Chris. Then if we go back into the vault, Gibbs, this week, we selected Alyssa. Just like that. Mm-hmm. Just Alyssa. Been with us a long time, big time supporter.

We really appreciate it. We had some great PayPal donations as well, Peter Preyhar. Hey, Peter. Lisa O'Neill. Thanks, Lisa. Donnie. What's going on, Donnie? Darryl Hassel.

Hey, Darryl. And Elijah Diefenbach. Hey, Defenbach. So just amazing support all the way around. Yeah, amazing. Gives right now we have an episode out on True Crime All the Time Unsolved. We're talking about the murder of Krista Bramlett. Yeah.

So we're headed down to Tennessee. We'll be in Tennessee a little bit. in this episode as well. I know this is one of those unsolved cases that it's very close to being solved, potentially. Right. You know, there is a suspect.

There's DNA. Um, you know, this case goes back quite a ways, but for people that don't like the unfinishedness, if that's the right word of unsolved, I think they'll like this episode. I think so too.

Because there's a very real suspect that is, getting ready to go to trial. Yeah, there's some sense of finality. But technically right now, it's still unsolved. It is. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I am. We're talking about Stephen Ray Thacker, man who callously and savagely murdered three people in three different states in a spree that spanned the end of 1999 into 2000. So It was kind of during the Y2K madness or worries or hysteria or whatever you want to call it. I remember the hysteria on Seinfeld. Over Y2K?

Yeah. Booking the hotel for the big New Year's Eve party. And it was over, do you book it for 1999 New Year's Eve or do you book it for 2000? Gotcha. I know on New Year's Eve 1999, which going into New Year's Day 2000, I was at a hotel. Yeah. They had one of those parties and those are always nice because you can drink and party and then just make it back to your room.

That's all you got to do. Did you dance to Prince's 1990 song? I'm sure they played it. Yeah. I'm sure they did. I'm sure you danced to it probably too. But that was a big deal. I remember the company that I was working at at the time.

You know, we had these older computers. It wasn't a huge company. Yeah. It was like a big worry that all the rest. records were going to be lost. And, you know, everybody was scrambling to try to put in a fix. And what was going to happen the next morning? Everybody thought the world was going to cease to exist.

Yeah. It was, it was scary for a lot of people. Now, I wasn't hold up in my basement with a stockpile. I wasn't that worried about it. But there were a lot of people that were. There absolutely was. People thought the banks were going to all crash and go under. Yeah.

Yeah. So Stephen Thacker, you know, this was. was a guy who suffered from a mental illness. And many people in his life said he had abandonment issues and was constantly seeking approval from those around him. Now, Gibbs, you know, people commit murders for a variety of reasons. We've probably covered most of them. You know, there's revenge. There's just being a sadistic bastard. I mean, you name it. There's all kinds of reasons. But I think that Thacker's reasons for murder, they're going to kind of shock people. Stephen Ray Thacker was born in 1970. What were you, Gibbs? 15.

1970? Yeah. Well, you got to be so rough on me every time. I was only four years old. You were driving, right? I was four years, man. I might have been driving, though, for you. You might have been knowing where you grew up. Yeah. Now, there is very little out there about his childhood and especially his mother. I know he had two sisters. His father was in the Air Force and he got sent to Spain when Stephen was only two years old. By the time Stephen was four, his parents had divorced and his father was granted custody of Stephen and his two sisters. And that's something that we just don't see all that often.

No, it's kind of rare. Now, I did see some allegations that Stephen's mother was possibly abusive. and I think that would account for his father gaining custody if it were true. Yeah, I'm sure it probably lent to the reasons behind it. But those were just allegations. I don't think they were ever proven. Or if they were, it's not something that I could find. What I think is known is that Stephen had very little contact with his mother in his

formative years. His father remarried. But the woman he married had trouble. with his children. And I mean trouble to the point where she gave Steven's father an ultimatum. She said, you know what? It's either me or the kids, but not both. Really?

Yeah. That's rough right there, man. Now, I know there are people that don't like kids. I know there are people that never want kids. I get that. But when you marry a man that you know has three kids to then later say, oh, wow, I thought I could deal with this. but now I can't and it's either them or me.

That's kind of rough. It is rough. I mean, who's going to choose? Well, I guess somebody could choose the spouse partner over their kids. Well, you know who's going to choose that? Steven's Fogg. I know. Yeah.

You're just saying, who's going to choose? Well, I'll tell you who's going to choose Stevens Fogg. Yeah. I don't know how you can sleep at night. I don't know how you move forward knowing that you said, you know what? I'm going to choose you and, you know, those little guys would be all right. Well, here's my take on it. I don't think everyone's meant to be a parent. There are some people that have children that either don't want them or find out later that

they're not all that crazy about being parents. Now, that doesn't compute right to you and I. It doesn't compute to most people listening to this podcast, especially those that have children. most parents would do anything and everything for their children. They would give up whatever they had to. They'd take a bullet. Whatever cliche you want to use, that's what they would do for their kids. Right. But not Stephen's father.

No. And obviously there was something going on with his mother because it's not like the father just dropped the kids off at the mother's house and said, you know what? I know I got custody, but I don't want it. I can't take care of them. I'm giving them to you. He took them to his parents' house. So I think that tells you, even though I don't know the details, definitely something going on

with the mom. Yeah, for sure. So if we're keeping track of the rejection here, which I think is important to do in this case, Stephen Thacker may have looked at his mother as rejecting him. I'm certainly he had to have viewed what his father did. Oh, big time abandonment. Yeah, as a huge rejection, this abandonment. So Stephen was raised by his grandparents.

Relatives later testified that Stephen was quiet, introverted, much like yourself. Yes. And you just proved my point with your one word, yes, answer. I just left it right there. Quiet, introverted. I am. But he was a very affectionate child. Oh, so, no, well, I'm not.

No, you're not. The other thing that relatives later described about him as a child, he was hungry for acceptance. He was hungry for attention. He craved it. He needed it. Well, when you don't get that, it's like anything. When you don't get it, you want it, you know? Or if you don't have it and you get a little bit of it, you want more of it.

If it gives you enjoyment. Well, and I think it all, all of this kind of goes together. And we'll talk about it probably as we sum up the case at the end. Right. When you look at the abandonment, the rejection in his life, okay, does that create? the need for people's approval, their attention, their affection. You want to please people. Sure.

Because you don't want them to leave you. Exactly. And I think some of that is created by events that proceeded or happened earlier in his life. He began using alcohol and drugs at an early age. He dropped out of school in the ninth grade and began to get in trouble with the law. you racked up a pretty long rap sheet of what were mostly petty crimes. Right.

Always called my crimes petty too. Makes them sound better, doesn't it? Yeah, there were just some petty crimes. Makes it sound like you jaywalked or... Yeah. Now, I'm sure he did more than that. Just, you know, I had to wear the little anklet thing because I jaywalked. Yeah, that was rough.

It was a rough three years. And it seemed like, uh, it seemed like a lot. three years of house arrest and monitoring for a simple jaywalking. Well, you know what? It was hard to wrap my head around, but I believed you. It was a really long jaywalk.

It was a long intersection. It was. But then as a teenager, someone, and I presume it was his grandparents, although I couldn't find that out for sure, someone got him into a rehab program, right? He's drinking,

he's into drugs. And Gibbs seemed to have worked. He cleaned himself up. he stopped using drugs. Now, I don't think he ever actually quit drinking, but there are some records that seem to indicate he did stop using drugs. Now, I don't think this kept him from getting into trouble with the law. He did several stints in prison over the years.

But again, they were for things like check fraud, vehicle theft. Not that I'm saying that those things are good. Right. But he definitely wasn't out hurting. people physically. Yeah, financial stuff. Yeah, it was more fraud and, and the taking of people's things. He wasn't beating people, killing people. It just, they weren't physical, threatening type crimes. Now, we got to move this story up to 1999, because for one thing, I really don't know a lot about Stephen Thacker's life, kind of in his late teens to early.

in his early 20s. I think he did a couple of stents in prison, and that's probably why. There really just wasn't much out there. Otherwise, pretty quiet. Around May of that year, Facker got out of a Florida prison for writing bad checks, and he made his way to Oklahoma. The very next month, he met a woman named Trina and the two married three months later. I mean, you talk about quick, you talk about a whirlwind romance. But not only that, she kind of comes with an instant family. Yeah. Yeah, she had two children.

But just think about that timeline, right? I step out of prison in Florida. Yeah. The next month I'm in Oklahoma. I meet a woman. Yeah. Three months later, I'm hitched. Man.

And I'm now a stepdad to two children. He's doing better than I am. That happened very quickly. Yeah, really quick. That's kind of life-changing, by the way. Well, it's a big change in your life. but what had his life been? Mostly prison probably.

So he was, you know, again, looking for some affection. Right. So he wanted a woman in his life, I'm thinking. Probably didn't like the intention he got back at the prison. No, he wasn't looking for that type of attention. Right. But he also probably was happy that Trina had two children. Right?

That's more affection. Sure. You know, I'll help take care of the kids. They'll love me too. Yeah. For somebody that craves that, it's all around you at that point. If you're doing good thing. Yeah, I think he actually probably welcomed it.

So the four of them settled into a mobile home in Cho Toy, Oklahoma. Oh, no. I know I'm probably not saying that. There's another Oklahoma name that you know you're going to be. I know. But that's what I'm going with. All right. Thacker had been working as a plumber's assistant.

I don't know if you get the same amount of crack of plumbers crack as an assistant. Oh, more. Or you get more? Yeah. As an assistant than you do as a full-blown plumber? Absolutely. Oh, okay. When it comes to the crack, more plumber crack is given up by the assistant than the, you know.

So as you progress in your craftsmanship or whatever it is, you get to hike up the pants a little higher. Exactly. Yep. So, you know. I did not know that. It's part of the game. But you got laid off from this plumber's assistant job. And then at some point, Stephen Thacker was diagnosed by a mental health professional as bipolar.

There are some reports that have him being diagnosed after his marriage to Trina. He may have been diagnosed before that as well. He was prescribed lithium, which Trina later said did help to level out his mood, which makes sense, right? That's why they prescribe a drug. to you because it's designed to help you in some way. Yeah, it make you better. You hope. But here's the problem. The drugs only work if you take. And Stephen wouldn't take the lithium. Well, we've heard this on, you know, on other episodes we've covered where they decided that,

you know what, I got these great meds. I know I'm supposed to take them, but you know what, I'm not going to take them anymore. When some people don't like the way that certain medications make them feel, Sure. You and I have talked to fans. Oh, yeah. About these types of things, right? Yeah. We have fans that are bipolar,

have been diagnosed with different types of things, and heard it straight from them. They don't like the way that they feel on the medication. Yeah. It dulls or does something to make them feel sluggish or they just don't feel like themselves. Yeah, and I've had meds like that before. I didn't like to take it. I'm not quit taking them because, you know what?

The side effects. Erectile dysfunction, you can just say it. Can I just say that out loud? Just say it out loud. Nice. I just didn't like the side effects. No, I get it. And I'm,

how it made you feel. Joking about that. I'm not joking about mental illness. No. But we know that's a thing. Yeah. You know, the medications are designed to work a certain way.

And I think once they dial it in, they work pretty good. But there's no. doubt there are side effects and it can change your mood. It can change the way that you feel about yourself. So whatever it was, I don't have the particulars of what he didn't like about it, but he wouldn't take the lithium. So as Christmas approached in 1999, there's a lot, right, going on in Stephen's life. He's got this new family, kind of an instant family. It happened very quickly. He's been diagnosed with a mental illness. He's not taking the drugs. No. That have been prescribed for him. And he's not working. He's out of work. And he desperately wants

to give his wife and her two kids, his stepkids, a good Christmas. Got to have money for that. Yeah. You have to have money to put presents under the tree unless you're making popcorn balls or you're making something kind of homemade. Yeah. I did that. One time. One time. Didn't work out well? No. Hey folks, did you know your phone is 10 times dirtier than a toilet seat? Now more than ever, it's important to keep items like your phone clean because if your phone isn't clean, your hands won't be either. HomeMedics UV clean phone sanitizer kills up to 99.9% of bacteria and viruses at the DNA level using no harmful chemicals or liquids. It sanitizes and disinfects

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That's Friends Without the R. Best Fiends. So Stephen Thacker made the decision that he was going to have to steal the money that he needed to give his family the Christmas that he felt they deserved. He answered a classified ad for a pool table and he placed a call to 25-year-old Lacey Hill who lived in Bixby, Oklahoma with her husband Ronnie. Bixby's just south of Tulsa. During this phone called with Lacey,

Stephen got directions to her house, and he set up a time to see the pool table, right? That's what you do. Sure. I'll be there by noon or whatever. Yeah. People do it all over the place every day. Yeah.

It's also somewhat dangerous. It is. As we'll be proven out in this episode. Yeah. I mean, we haven't covered him, but there is somebody called the classified killer. there's other people that have used the classifieds unsolved. Yeah, last week.

Last week. Yeah. That was a method that somebody used. I think it's also why, you know, a lot of people say, okay, don't have people meet you at your home, meet in a public place. Now, if you're trying to sell a pool table, it's not quite as easy. No. As it is, if you've got like, you know, those figurines that you collect. Yeah.

The little dolls. Sure. You call them figurines. I call them dolls. You can take those to a McDonald's and say, hey, I'll meet you at McDonald's. If you want to buy my two crying angels, this is how much it is. I pop my trunk open, take a look, what do you think? A little safer.

A little safer because you're in a public place. But Gibbs, Stephen Thacker had no intentions of buying this pool table. As soon as Lacey led him into the house, Thacker pulled a knife on her and he demanded money. This was all a ruse. That's all he was there for. Lacey said she didn't have any money in the house, but she could get some from the ATM. So Stephen forced her into his car at knife point. And they began the drive to the ATM, something that you and I have seen in quite a number of cases as well.

Right. The car brothers, those nasty sons of bitches comes to mind. Those guys were heinous. Oh, terrible case. But something happened on this drive. to the ATM, something changed in Stephen's mind. Because instead of driving to the ATM, he drove Lacey out to a cabin in the woods that I don't think was all that far from his house.

And he raped her. Yeah. I think it was brutal. I think it was savage. I mean, they all are. But I think this one was particularly brutal. He tied her up to a chair with zip ties. And he left.

He was just going to leave her in this cabin. But again, something changed in his way of thinking. Well, I think a little bit was that he was worried that she could identify him. Yeah, I think that was a lot of it, actually, because it's probably something he didn't think about. Okay, he committed this very brutal act. Now he's going to leave. As he's leaving, I think that's when it hit him. Yeah.

How can I leave this woman here tied up? eventually somebody's going to find her or she's going to get out and she probably can identify me. And I can't have that. No, I can't ruin the family I have. I don't want to go back to prison. Yeah. Can't lose my family. So he went back to the cabin to kill her.

And this comes from him, right? Later on after he's captured, he said he first tried to strangle her, but that was unsuccessful. Right. I think this is something that, you hear. every now and that. People saying, I tried to strangle someone to death. I don't think it's as easy as some people believe it is. I don't know for sure, but I mean, it's very personal. Well, it's very personal. It also, you know, it doesn't happen right away. Exactly. It takes force and it takes some time. And if a person's fighting you, that makes it harder. And, you know, I just, I think there are some people that think,

okay, I'm going to choke somebody and they realize, man, this is not working. That seems to be the case with Stephen Thacker. So he ended up stabbing her multiple times in the chest with his knife. That's what killed her. It's just torturous what she went through. To be strangled first. Well, and don't forget the brutal sexual assault. Oh, yeah, yeah.

That was first. Yeah. Then the attempted strangulation. And then a knife plunged into your chest multiple times. Yeah, I mean, to think about, you know, this young 25 year old wife having to go through that, that's rough. Thacker then piled some things from the cabin on top of Lacey's body and he left. But he took her debit card, credit cards, and he used them to buy Christmas presents for

his wife and his stepkids. Gives this is a man who woke up Christmas morning, shared the holiday with his face. family. Yeah. They opened presents. They probably had a great time. His wife and, and stepkids had no idea that the presents they were opening were bought using the card of a woman that Thacker had killed. Yeah. brutally attacked, sexually assaulted, try to strangle. And then, and then staff. Yeah. Merry Christmas, kids. Merry Christmas. And then you think about Lacey's family's Christmas. obviously much different, right? Their loved one is missing. They had no idea where she was.

Now, Lacey was reported missing very quickly, you know, within hours of her disappearance. Because there were people that knew she was scheduled to show the pool table. She had canceled to work out with a friend because she said that she had an appointment. You know, somebody was coming to look at the pool table. Her husband, Ronnie, because she had a friend. She had an appointment. You know, somebody was coming to look at the pool table. her husband Ronnie became concerned after just a couple of hours and called police. So the next day is Christmas Eve. Yeah. And Lacey's friends and family, they're out searching for her at the same time on Christmas

Eve. Right. Stephen is with his wife Trina at Walmart buying presents. All excited and happy. Yeah. We're going to get this for the kids. We're going to get that for the kids. It's going to be a great, great Christmas.

Yeah. What Trina didn't know. is that he was using Lacey's credit cards. Right. And she's standing right next to him. Police later got the video surveillance tapes from these purchases and they were able to ID Stephen Thacker as the one who made the purchases. But like I said, Trina's in these videos as well.

And she later sees the videos when they're posted on the news. And she's shocked. Just think what that must have felt like. looking up and seeing it's you. It's you. And there's that person that you thought was a good person. And you're hearing that they're using a stolen credit card from somebody missing. Well, and you know how the news would have gone, right? They would have shown the picture of 25 year old Lacey Hill. They would have said she's been missing since, you know, such and such time on this date and they would have said the person in this,

or people in this video are wanted for questioning in connection with the disappearance, right? You can just imagine how that, that new segment would have gone. Right. And you can imagine what this woman must have felt when she saw it. I mean, I think right away, she questioned Stephen. She's like, Stephen, what's going on?

And when she did, I think that's when Stephen panicked. And I think that's when he knew. He was not going to get away with this, right? The police were going to come for him. So he fled the state of Oklahoma on December 28th. After realizing that police were probably not far from knocking on his door. Right. Police didn't find Lacey's body until the next day, December 29.

So it took six days. It's a long time. To find her body. They found her black purse while they were searching. through some woods east of Chalto. Choto? What do you think it is? Probably nothing like any of that.

But either way, that purse led them to find the cabin. They found her body nude from the waist down underneath a mattress and some box springs inside the cabin where she was killed. He really did pile up a lot of stuff on top of her. He did. Yeah. He tried to hide her body. So now it's on, right?

The manhunt for Stephen Thacker is on. But authorities in Oklahoma, they don't know that Thacker is about 150 miles away in Springfield, Missouri. They placed Trina and her children in protective custody, like right away. Because there was fear, I think, on her part that he would come back for them. Sure. And she was probably right to be fearful. Yeah. He could be one of those people.

I can't have you. Nobody can have you. Well, and she thought he was somebody. a certain way. Now all of a sudden you find out, oh my gosh, they want to question him for the murder of this 25 year old girl. This is not the man that I thought I knew. Now, she did only know him for a handful of months. Makes you wonder. And she would later say she didn't know his criminal record. All that came out later. The same day that Lacey's body was found. So December 29th, Thacker placed a call to a woman in Springfield, Missouri, who had advertised a Pontiac Grand Am for sale.

That's the very first car I ever owned. Was it? Pontiac Grand Am. One of my favorite cars of all time. I mean, it wasn't much to look at. It was the boxy kind of two-door. Right. But because it was my very first car.

Yeah. I mean, I still think about it. I can smell it. Right. I kept it immaculate. Probably drove fast and then pulled emergency break up and made the car go in circles. No, I wasn't doing donuts in it. I wanted to take care of it.

I did that. And Pontiac Grand Ams when I used to work for the airport and I'd have to run the rental cars back and forth. Yeah, but they weren't your cars. No. That's a difference. It is a difference. But I would tear those things up, man. That's nice.

That's nice you're giving yourself away like that. I was young. So he's using his scam again, right? Looking in the classifieds, looking for, right now he's looking for a ride. Yeah. He needs a car. and he arranged with this woman for the two of them to meet at a drugstore so that, you know, he could take a look at the car.

The woman brought with her, her toddler and a 78 year old woman who was a family friend. So she was probably Leary. Yeah. Even though they're meeting in a public place, she thought, okay, I'm going to take somebody with me because I'm meeting a stranger. I don't know. And who in the world would ever want to hurt a mom? with a child and an elderly person with them.

You would think no one. You would think. Unfortunately, we know that that's not the case. So they get to the drugstore. Thacker gets into the car. And all four of them go for a test drive, right? You can't buy a car unless you test drive it. Right.

All of this probably seemed very normal until they got back into the parking lot of the drugstore. Because that's when Stephen pulled out a gun. and he threatened. You know, these women told him to get out, I think is what he did. Right. Well, this woman who owned the car, she started fighting him. She wasn't really wanting to give up her car. She was probably also trying to protect her young one.

Sure. He somehow was able to push her out of the car and then he just took off. But the toddler and this 78 year old woman, they were still in the back seat. Now, thankfully, he stopped someone. somewhere down the road and let both the woman and the toddler out. Didn't hurt them. Thankfully. Yeah, I do believe he just wanted the car.

But you also have to think that this whole thing could have gone down much differently. Oh, when he took it out for the test drive, he could have easily pulled over and did something there. He could have shot all three of them. Sure, he could have. It's not like he's not capable of doing that. We know that he can. Yeah, he's already committed murder.

he's going to commit more. That's why I say I think it was very lucky how this turned out. But this woman reported her car stolen, right? Said she got carjacked. Police are on the lookout for the car. And it didn't take them long. A deputy spotted the car. A high speed chase broke out.

And it ended with Thacker crashing the grandam. But somehow Gibbs, he was able to get away. And this is kind of something that, you know, has talked a lot about in the Missouri papers, especially because they had a number of chances to catch this guy. And for whatever reason, this reason or that reason, they just didn't or they weren't able to. He was always able to elude the police. Yeah. They brought in 50, 60 officers to comb the area. They couldn't find him.

They even did some door to door house checks in the town closest to where. he crashed the car, couldn't find him. Well, what happened was over the next few days, he was hiding out in the woods and he would find a random house. He would break into it, steal food, steal supplies. From one house, he stole a, like a compound bow. Oh. With arrows.

Yeah. Because apparently he was an accomplished bow hunter. So, you know, this guy's kind of like Rambo. Right. He's living out in the woods. He might have been shooting some of his food. And if he couldn't, he would just break into somebody's house and steal food, steal supplies, whatever he needed. Otherwise, he's roasting squirrels at nighttime.

He could have been. Yeah. Now, like I said, police thought they had him a couple of times. The press made it sound like they probably should have had him a couple of times. I know there was one house that they pumped a bunch of tear gas into. Yeah. Because somehow they thought he was there. They got a tip he was there.

Well, he was there, but he was gone. They missed him by a few hours. But I guess they lit this house up with tear gas. Wow. To find out that he wasn't there. And he was gone. Disappeared. Probably in the woods again, right?

Like Rambo. That man's made that movie with Tommy Lee Jones and what's that? Benicio. Tudor. Dude, you just can't go Dito and Benicio del Toro? Yeah. Remember? No country for old men?

No, no. This is like old school. This is like Benizio was, you know, we first started out acting. He was in like staying in the woods in Central Park or some park in New York. And Tommy Lee Jones was his, like, person that trained him back in the day. And he had to go in there and try to get him out of there. He was hurting people. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Really? And I've seen a lot of. Benicio del Toro movies. I thought I'd seen all Tommy Lee Jones movies. Yeah. Yeah, it's like early ages, man. Early ages. Prehistoric?

Like, before they even had, uh, sound. Yeah. No. I don't know. I'm sure people are going to write it and tell us, but I can't, I can't give what you're putting down this time. But yeah, it was, you know, kind of like that kind of. It was kind of like whatever movie that turns out to be.

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and his wife, Rachel. Gibbs the two had been high school sweethearts. Forrest was a manager at KFC. they had just built their new home themselves. And I mean themselves. It said from the ground up, like they bought the land, they cleared it. They spent two years building this house,

every, every bit of it. That day, Forrest Boyd got home early from work at his job at KFC. And he encountered Stephen Thacker. As Stephen was trying to rob his house, Stephen stabbed Forrest Boyd to death. His wife Rachel was out,

shopping when it happened. But she became concerned when she couldn't get a hold of her husband. So she called Forrest's sister, D, who went to the home and she's the one who discovered him dead. I could not imagine. No, I know you and I talk about that every now and then to find a loved one dead like that. And I'm not talking about, you know, your grandmother who's 92 years old and passes away. peacefully in her sleep. That's, that's rough, you know, enough. I'm talking about a young, vibrant person who's murdered and then to, for you to walk in on that. Right. That's, uh, that's the stuff of nightmares. Thacker took off in Boyd's, 1985, Burgundy, Osmobile, Cutlass, Sierra. They had a 85 Osamobile Cutlass. Not the Sierra. I think the Sierra was a more compact

boxier thing. It was a Ford or two, I think. Yeah. My dad was always into the cutlasses. Yeah. Like every two or three years, he'd get a new cutlass. And those were pretty, you know, pretty bad ass. Bad ass, that's right.

70s into the 80s. Yeah. I was driving one of those. They had some get up and go. Yeah. Big V8, man. But I think this year was a little different, a little different version. Yeah.

More of your style, of car. Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate that. He also took Boyd's wallet and some other things from the house. He took sleeping bags, a Coleman stove, propane lunch meet, some knives. Yeah. And some Coca-Cola. Stuff he needed to survive on. Yeah, I think he knew, right, that he was going to be on the run. It's not like police were going to stop looking for him. If anything, he'd intensified the

search. Now he's murdered two people in two different states. Yeah. He's going to have double the authorities looking for him. The FBI's in on this thing at some point, but he headed east using Forrest Boyd's Discover card along the way. So they were able to track him, right, a little bit. I don't know if it was as instantaneous as it is today. It probably was. I mean, we're only talking, what, 2000? Yeah. I think it was probably pretty instant back then. I would think so. I know today they, they know the minute you swipe the damn card. Oh, I think they know before you even think about swiping it. I could think about something I want to buy. I'll go out to my phone and it will have an ad for what I want to buy right there. I'm like, I was this thing. I didn't even say it

out loud. I was just thinking it. And now here's the ad. So he's headed east. Police thought that he was most likely headed to Virginia or Ohio. Apparently he had some family in those states. But Forrest Boyd's Osmobile stopped running near Dyersburg, Tennessee. So Thacker made it to Tennessee, but then the car gave out. So at that point he had to go ahead and walk up the road to a pay phone and call for a tow truck. Yeah, what else you're going to do? Yeah. I mean, you're in probably, you know, Dyersburg's not a metropolis by any means. It's also a place you're unfamiliar with. You don't know anybody there.

So you go to the pay phone. You're lucky that there's still pay phones. I was just thinking the same thing. Back then. Or you're lucky that you, it didn't have the cord cut, ripped out like most of them do. And also lucky that the yellow pages are, you know, inside the payphone. But he does call a tow truck service.

And here's where I think you get into the random. randomness, right, of this case. I mean, really all his victims are random, complete strangers. It's not like he knew any of these people. He wasn't out to get any of these people, but he could have picked, well, I don't know how many tow truck services there are or there were in Dyersburg at the time, but he picked one. Yeah, the first one he saw probably. And the call went to 52-year-old Ray Patterson, who owned a service station in Dyersburg. with his brother, they also had a wrecker service. Ray's wife later told papers that this wasn't unusual in his line of work.

He got calls at all hours, right, from people needing help. When he got to call that morning, keep in mind, Sunday morning, he was preparing for church. He told his wife that he was going out to help this man and that he'd try to make it to church if he could, if there was still time. Ray Patterson was the type of man Gibbs that everyone in town knew. And they all knew him as a kind, gentle person, the type of guy who was always willing to lend a hand to help someone.

Apparently he always had a cigar in his mouth. Never smoked it though, did he? No, he didn't smoke it. He just chewed on the end of it. Yeah. Walked around. Just like the taste of it.

I don't know how big Dyersburg is. I've heard of it before. I don't think it's a very big place. So you're talking about a man that, again, you know, everybody pretty much knew. He ran a service station. But not only that. It's not just that people knew him. They liked him.

This was a good guy. And we're going to say that Gibbs probably later on, but we'll say that about all three of these victims. We're not talking about people that are running a meth lab at odds with the drug cartel. These are just normal everyday people. going about their lives, doing the right things. There were no bad words said about these people that they were into, you know, anything illegal.

They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and cross pass with a very bad guy. A very bad guy in Stephen Thacker. So Ray Patterson went out. He hooked up to the car and he towed it into the service station, right? He's going to make the repairs on it. But when Thacker tried to pay for the services, he did so with Forrest Boyd's stolen credit card. And the machine said that the card was stolen.

Ray Patterson confronted Thacker. And that's when Stephen stabbed Patterson to death. He took the man's wallet, which apparently had about $600 in it. And he took off in his record, which had the Osmobile still hooked up to it. Yeah. Police found Ray's body later that day. And a witness said that they saw a man drive away in the wrecker with a maroon Osmobile attached to it.

They also found out that the credit card that was used to try to pay for the services had been reported stolen. Wasn't too hard. Didn't take them very long to connect the dots, right? To the wanted criminal Stephen Thacker. So three murders and three. different states. It's a real manhunt. It is. That's on for this guy because he's, you know, traveling across the country killing people. Now, he would later tell police, quote, well,

he wasn't going to give me my card back because I couldn't pay the bill. And I knew I was wanted in other states. So I just stabbed him and took off. Because it was the easier thing to do is what he thought. That plus, I don't know, maybe he thought, what else do I have to lose? already committed two. Right. So what's one more? What's one more? What else are they going to do to me? I, I don't know. I don't know what this guy was thinking. I don't know what he was thinking when he went to, you know, Lacey Hill's house to try to rob her. Well, I do know what he was thinking. He was thinking, I needed money for the presence. But when that didn't work out, I don't know how in the world. He thought he was going to get away with, you know, using these other people's credit cards.

And that police were going to track him down, they weren't going to come looking for him. None of that made any sense to me. It doesn't, which is really not the smartest guy. No, I don't know. I don't think he was super intelligent. I also don't know how straight he was thinking, right? He's not taking his medications. I just don't know how well he's operating.

Right. If that makes sense. Or at what level he's operating. You know, because it's not like he went to some little mom and pop shop that might have had one of those fake security cameras. He went to a Walmart. You're telling me that you didn't know in the 2000, 1999 2000, Walmart surveils everything. They record it. I assume any place I go has a camera on me.

Well, especially today. Yeah. But even back then, you would know. a store like a Walmart, a Target, any big outfit like that. They take loss prevention very seriously. Sure. Yeah. I know you worked for a company up in Michigan that you had all those service stations

that you managed and you guys probably had cameras everywhere and probably had a protocol behind the tapes and everything that had to be, you know, submitted or dropped every night or something like that. There was, but I'll be honest with you because this was back in like the mid-90s. Yeah. The protocol was, and you kind of see this in movies and things, that there was a tape for every day. Yeah. And it was kind of, you know, it's like that, what do you call it?

Like time lapse recording. It was like a 24-hour recording. Yeah. And so every day you'd change the tapes at the same time. But every Monday, you're recording over last Monday. Oh. So if something happened and the police didn't come within a week, you just recorded over it. That evidence was gone.

Yeah. Yeah. It's probably changed since then. Oh, I'm sure. It's all hard drive now. Yeah, every, today everything's all digital. I mean, we're talking, this was VCHs, uh, VHS tapes. Yeah.

Back in the day. Yeah. You know, today everything's digital. There's, cloud, whatever that is. You know, however many terabyte, terapot, shit. I don't know what it is, but there's so much data and the cloud probably. Yep.

But that does go to my point. It's getting harder and harder to get away with that. I mean, there are cameras every. Where. Sure. Now, how people are still doing it, I don't know. It's a mystery to me. Or how they think they can get away with it. Right. Well, especially all that facial recognition is all for everybody has. I mean, if you, they get a picture of your face, they can plug it in, social media accounts, all that. They're eventually going to find you. If you're out there, you got to be out there. Now, I change my face every time I go into a store. I never make it look the same. I'll either like, you know, blow my cheeks out. or suck them in like a guppy or, you know, I don't want to be the same person when I'm in a store. Throw them off. Dude, you're not even the same person throughout an entire episode. That's true.

He'd change. That is very true. So Stephen ditched the record and he ditched the Osmobile that was attached to it in Dyer County. And then he stole a Pontiac 6,000. There were some different reports on this. There were some reports that said he stole this car. There were some reports that said, he traded the Osmobile in at some little car dealership for the Pontiac. So this is one of those

that I've seen multiple reports in varying newspapers. So whichever one you believe, I don't think it matters all that much. I think what matters is the fact that police knew at some point later that day that they were looking for a Pontiac 6,000. Either it had been reported stolen. or they had figured out that, you know, he had traded it in and gotten this Pontiac 6,000. Because after that, it really didn't take Tennessee authorities that long to catch up with him. The Pontiac was spotted at a Super 8 motel in Union Tennessee. He had registered under a different name, but police approached the room where this car was parked and he came out carrying two trash bags. Police said that he had dyed his hair,

but they arrested him. He gave up pretty easily, didn't put up a fight. So as you can imagine, all three states, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Missouri, they were lined up to get their hands on Thacker. And all three charged him with murder. It really was just kind of come down to who got, who got to get him first, right? I think so, yeah. Second and then third. Now, Tennessee is the one that captured him. So technically they got him.

Right. After Stephen was arrested, his wife came out, told the papers that she was glad he was caught. And I think her quote was, he can rot in prison now. Don't think she was happy with what he had done at all. No. I mean, her pictures plastered all over the TV, her standing at a Walmart, buying Christmas presents with dead woman's bank card.

Yeah, I think that adds an element to it. I mean, normally we're talking about, let's say, a wife or a husband that finds out that their spouse did something. Right. No, she had that aspect of it. Yeah. But she also found out that she was kind of part of it a little bit. She didn't have anything to do with the murders.

But you know how people can't perceive that, too. I'm sure. Some people are like, she knew. There she is at Walmart. Right. buying gifts, you know, she knew he wasn't working. Where'd he get that card? How was he paying that bill?

Yeah, I'm sure there were people that said that or whispered that behind her back. Yeah, so I'm sure she was really pissed at him. Yeah, she was mad that he had involved her in any way. Yeah. Well, not to mention the fact that she thought she knew who he was and he turned out to be a totally different person or capable of something that she was not aware of, I guess. Yeah. So I mentioned that it was Tennessee that captured him. So they got him first. He was tried and convicted in February 2002 for the murder of 52-year-old Ray Patterson. The trial only lasted a week. And I think it was pretty easy for them to get a conviction. And he ultimately received a death sentence for that murder.

Right. Then Oklahoma came calling. They wanted to extradite Thacker. and put him on trial for the murder of Lacey Hill. Well, he fought it. He had his attorneys fight this extradition. Now, eventually he lost. He initially pleaded innocent to the crimes against Lacey Hill. But then he changed his mind. And on December 2nd, 2002, he pled guilty to crimes of first degree murder, kidnapping,

and first degree rape in Oklahoma. Yeah. He admitted taking Lacey Hill. Lacey Hill from her home by force, admitted raping her, strangling her, stabbing her and killing her on December 23rd, 1999. Now, what he said in court was that he changed his mind and switched to pleading guilty to save her family from further pain. Now he wants to be nice, huh?

Maybe. So it comes down to whether or not you believe him. Because I don't know what other reason he had to do. that. He already had a, you know, one death sentence. He could have, you know, gone to trial every day and at least had some time out of his cell. So he either did really not want to put the family through more pain or he just didn't want to deal with it. Yeah. Right. Having to sit in court, he would just rather be back in his cell. Maybe he needed just to be tied to a chair at the prison's lunchroom, like he tied her and allow prisoners to do whatever they want.

All right. That's kind of macabre, but I get it. Yeah. We call that Gibby's justice. Well, he did to her. Man, it's horrific. Yeah, it was. There's nobody shedding a tear for this guy, Stephen Thacker.

But there was no jury trial, and a judge later sentenced him to death. So he's got two death sentences. After his conviction in Tennessee, Thacker was sent to a maximum scrimandum. facility in Nashville. So that's where he spent, you know, his time while his attorneys were going through the appeal process. Missouri didn't get their hands on him until September 2003. Quite a while.

Yeah. They had to wait quite a while. He was flown to Missouri from Tennessee. I wonder how that works. To stand trial. Yeah, I don't know. One of those con air. Yeah, like con air.

Yeah. Or do they actually just buy a seat and put the marshal? and him next to somebody. Like, that seems like there would be some liability there. I would think so too. I don't want to be on a commercial flight with this guy. Yeah.

But who knows? Now, Missouri, initially the prosecutor was going to seek another death penalty for Thacker. Why not? Right? He's committed three murders. Sure. In three states that have the death penalty. But after talking with Boyd's relatives, the prosecutor,

changed it to a life sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. So I didn't get all the details there, but I don't know if maybe the family didn't want to have to sit and listen to all the details. Yeah, spare us the details, spares. Or maybe they were against the death penalty. That could have been as well. And they probably thought, all right, he already has two death sense.

Is this guy going to die? Right. And the prosecutor came out and said that, you know, this life sentence would serve as a backup in case anything happened to change, like if the circumstances changed regarding his other two sentences, but they're not. So really, you know, it's going to come down to whether it would be Tennessee or Oklahoma that would ultimately execute Stephen Thacker. But as we know, it takes a while, right, for the appeal process to run its course.

in early January 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Thacker's final appeal. So about 13 years to get to that final denial by the Supreme Court. And it wasn't long after that. I mean, very quickly that the Attorney General of Oklahoma asked the state of Tennessee to hand him over so that they could execute him. Yeah. And for whatever reason, I don't know why. But the state of Tennessee agreed.

And I'm telling you what, Gibbs, Oklahoma, they didn't waste any time. So, you know, they get this guy maybe in January. They said his execution date for March. Quick. Oh, not wasting any time. Call that Texas quick. Yeah, Oklahoma, Texas. I think they think along the same lines.

I don't think they're as prolific as Texas, but. Yeah. I did see somewhere where the number of people executed in Oklahoma It's pretty high. Yeah. Not Texas high, but it's pretty high. Pretty high.

They also don't have the same population. Well, that's true, too. As Texas does. But so we have to talk about Stephen Thacker's final meal. It was reported to be a large meat lover's pizza, a small bag of M&Ms, and an A&W root beer.

Now, you know me. I'm a carnivore. I'm a meat lover. Yeah. So I'm fine with a meat lover's pizza. You've been all over that. I'm all over that. And I could probably sit and eat a large.

If I knew that was going to be my last pizza. Right. Why would you get a small bag of M&Ms? I don't know. If you're going to get M&Ms, get the big bag, man. What do they call it? Yeah, get the value size or the, what's the... Super size.

Super size, whatever. Get the big one, man. Gorge yourself. A&W. Root Beer, all right. It's not my thing, but there's not a lot of imagination here in this final meal. I'll say that. I just want to get M&Ms.

You know those, like, play things that you let your kids jump in with their little with all those balls. Like a ball pit? Yeah. Yeah. I'd want that filled with M&Ms. Okay. I would just die right in and just like when I'm done, when they're all gone, we can proceed.

So you're going to eat the M&Ms that you've rolled around in. I'm going to be dead shortly. He has. I'm going to be dead shortly anyway. You're not worried about germs at that point. Not that point. I don't know. I mean, you know, we like to talk about final meals.

We like to dissect them a little. bit very kind of plain yeah i mean none of that would be what i would want from my last no i mean when it comes to other last meals that we've talked about right some have been very elaborate yeah this is very kind of down the middle kind of humdrum almost yeah it's what you might have on a tuesday yeah you might not eat the whole pizza you might share it or you might save some for later but you might have a few M&Ms and a root beer to wash it down. Maybe, yeah. It's just not what I'd have for my last meal.

But I guess he should be lucky that he got to pick at all because, you know, he could have been stuck eating, I think, what a lot of prisoners eat today, which is, hell, whatever they are serving, you know, that night before. Yeah. Or that breakfast, whatever it is. That's what you get. That's what you get. So you're hoping it's sloppy Joe's?

or something, because otherwise, you might not like it. His final words before his execution were, quote, I'd like to apologize sincerely to the families of Lacey Hill, Forrest Boyd, and Ray Patterson. I don't deserve it, but as God has forgiven me, I hope you will forgive me for the pain I've caused. I would like to thank my family and friends for their love and support. When my body is gone, my spirit will be with them.

Jesus Christ died from my sins. God has forgiven me. And eternity in heaven is mine. Is he trying to convince himself? Maybe. I mean, I guess you can take the scripture and make it fit your... Well, I think people mold it, right? But I thought murder was one of the bad ones.

Does he get to say that he's forgiven? I don't think he gets to say that he's been forgiven, you know? He's telling himself that he'll be forgiven. I don't know, Giz, I think you, you tell yourself whatever you have to tell yourself in that position. You know you're about ready to die. I mean, again, I'll say this. He could have told these people to go to hell. He could have said some really nasty stuff.

Well, yeah. He didn't. Well, I get. Not like I'm giving him a huge amount of credit for that, but. I hope he was sincere. I don't know. It's hard to believe anybody's sincere after doing things like he'd done. The execution began at 6.03 p.m. on March 11th, 2003. So again, like I said, they did not waste much time.

Pretty quick. I mean, a couple of months after getting him from Tennessee, he's in the chamber. Yeah. That's when the lethal drugs were administered. He exhaled a few times. It was reported that the color left his face. And he was pronounced dead at 6'10. I mean, seven minutes beginning to end. Now, one of Lacey's friends spoke to the media after the execution, and she said that, okay, Thacker's execution might bring a little bit of closure, a little bit of peace, but she said it was so humane. It was like he just went to sleep. Yeah. It's nothing like what the victims endure. No. And there is a lot of truth to that.

Now, you are taking a man's life. sure and you can't discount that fact right but i do see it from the family and friends point of view it's almost as if they're getting off too easy i think is what many people think yeah it's because of what they did to their their loved ones but there's no way to rectify that what are you going to do i'll bring in some body from the prison say hey this guy got the death penalty we need you to be as brutal as he was to them. Right. And recreate it and do it now.

They're never going to do that. I mean, part of it is to try to be as humane as possible. Sure. But I can understand. And I know what, you know, this is a movie with Gerard Butler in it. Ooh, law abiding citizen. One of my favorites. You know, you can, you can understand why he did what he did to.

Well, when he messed up the tanks to make the guys. Yeah. He wanted him to. death more painful. Yeah. Yeah, he was a grieving father. Sure. I don't think you nor I are saying it's right. I think what we're saying is we can understand. Absolutely. Why people would feel that way. Yeah. But I think in the end, Gibbs, as we wrap it up, this is an extremely tragic case. You know, when you think about Lacey Hill's death and the husband and family that she left behind, she was only 25 years old. Forrest Boyd was only 24.

had a good job as a manager at a KFC was sharing his life with the woman he loved, his high school sweetheart, in a new home. Like I said, that they built with their own hands from the ground up, 52-year-old Ray Patterson left behind a loving wife, and I'm sure much more family. I didn't know everything about the victims as far as their families. Right. But, you know, like I said earlier, these were good people loved by me.

many who unfortunately had fateful run-ins with Stephen Thacker. Died for no reason. No, no, these were senseless, needless murders. Yeah. His wife, Trina, unknowingly going on a shopping trip with him, where Lacey's credit card was used to buy her children's Christmas gifts. Yeah. Now, you think they are not going to know that?

You don't think there's going to be some trauma there, some issues that they're going to have to deal with? Eventually, yeah. She later told papers that Stephen picked her up from work on the day that Lacey was killed. And she's always wondered if it was possible that Lacey was in the trunk when he came to pick her up. Now, I don't know if there's any truth to that at all, but no doubt. There are emotional scars that people either don't get over ever or they really struggle

to, you know, kind of put behind them or deal with. I don't know if you ever really put it behind you. And all of this for what, right? This is the question that I go back to. Right. To buy presents to put under the tree. But it was more than that for him. Yes.

I mean, at the basest level, I think that's what it was, right? Yeah. Got to get money. I got to get some presents under the tree. But I think you're right. Then you have to peel things away. Yeah. And you have to ask, okay, well, what caused that to be such an urgent need?

That's where you can go back to his childhood. Sure. And maybe that's where some of that comes in. Maybe that's where his mental illness factors in to some degree. He finally has what he wanted, a family, attention, right? Someone that will love him. Yeah. And he doesn't want them to run away, abandon him.

So he, in his mind, will do anything and everything. he can to keep that. And that's sadly what he did. Yeah. I definitely think there's a lot of truth in that. I honestly believe that he was worried that maybe Trina would leave him. If he couldn't deliver the Christmas that he knew she wanted, there's probably no truth to that at all. But in his mind, that was probably so real that there was no way he could let it happen. And maybe he would. if he was taking his meds, he would have understood that. Yeah. We'll never know 100%, but I mean, I think those are speculations that are rooted in a lot of common sense, I guess. I'll say it that way. To me, I mean, as is often the case, it's most likely a convergence of

a number of these things, right? It wasn't just one thing. It was a bunch of different things that came together, but it's still very hard to, you know, make sense of what happened. You can't. No. But that's it. That's the story of Stephen Thacker. We've got some voicemails. You want to check those out?

Yeah, let's hear them. Hi, Mike and Gibby. My name's Brianna. I'm a dog gruner from Ontario, Canada. And I'm just listening to the episode of Bill Beerman. And I was dying, laughing about the nosy neighbor thing. my neighbor and I, she was across the street for me, and we were constantly, like, looking at our window, like, calling each other when things are going on. When there's, like, talks on the properties and stuff around us, we are like, we have our eyes constantly on the street.

So anyways, I just want to say hi. Love your podcast. Keep doing what you're doing and keep your own time taking. Thanks. Hey, good day. Ontario. Well, we appreciate that. Yeah.

But I'll say this. This is kind of neighbors you want. Yeah, you do. You want the neighbor that's looking out. Now, you don't want the one that's looking in your window. No. Peeping. Well, what you want is the one that's keeping an eye on for, you know, out for bad stuff.

They look at my window. They probably won't look back again. That's a one-time only deal. Yeah. Yeah. Good thing. I'm not up in Ontario then. But hey, the borders are closed anyhow.

I can't even get into Ontario if I wanted to. Dude, you can't get into Ontario when the borders are open. That's true. They still have that on my passport. Yeah. Good morning, Mike and Gibby. My name is Chris Saldsman. I was turned on to your podcast by my husband.

His name is actually the same as mine. His is Chris Seltzman, too. He was traveling from Vermont to Georgia to see his daughter and listened to it all the way down. Came back and said, you got to listen to this. You know, the guys are really funny, especially Gibby. I have been listening to like skipping around in episodes and I'm really enjoying it. I hate to say that I'm enjoying listening to a podcast about serial killers, but it's really interesting. I'm amazed at how many there actually are out there.

It's made me really look around and be a little more cautious of my surroundings. But keep up the good work, guys. and I look forward to the next episode I listen to. Have a good day. Bye-bye. Well, that's awesome. And you always say, keep your head on a swivel. Always.

Yeah. You imagine having the same name as your wife? No, but I could. You know, that'd be weird. Packages show up. Well, yeah. So that would be tough. Somebody calls on the phone.

Yeah. Back when we had an actual landline. Okay. You're going to have to ask which one you want. Exactly. You want this version or the... You want Chris or Chris? Yeah.

Well, let's be fair. It was his name first. She married him and got the last name. Well, I was going to say, I'm pretty sure they had the first name at the, you know. Yeah. From the very beginning. I mean the very beginning. I watched your call back go, no, I had the same last name too.

And that's a whole another another. I've seen that happen. You know, yeah. With more common names like Johnson or Smith. Yeah. Just happened to marry somebody with the name Johnson or Smith. Hi. I can give you.

This is Elizabeth calling from Illinois without the S. again. I actually called and started to leave a message and then got really out of breath because I was super nervous about it. So you can just go ahead and delete that one. But I wanted to let you guys know that I love your podcast. I've actually been binging it since the stay-at-home order was established and just finally got to the first episode of the Ed Gein case. And I wanted to call in and let you guys know that my grandfather was one of the police officers that dealt with his transport, I think, between a courthouse and a prison or something like that. And he kind of like the people that they interviewed, that were his neighbors, said he was just like the nicest guy. So I thought

that was interesting. Keep up the good work and keep your own time ticking. You know, I kind of think, Ed probably was, I'd say nice, but somebody you could talk to. I think he was jovial. some respects. That too. But, you know, he obviously snowed people. He snowed police. He, you know, he sat at the bar and drank with them. They liked him.

I think he was one of those type of guys that could get your attention because he was so big. It's not like you're going to miss him. Yeah. And it's probably a little, you know, kind of like, I want to know that guy. Look at him. He's big. He's interesting when he opens his mouth. He did speak well.

I thought he spoke well. Oh, he was well spoken. He was intelligent. Yeah. But when you find out what he did. you're like, man. Oh, sure. Yeah, you can't go along with that part.

No. But, you know, I think there are a lot of serial killers that are like that, though, right? They learn how to blend in. Sure. They're chameleons. So they can sit with most people and talk about this or that because they've honed that skill, I think, over time. Probably be really good salespeople. Yeah, probably.

Hey, Mike and Gibby, Matt from Connecticut. Just calling us there. I really enjoy the show. I've been binging for about a month and a half now. I'm a landscaper, so it gives me a lot of time to binge episodes at work during my 13-hour days. I'm all caught up to date. I'm going back now to back to early 2019. I'm actually currently on the Pettit Murders in Cheshire.

I grew up down the street, not too far from Cheshire. And I remember hearing about this when I was a lot younger. I actually grew up down the street from a store that was owned by Dr. Pettett's brother. And I just remember going in and hearing stories about it. And just, yeah, it hit my town very hard. It hits the whole state very hard, I remember. I also have a suggestion for another episode on the Donna Lee Baker. murders. I just found out about it. It happened in New Britain in 1974. And all I know is there were

sick people murdered. I didn't look too much into it. I was hoping you guys give a little look into it and see more into it. Yeah. So stay safe and keep your own time taken. We will definitely take a look into that case. Yeah, the pettit murders, those were brutal. That was tough. That was a tough case to cover. And you can imagine how, like he said, how hard it hit that that area yeah man just him talking about it and bringing it back up again man can make my stomach not feel good i know you get a little queasy i too man all right buddy that's it for another episode of true crime all the time so for mike and gabby stay safe and keep your own time ticking