True Crime All The Time - William Scott Day

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

William Scott Day was in trouble pretty much his entire adult life. He spent over 90% of it in Michigan prisons. Most of the time he spent outside of prison was because of his numerous prison escapes. His last escape was his most daring as he was able to talk a hospital supervisor into smuggling him out. While on the run, Day murdered at least six people during his 39 days of freedom.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss William Scott Day. This man was a master manipulator who was able to talk people into doing what he wanted them to do. During his time on the run, Day used the Greyhound bus system to travel the country. He would walk from bus stations to find his victims, and after committing his murders, he stole money from his victims to finance his run from the law.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.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 178 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. How about you? Hey man, I'm doing well. How about you? I'm doing good. Good. Hanging in there.

You and I talked about it a little bit earlier. We're just trying to stay safe, man, like everybody else is. That's what we can do. Ride this out and hopefully, you know, keep ourselves safe, keep our loved ones safe. And at the same time, keep trying to put out episodes. Yeah. I'm waiting for a pluxie glass to go up between where me and you sit, like they have at the grocery stores now.

Yeah. You know, overnight. I just remember going to the grocery store, like the very next day, they had this plexie glass at every cash register. And all of a sudden it was there. Yeah. I felt like it was very distant from the person ringing me out, which was good, though. Yeah, at the time for a while.

that's just that's just the norm yeah it's the new norm so but i also take a little black sharpie in and i look at them and i draw a little mustache on that the humor myself but then they get kind of mad because i used a sharpie and it won't come off yeah they don't like when you deface their property yeah but it's still funny what do you can do exactly so we have some new patreon supporters so definitely want to give some shoutouts because we've had a lot of people Gibbs kind of come to our aid in this time of crisis and and it's hitting us too obviously with advertising and things like that we had Bev hey Bev shana honnes what's going on shana bfg 900 p well hey what's going on bfg sounds like maybe a new mercedes or new something an Audi model i don't know yeah

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And then Gibbs, if we go back into the vault. Yeah. This week, we selected John Monica. Hey, appreciate that, John. So we appreciate the new support, the continued support. It all means a lot. We also had some great PayPal donations from Samantha Newy. Hey, Samantha.

Amy Koresma, Koresma. Jennifer Wormood. Hey, Jennifer. And Tyler Chambers. Hey, thanks, Tyler. So thank you. Thank you all. Gibbs right now, we have an episode out on true crime all the time unsolved.

We're talking about the 1974 morning side. murders. Yeah. We're in Sioux City, Iowa. Nice little community. Yeah. And in a very old case. Yeah. You know, almost goes back half a century, if you think about it that way. It's getting almost there. Almost as old as you are. Not quite, but. Why you hurt me like that? Why you got to do that? It's facts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts me deep. But yeah, it's in, uh, Sioux City and, um, you know, three young, when I say young, you know, mid-20s. Yeah, early 20s, mid-20s. You know, they're living in a house together, and unfortunately, they are found dead.

And the mystery kind of develops from there, and we'll get into it. So definitely check that episode out. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime all the time? Absolutely am. We're talking about William Scott Day. And this is definitely a lesser known, but extremely interesting. case. This is a guy who escaped prison multiple times. He was like the Harry Houdini. He was like the David Copperfield. Really? Of getting out of prison or he was in some Michigan prisons that just

didn't keep track of people very well. Now, I think a lot of them were like the kind of work systems where not that hard probably to run off and for a little while to get away from the detail. Yeah. Yeah. But it was during his very last escape from a Michigan prison when he went on a murder spree that left at least six people dead in a number of different states. And I said this is a lesser known case. And because of that, some of the information is a little sparse, especially in the area of day's background. I actually saw a couple of different things about where he was born. 1951 was the year that I saw, but I saw one blurb about him being born in Japan. Okay. Into a military family. I do believe his father was a career Air Force officer.

I saw something else that said he was born in Ohio. Wow. Let's park him in Japan. Yeah. I'm going with Japan. Because we have enough killers that were born in Ohio already. Yeah, we do. Now, day later said that.

He knew growing up, he was a major disappointment to his father. I don't think his father was shocked about letting him know that. When William was a teenager, his father died. And he moved to Michigan. He joined the Marines at 17, which I wasn't even sure you could do. I think back then you could. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe. I thought you had to be 18, but he joined at 17. didn't take him long to get into trouble though. He went AWOL from boot camp. That's pretty quick. Yeah. You basically have just started. Yeah.

But it wasn't just the fact that he went AWOL. He kidnapped and attempted to rape a Michigan woman. He was caught. He was tried and convicted and sentenced to seven years for those crimes. They sent him off to the Michigan reformatory prison in, I own you. He escaped. Again, something that he seemed to be very good at.

I guess they didn't really. I own you. They'd let him get away. They thought they did. Yeah. But they didn't. So they got him. They brought him back.

And then despite the escape, paroled him at the age of 22. So, you know, he did what? Roughly five of his seven year sentence. Right. But when you throw in the escape, okay. I think maybe you'd get a little extra attacked on or today you would. Who knows? But it's really from this point forward.

William Scott Day was very rarely outside of the prison system. I think when it's all said and done, I saw one article that said he spent 90% of his adult life in prison. This is before he even got caught. Yeah. 90%. That's a long time. So he's out for. a little while. Then he got convicted on a drug charge. The next year after that, he was convicted

of theft. And he got sent to a prison in Jackson, Michigan. Guess what? Oh, yeah, he escaped. He escaped. Yeah. They got him. They brought him back, but then paroled him the very next year in 1978. This guy's out less than a year after his 1978 parole when he's convicted of kidnapping and once again sent to prison. Now this time he did not escape, but he was paroled in 1981. So obviously he didn't spend a lot of time in there. Really two years on a kidnapping charge with the record that the guy already had. And on top of that, the number of escapes. And they looked at it all and they said, yeah, fly free little birdie back into the world. Fly free.

To do your thing. Yeah. It's kind of, you know, it's kind of hard to believe. You and I joke around or get ticked about it from time to time. Now, when I say kidnapping, you know, some of these charges were, okay, he made a cab driver take him somewhere. Well, technically that's kidnapping. So I don't want to make it sound like. it was he held somebody against their will for 30 days and did this and this.

Right. It's still not good. Kidnapping is kidnapping. Yeah. You can't hold somebody against their will in any form. I just asked, I remember OJ did that with that sports. Memorably. Memorabilia?

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. I got in trouble for that. Yeah. You couldn't use another word other than memorabilia? Some reason.

That just wanted to fly off. That tongue of mine didn't want, it got like a little bloomer. And there's nothing in your head that says, hmm, I wonder if I'm going to be able to pull that one off. Yeah. No. No, you just, you just go for it, man. You are super confident. Yeah.

It's one of the things that I really like about you. Yeah. Your confidence level. If we weren't recording, it would have just came out normal. Well, that's, that's a hundred percent true. Yeah. You and I have talked for, what, 10 plus years? Yeah.

in everyday conversations, there's all kinds of words that just roll off your tongue. Right. For some reason, the minute that the mite gets put into your face, certain things go out the window and I've never understood it. I can't either. I get it in the beginning. Yeah. It was strange. Sure.

It was weird. It's something we weren't used to. Right. We've been doing this for like three and a half years now. I know. I don't know what it is. Well, you got memorabilia in there. We got it.

But I mentioned it. This guy was never out very long. But even so, he did somehow manage to develop a heroin addiction. In these little short pockets of time while he was out on the streets, he got addicted to heroin. And I think you probably could get your hands on it in prison. I wondered that too. I never saw in any of the reading. Yeah.

But I imagine that he might have used some in prison. Yeah. And then that just carried on when he got out. I think you could definitely be right about that. But it was reported to have been pretty serious. One paper said it was a 300 a day habit, which when you're talking about the late 70s, early 80s, man,

$300 is a boatload of money. I mean, even today, if you had a $300 a day habit. Yeah. Well, if you're the wolf of Wall Street, do you care about $300 a day?

No. No. If you're a guy that's, been in and out of prison, are you making a ton of money with a high paying job? Nope, you are not. On at least one occasion, William Day was able to use his knowledge of the heroin trade, so people he had met, people that, you know, he associated with to help get his sentence reduced. So he testified against some of these people. And I think that's one of the reasons why you might look at some of his sentences and think, man, what are they doing? Why is he only spending a year,

two years? Well, it's because on some of these, he had some things to trade, some information. Information is like gold in prison, you know? Well, especially when it comes to prosecutors. Yeah. And they want something bad enough or they want someone bad enough. And you're the person that can help put that person away. They give you a deal. Yeah. We've seen some really, fair deals and we've seen some really deals where the prisoner got way too much for the information they gave. Well, and we've seen deals where prisoners got a lot when their information turned out

to be false. Yeah. And it helped convict somebody that shouldn't have been convicted too. So we've seen all of that. It always makes me wonder how that vetting process goes, you know. Do they even vet this stuff out? Are they like, you know what? We're going to take it, see how it sticks. And that's what we're going to do. they probably want to corroborate as much as they can. But if you're in a jail cell with a guy and you come to the prosecutor and say, hey, this guy told me that he did this, this and this, how are you going to corroborate that? It's just the two of you in there.

I guess you just hope that the jury or the judge believes that criminal over this criminal. Yeah. So I mentioned it. This big heroin habit, he's not making a bunch of money, right? So you've got to do something to feed that type of habit. In this situation, that something is going to have to be illegal. There's no way for a guy like day to legally make the type of money he needs to support that type of habit.

So he turned to writing bad checks. And his scam this time was to move into an elderly couple's home posing as a house sitter. I guess he would help them out. a little bit. Well, he didn't. What he did was he built them out of about $6,000 by, you know, cashing some of their checks, forging checks, and taking the money. I had a distant relative that did that kind of stuff that would work at nursing homes and find a way to write checks against those folks' accounts. I finally got caught and, you know, she had to do her time, but I just, I don't know how people have the, uh, the gonads to do something like that.

Well, it's horrible too, man. To pray on the elderly, to pray on children. I mean, to pray on anyone. Yeah. But the most vulnerable. Well, who's more vulnerable than somebody in their 80s or 90s that needs help? Yeah. And can't do things on their own.

Okay. Pretty easy to take advantage of those people. And if you're a bad person. If you were really, I guess, and she was probably really really. nice to them to try to disguise what she was doing to help pay her for drug habits, you know. But they got him. They nabbed him for writing the back checks and sent him back to a Michigan prison. But once again, he escaped. I'm telling you, this guy was like the Harry Houdini of the Michigan prison system. It was like he just kept finding ways to get out. Now, like I said, wasn't like he was escaping from Alcatraz.

He wasn't swimming, you know. Shark infested water. Yeah, he wasn't doing that. And he wasn't on death row. He wasn't really locked down, locked down. He didn't have to do like, uh, in Shawshank when they had like slowly with that hammer. Yeah, no. He wasn't tunneling out.

He was just when he saw the opportunity, they were outside. He would make a break for it or, or something like that. But after this 1982 escape, William Day kidnapped an 80-year-old. woman and robbed her. Now, he didn't kill her, but he left her tied to a tree. And once they caught up to him and figured out what he did, they added seven years to his sentence for this crime. And of course, they had to lock him down a little bit. The guy had already escaped from like three different prisons. And this was the most serious crime to date, right, that he had been charged and convicted of. So add that onto the multiple escapes.

Somebody made the decision. We better lock this guy down. I want to throw a little thing called leg shackles on him. I don't know. Or let's just not let him go pick up garbage on the side of the road or work some kind of farm detail where he's just going to be able to run away. But I think the other thing in play here Gibbs is that William Newt, after he did this, after he got this extra time, he was not going to be getting paroled in a year.

Like he had so many times before, he was an intelligent guy. And many people described him as not only intelligent, but very adept at manipulating others. Those are dangerous people. Yeah. Smart and manipulative. So he knew he didn't want to spend a long time in prison. He knew they weren't going to give him early parole this time.

this time, so he began plotting. But this wasn't going to be as easy as just walking away from some type of work detail. So in 1986, Day began complaining of what was described as mental depression. And on May 22nd of that year, he was sent to the hospital for evaluation. Now, he was there for about eight months. So he was either having some serious difficulties mentally or he was good at faking it, one way or the other. Yeah. Either way, he got where he wanted to be. Yeah, which was a much less secure facility. And I think that's where a lot of people, when you look at this case, will wonder, okay, was this guy mentally ill or was he smart enough to figure out how to get where he wanted to go, which was this hospital setting versus a full-blown lockdown prison?

I'm going to go with a ladder. I think a lot of people might think that. Yeah. So during this eight-month period, he made friends with a hospital supervisor named Thomas Fortunato. Thomas was 36 years old. He'd been at the hospital for 14 years. So Gibbs, this was no naive kid, right? Just starting the job.

He was a supervisor. He'd been there over a decade. Definitely seasoned. But somehow Day was able to build up his relationship with Thomas to the point where he talked him into helping him escape. They were about the same age. I think Day was maybe a year younger than 14. Tonado, but there was something that bonded these two guys together. Maybe it's the fact that

Day was a master manipulator. I don't know. The other thing I couldn't figure out is how long it took Day to get Thomas to agree to help him. Yeah. How fast could how fast did he work his magic? Yes. And, you know, when did they start talking about it? And when did they start planning it? It wasn't like he was risking just losing his job. He was risk losing his job and go to prison if you help somebody escape. Yeah, it's big boy problems. Yeah. If you get into something like this. So in early December, 1986, Williams time at the psychiatric center was up. He was getting ready to be shipped back to the prison. So the day before that was to happen, these two guys, put their plan into action.

And basically, it started at 5 a.m. on December 4th, there was a bed check by prison officials. And then right after that 5 a.m. bed check, they put some clothes, some blankets in his bed to make it look like he was under the covers sleeping. You know, that's that classic trick, right? Right. We all did that when we snuck out of our houses when we were young.

Exactly. Exactly. Now, it took a little bit. Day was a big guy. He was six, five, probably went about 200 pounds. And then came Fortunato pushing a laundry cart. So Day got into the cart. His buddy covered him up with laundry. And then essentially just wheeled him right out of the hospital. But pretty easy for this guy. Thomas, he had the badge, right? That was going to get him. through all the security doors until they reach the outside. But here's the thing, Gibbs. He wasn't just setting William Day free. He was joining him. He wanted that life of crime, huh? Yeah.

And this is really, you know, one of the amazing parts to me that somehow during this eight month span of time, William Scott Day was able to talk this guy into this plan, which like you said carried with it a very high amount of risk. Definitely life altering. For sure. Yeah. For the, I mean, is he doing it for the thrill? You know, was he just bored and wanted a new thrill?

You know, let me try this out. This sounds your stories are fascinating. Let me go with you and do some of this crazy stuff. Yeah, he'll talk about the little bit, but he doesn't shed, I think, all of the life. on why he did it. But once they got outside, William used Thomas's keys to get into his pickup truck. And then Thomas Fortunato went back into the hospital.

Because at 6 a.m., there was another bed check. So he had to be there to Mark Day as being in his bed. That would give them both additional time to get away. So he did that. Then he went back outside to his truck. And now the two. were on the run. I mean, this is a real Thelman-Louise type

situation, minus Brad Pitt, but other than that, it's a Thelman-Louise. Okay. In two guys, I got you. Yeah. Just two-guy, a two-guy version. Yeah. Well, you know, they made the Ghostbusters with all women. Are you telling me they can't make Thelman Louise with two men? Well, they could. They can call it, you know, Tom and... No, I still want them to call it Thelman-Louise.

Oh, okay. I just want them to use two men. men this time. All right. Well, they can do that. They didn't change the name of Ghostbusters. But did they change the name of the characters in Ghostbuck? I don't know. I actually didn't see it. To be honest with you, I heard it wasn't that good, so I didn't watch it. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't say it either. It kind of got panned as not being very good. And I always have trouble, right? The original is the original. Yeah. And when you remake something, you're not really adding on to it. I'm sure it's different. Yeah.

It's the same name. It wasn't like Ghostbusters 4, the women are in charge. It wasn't anything like that. Yeah. Well, maybe they'll make Thelma and Louise. Maybe. I don't think they will. Well, I think if they do, you play Thelma.

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And I think this gives you some idea of the planning that went into this. It wasn't like they figured, you know, all of this out the night before. Because waiting for them in Toledo was a rental car that police later figured out Fortunato had rented nine days earlier and had stashed it in Toledo. This guy had also withdrawn a large amount of money from his bank account. So there was definite planning that went into this escape. They made their way to Louisville and apparently painted the town red. They hit some of the local strip clubs in town, blew a bunch of Fortunato's money, I think.

Yeah. We even pulled over by the copy. twice for traffic violations. That's always amazing to me back then, that they could get pulled over and not know that they are, one's an escaping, one's assisting the escapee. Well, and we're going to see it a lot in this case, like he did with escaping from prison, they seem to have a way of talking himself out of traffic stops. Oh, absolutely.

I believe that. You know, if he can talk somebody to give up 14 plus years of a career and to put himself at jeopardy to go into prison, I can imagine that he can talk anybody out of something. Well, and I haven't even mentioned the fact that the guy was married. Oh. It wasn't like he was just single and just going to take off and, you know, be on his own because two days after they escaped, this guy called his wife. And he said, you know, honey, I'm having some problems. And they were set to go on a vacation to New Orleans. That very next week, he told his wife that his pickup truck was in a GM plant parking lot,

which is exactly where the police later found it. The pair ended up at a hotel. I mean, you know, pulling all nighters at strip clubs and drinking and doing all that. It'll wear you out. Or so I've been told. Yeah. by you. And so they've got to get a hotel. They got to rest up. But here's where the plan goes sideways, at least for Thomas Fortunato. You know, I guess like we talked about. I think this guy

thought Gibbs, he was going to start a new life on the run with his buddy, William Day. I'm leaving my job behind. I'm leaving my wife behind. Maybe I'll be a criminal. I've heard the stories. Yeah. Whatever. I'm willing to give it a shot. It's going to be exciting. The problem is they had other plans. And he slipped out of the hotel room while Thomas was in the shower and he took off without him.

But he made sure to grab all of his money before he left. Well, absolutely, man. It's what you got to do. But he did what? You got to get rid of that dead weight. You know, he knew that he used that guy for everything he could at that point. He used him for everything. Used him to help get out of the hospital.

used him to get the rental car and used him to take a bunch of money out of his bank accounts. And then he was ready to go ahead and move on to his next venture. Now, I think initially police believe that Thomas Fortunato had been kidnapped by day. And really, even after they found out about the rental car, because they figured out that he was the one that rented it. They figured out he rented it nine days earlier. Yeah. But even after that, news reports. still said they were working the case as a kidnapping. But after Day ditched him, Thomas knew that he

had been scammed. Number one, he didn't have any money and probably, you know, really didn't know what else to do. So he turned himself in. About a week after the escape, he was later convicted in sentenced to two and a half to seven years in a Michigan prison for his role in helping day escape. He told the court, I made a tragic mistake and said that 14 years working with severely disturbed mental patients had made his judgment impaired. Tragic mistake, that is an understatement. That's a huge understatement. Well, especially when we get into what is about to happen.

It's not like they caught this guy before he did any harm. Day, he's going to go on to kill a bunch of people. The judge told Fortunato at sentencing that he violins. that he violated the public trust when he helped Day escape. He said, I know you made a mistake. A lot of people do, but you've got to pay for this one. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Which makes a lot of sense. So after William Day ditched for Tonado, he headed to Nashville. And that's where he killed his first victim. Seventy-four-year-old Mary Catherine Strobel was a pillar of the community. She worked for the Nashville fire department for many years. Gibbs, this was a woman who

volunteered her time to help the less fortunate. And on December 9th, 1986, she was actually on her way to take food to a homeless shelter when she crossed paths with William Scott Day. I mean, think of that. This is a selfless woman trying to help other people and she runs into a monster. Somehow, Day got Strobel into his car, and apparently they drove around Nashville for six to eight hours. Before he stabbed and strangled her to death, police found her body two days later in the trunk of her 1981 AMC Concord. And it was parked right next to the homeless shelter where she was getting ready to deliver food. It was also parked directly across the street from the bus station. What came out later is that a police officer stopped William Scott Day with Mary Catherine

Strobel inside the car. And apparently Day gave the officer a story about him taking her out for a drive to cheer her up. But when the officer asked him for his license, he said he left it at home. Then he asked him for his name and birthday. Well, it came back as that it didn't match. That seems to be a pretty big. big red flag. It should be. You would think. Yeah.

But the officer just gave him a ticket for speeding and driving without a license and let him go. See, he was a smoother, man. He was. He could smooth any situation over and get his way. There's no doubt. Everybody that talked about this guy said, you know, if they didn't call him a con artist, they called him a very smooth talker, a very smooth operator. You know, there are just some people like that.

They're able to read you and come up with exactly what you want to hear. Yeah. Or exactly what it's going to take to get you to do what they want you to do. Some people are really good at it. It's not an easy thing to do for some people. No, but if you are really good at it, you can make a boatload of money. Yeah. You know, as a salesman, as all kinds of different things.

because that's a pretty good skill to have, right? To be smooth enough to talk people and doing whatever it is you want them to do. If you can get somebody to leave their job of 14 years to do criminal activities with you, you're pretty good. Yeah. And I'm thinking it was a pretty good job. You know, he was a supervisor. He was probably making decent money.

Yeah. And as far as I know, the guy didn't have some lengthy criminal history. It wasn't like he was just itching to return to a life of crime that he had had previously. Yeah, I really miss it out there, man. I got to get back out. Can I go out there with you? It's almost like they talked him into starting it. Yeah.

You won't believe how cool it is. You can do whatever the hell you want. It's a lot of fun, man. The women, they all love you. But getting back to this officer, because they're, like I said, day's going to have a number of brushes with the law. You have to know, Gibbs, that police officer was haunted by that encounter after he found out later that not only did Day kill this woman that was in the car with him, but is going

to go on to kill a bunch more people afterwards. It's natural, only natural for the police officer to think, I could have stopped at all. Yeah, it might. If I had done this, this and this. You might harbor a little bit of guilt. I would think so. Now, in interviews, the officer said he didn't understand it, how it went down.

The woman had a number of chances to speak up, right? She could have told him a number of times that she was in trouble. Because I guess at one point, the officer even had day outside of the car. They were both back at his patrol car. hell she could have jumped into the driver's seat fired the car up and taken off if she you know had had wanted to but apparently she never said a word the only thing i can think is that she was probably petrified to do anything thinking if i make one mistake he's he's gonna kill me unless you're in that position i don't think you know what's right or wrong no no and i'm sure he threatened her a bunch but after this first kill Day bought a 30-day Greyhound bus pass. And essentially he traveled all over the country. He would get off at a bus station in a different town and scout for his victims.

And it was on December 23rd that he got off at a bus station in Tucson, Arizona with 76-year-old Robert Arzabalo Alcoso. There is a name. It's a hard name to say. I'm probably not saying it correctly. Robert was from Mexico and he was making his way from Mexico City to California to be with his daughters for Christmas. Well, he never made it because William Scott Day brutalized this man. I'm talking about he slammed his head into the side of a metal transformer and then basically kicked him in the head repeatedly. while he was on the ground. Robert was found and rushed to the hospital. He lived for three days in a coma, but he died without ever waking up. Now, they later confessed to investigators

that the two had been drinking together, right? They had been on the bus. And they would stop and they would have a drink somewhere or maybe they would share a drink on the bus. But they were drinking when Robert revealed that he was carrying thousands of, of dollars on him, which is not a good idea when you're dealing with an escaped convict, somebody that needs money, a con man, any of that.

It's never reveal that to anybody. But you know what? When you drink, you know, you feel you're safe. Invincible. Yeah. You know, bravado kicks in. You say things that you either wouldn't say normally or you probably should never say. I mean, I got a money built on right now.

I'm sure you do. You never know when you're going to have to Hightail it out of here. That's right. If Johnny Law comes a knocking, I got to go. You got to be prepared. And you know I won't be able to get my wallet out of my pant pocket.

It's kind of stuck in there. Well, no, you might be able to get it out, but it won't open. I don't know why the hell you super glued it. You know what? Keep the temptation down. You can't pop it open. But this really was a brutal, brutal attack. They told investigators that

after he attacked Robert, he got back on the bus. But he also told them that, okay, he knocked Robert unconscious and started to make his way back to the bus station when it hit him. He realized that if Robert woke up, he might be able to identify him before he got away, right? Because the bus leaves at a certain time. Right. It's not like it leaves the minute you get there.

You can't like, okay, I'm on here. Let's go. whatever time it leaves, it leaves. And he started to worry that, okay, if this bus doesn't leave for however many minutes or an hour or however long it is, this guy could wake up. So he went back. And he stomped on his head several more times. Now, what he told police was that he wasn't trying to kill him. He just wanted to knock him out. And he wanted to keep him knocked out. He even told, police gives that he left the man with $47 and his bus tickets so that when he woke up, he could still get to where he was going.

Oh, so he was a nice guy. That was very, very nice of him. Yeah. I'm going to take the thousands that you have on you. Right. But I'm leaving you $47. I think he even left him some pesos just in case. So you should be able to get something to eat.

And your bus tickets. Yeah. The problem is none of that stuff is any good. if you die. And that's what happened. He killed this man. Well, you got a six foot five, 200 pound guy bashing your head in with his foot. Yeah, it's going to do that. Well, not only that, but Robert was 76 years old. He wasn't a 20-something that could fight back or, you know, even really take a, a beating. Yeah, he's probably a little bit on the frail side. Yeah, it's 76. I mean, you're not going to take too many blows to the head before it's going to do some very, very serious damage.

Unless you're like Jack La Lane Lane. Jack La Lane. Yeah. Remember that guy? Yeah. It's liming in the ocean, pulling a boat behind him all the time. Until he died. You know, eventually you can only have so much, uh, uh, juice.

Juice. But here's the other thing I read in one of the articles about, you know, what day said to the police. It was that, okay, I realized the guy was 77. but he looked 30, 40 years younger. Yeah. Like that made it better. Like, if I would have known he was at his real age, I wouldn't have done it? No, I would have never curbstomped him as many times as I did.

After this murder, they did some sighting. He traveled out to California for a bit. He basically crisscrossed the country, went to Florida, and he arrived in Mariana, Florida in early January. It was on January 2nd that William Scott Day walked into a jewelry and pawn shop owned by 55-year-old Evan Johnson. He murdered Johnson, took some money, and left the store. But as he was leaving the store, he ran into a police officer on the street. This officer would later identify William and said that he saw William turn the open, close sign to closed.

And when he came out the door, he said the owner was out to lunch. I think he might have told the police officer that he was a cousin or he was watching over the store. It's amazing. Really, if you think about it, how many run-ins this guy had with the law? The first one was rough because a woman later lost her life after the run-in. Right. This run-in kind of happens after the murder has already taken place. And I'm not sure what this point.

police officer could have done. How suspicious was he supposed to have thought this was? I mean, this is a master manipulator in conversation. And so I'm sure he sold it really well that, you know, his story about the owner not being there. Well, let's say you owned a store. Yeah. Guy comes out of your store and says, oh, I'm Gibby's uncle.

He's gone home. He's not feeling well. He asked me to come take care of it for a while. who's not to believe that? Yeah, you'd be like, oh man, tell me to get better. Yeah, unless you know for sure that that's not true, he doesn't have a cousin or whatever it is. Yeah, unless you're that close to that person to have that detailed information. Yeah, I mean, as a police officer, you can't read minds.

You can't, you know, you can't dissect every situation and know exactly what's going on. So Day had murdered again. And just like he had before, he got back on the Greyhound. bus this time headed to new orleans but he made one stop apparently he stopped to take in a college football bowl game it was a pretty big one it was the fiesta bowl pitting the university of miami versus pen state oh yeah it was a good game that's a huge game so i guess he thought you know what i've just murdered someone my third victim in a few weeks i wonder what i should do okay i know I'll go watch a big time college football game.

It's like, what's the thought process here? Yeah, it's probably like, am I going to go to Disney or should I go to this game? Because that's what level this is on, right? It's so. It's kind of scattered. It's all over the place. To me, it was basically almost as if he was saying, all right, I'm going to do whatever I have to do to get money.

And I'm going to ride this Greyhound bus wherever I want to go. for as long as I can. I'm going to do whatever I want to do. I just need to keep getting the money to do that until they catch me. Yeah, as long as I can fund what I'm doing. That's all matters. Then on January 6th, Day got off the bus at a Greyhound station in Fort Stockton, Texas. He walked a few blocks to a bar owned by 57-year-old Billy Smith Taylor. He sat at the bar, drank a few beers and he watched Taylor as she emptied the cigarette machine and the cash registers and walked out of the bar with the money. That was some big money back then, those cigarette machines.

You know, it's funny, this part's not funny, but it's funny because we were watching a movie the other day as a family. Yeah. And it was an older movie and there was a cigarette machine. And my daughter said, what is that? I said, well, there used to be machines. like where you could literally like just like buying a Hershey bar. Yeah.

Put your money in, pull the knob, and a pack of smokes would fly out. Sure could, man. And she just was flabbergasted. Did not understand that at all. It's back before they were regulated. Well, you know, technically kids weren't supposed to be buying them. But, you know, if it was in a spot where a kid could get any access to. Yeah.

You couldn't stop them. Teachers con. Teachers. It's that room in the school world, the teachers hang out? The teacher's lounge. That place. Yeah. But yeah, it was just, it's interesting to watch some of these older movies and see what pops up.

Not for like you and I, we just see it and be like, yeah, oh yeah, I remember that. But my daughters, they're just blown away. So you're telling me that a cell phone looked like that in 1995. They're like, yes, it did. It did. Yeah. And it was not attractive. And you could not play zombies versus whatever.

You just couldn't do it. I don't think anybody was too excited about carrying that bag phone around. You remember the bag phone? I never had that because that was a little, I don't want to say it was before my time, but that was Richie. You had to be Richie Rich. I know you had one. Carry that bag phone around, man.

But you had to get in touch with Pablo. So you had to have that bag phone. Got to make sure things were moving the right direction. So Billy Smith Taylor, she's got this money. She leaves her bar. Well, followed right behind her was William Scott Day. And police found Taylor's body later that day. She had suffered a number of blows to her head from a rock.

Do you just grab that rock and smash it up against her head? Just beat her over the head with it. He also stabbed her in her chest. Investigators later figured out that William took Taylor's car and he drove it back to the bus station where he hopped on a bus headed for new Orleans on january seven 28 year old andrew mcclellan was in new orleans he was interviewing for a job on canal street after that he went to the french quarter to take in some jazz music it's great stuff yeah we were just there this time last year yep love the french quarter love

new orleans in general yeah here's the problem unfortunately sitting on the stool next to him at the jazz bar was William Scott Day. These two guys struck up a conversation and Day somehow talked this guy, Andrew McClellan, into letting him crash at his hotel. So again, you want to talk about a smooth operator? You met a guy, a complete stranger. Yeah. In a jazz bar.

And before you know it, you've talked your way into his hotel room. That's one smooth operator, man. Now, Andrew's family said that he was the type of guy that would give anyone the shirt off his back. So I don't know how much sweet talking it took. He could have appealed to his good nature and just said, hey, look, man, I don't have any place to stay. Sure.

I'm down on my luck. I'm sure Day played into him. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's what a con man does, right? Sure. He figures out the right tact. There's a whole bunch of tools in the toolbox.

Right. You just got to figure out which tool is needed for this particular job, whether it's sex-related, right, which in this case, it wouldn't have been. You know, my assumption is, because I don't know how the conversation went, but my assumption is he figured out that this was a guy who was very kind and he played that angle. You dialed up these, oh, poor me, I have nowhere to go. That's probably what I'm thinking. I'm a good guy. What am I going to do? Hey, buddy. Now, if he would have sensed that Andrew was maybe a drug addict, he would have taken a different route. Hey, I've got a bunch of heroin or I've got a bunch of

cocaine. Right. Let's go back to your room and we'll party it up. William killed Andrew inside the hotel room and his body was found the next day by hotel staff. But by that time, day was gone. He was on his way back to Texas. January 12th was a very busy day for William Scott Day, but it was also the last day of his freedom. He did commit his last murder. Unfortunately, before he was caught, he broke into the home of 53-year-old railroad worker Stanley Robertson, and he bound his hands and feet. He killed this man.

And then he took off with whatever little money he could find. When police found Robertson, his throat had been slashed and he had a hole in his head. Next to his body, they found a hammer and a knife. So he bashed this guy's skull in. Yeah. Slashed his throat. But the thought is they didn't get the payday he was looking for because pretty quickly. He drove about 40 miles to the town of Van Horn, Texas.

And he robbed a store. He walked in and found 56-year-old Dorothy Alexander working behind a counter. He bound her hands and feet and he beat her over the head. Then he took the money from the cash drawer, stuffed it in his pockets, and fled the scene. Dorothy was able to free herself. She called police. But the key is she was able to give them a description of her attacker. Because if you think about it, he's not left anyone alive.

Yeah, right. And whether he did it on purpose, whether he thought he had killed her and he hadn't. So now police know who they're looking for, at least as it relates to this robbery. And Day was later arrested that same day near Van Horn, Texas. I guess he was going down the interstate, flew by a Texas highway patrolman named Jimmy Nail. And he was going pretty fast. He was doing in excess of. of 90 miles per hour. When Nail pulled the truck over, the guy driving said his name was Tom Wilkins and that he was from Portland, Oregon. He also said that he was driving his uncle Stanley Robertson's truck. So he's trying to do the smooth talk thing. The smooth talk thing, but also the very smart thing. You are driving a truck that does not belong to you.

Also happens to be the truck of a person that you just murdered. Yeah. So how are you going to explain that? Obviously, when they run it, it's going to come back that this is somebody else's truck. Somebody else's truck. So he tried to pull it off as though he was related to Stanley. I think he said he had just dropped him off somewhere and he was driving back. I do think Gibbs that William probably thought he was going to talk his way out of this because he had done it so many times before.

But Jimmy Nail knew something wasn't clicking. Number one, he had heard the call on the radio about the liquor store hold up. And then he spotted a bunch of blood on day shirt. He also saw that he matched the description of the robber. So he pulled him out of the truck and arrested him. And apparently when he got out of the truck, his pockets were bulging with money. Cash. Oh, there's tons of cash in those.

taken from the robbery that had occurred earlier. But here's the thing. When Day was first arrested in Texas, he told officers that pretty quickly, by the way, because they really at first only thought that he had robbed the store and killed Stanley Robertson. That's all they knew about.

But he said, you know what? I've killed eight people. He just volunteered it up, didn't he? He did, but eventually he, he changed it to six because he could only provide police the details on six,

not really sure why he started out at eight. Maybe there was more than six and he either didn't want to or couldn't provide the details and police left it alone. You know, Gibbs we talk about all time. It's hard telling. How many murders some of these people commit, they could very well make the decision to mess with police and,

confessed to just a portion of their crime. Right. Yeah, you're never really going to know what they did. No. There's no way to ever be 100% sure, especially with a guy like William Scott Day because of his traveling. I mean, he was all over the U.S. in this Greyhound bus.

So he was arrested in Texas, confessed to six murders in total, two of which occurred in Texas. Yeah. He was charged with the two Texas murders, but Texas authorities decided not to try him. And this is strange. There's some strange things that were going on here. There were some reports that there were conflicts of interest within the DA's office between the outgoing DA and the newly elected DA. Either they didn't get along or there was something up.

And then you had the governor of Tennessee who petitioned Texas to let Tennessee try day for the murder of Mary Strobel, right? Because he confessed to all these murders. Sure. But here's the thing. Texas agreed. And you and I talk about Texas a lot, right? Texas is very big on justice. They also happen to be very big on the death penalty. Huge. Yeah. So why would they give this guy up to Tennessee? Well, I think so. I think so. something that entered into the decision was caused. I didn't mention it, but these were very small counties in Texas where these murders occurred. They really didn't have the money to put on a capital murder trial, right? The costs go up exponentially in a capital murder trial. Sure does. Because of all the experts that have to be hired and those don't come cheap. Well, maybe you can get some cheap, but they're not.

going to be very good ones like that. No. So William Day was extradited to Tennessee from Texas in June 1988 to face charges for the murder of Mary Strobel. In August of 89, he attempted a drug overdose because as he put it, he wanted to spare the Strobel family the pain of a trial. Oh, okay. That was so very nice of him.

If you believe that. Right. He was ultimately convicted by a Tennessee jury. and this was not a tough conviction. He had confessed to her murder. They had fingerprint evidence and they had the police officer who had pulled day over who could put Mary Strobel in the car with William on the day of the murder. He was given three consecutive life sentences. And turns out this is something that the Strobel family really wanted. So despite this horrible act that he committed against their loved one, the family was really against the death penalty. They really opposed it.

That's funny you say that because we talked about that in previous episodes where you're always going to have those opposing views, right? And some of the families will want that person put to death. And then like in this case, you know what? That's not where they are. They want them to do his time, but they don't want them to be put to death. Yeah. And then I think you have the added component of the prosecution. Are they reaching out to the family of the victim to see what they want? Or, because I don't know if they have to do that, or are they just saying, hey, this is what we do in this state. Yeah. In Texas, they're going to go after the death penalty. Right. More, more often than not, I don't know how much the wishes of a family played into what he ultimately got. Right. But there's no

doubt. They were, they were happy with that part of it. They were happy that he was convicted and they were happy that he got life instead of death. They came out later and told the papers. That's what Mary would have wanted. You know, she loved to help people. She helped out at homeless shelters. She helped feed people. She would not wanted her killer even to have been put to death. Yeah. Day later received two more life sentences, one in Louisiana and one in Arizona. One thing I found very interesting is that Day and his attorneys fought to transfer to Arizona to be tried there. That part's not unusual. What's unusual is that they did it by alleging that the court aired because Arizona officials didn't prove through their documentation that he was the actual William Scott Day that they wanted.

It was a very strange appeal. You can read through it. It doesn't make a ton of sense. And ultimately, it was struck down by the courts. I just thought it was something I had never seen before. Yeah, it is bizarre. Like, I confess to the murder. Yeah.

I know you want to try me. You want to get me to your state, but you haven't proven that I'm the William Scott day that you're looking for. It's almost like a Jedi mind trick. These aren't the droids you're looking for. Yes, yes it is. I'm not the man you're looking for. They don't see you using your hand motions while you're doing that too.

I did use some hand motions. Yeah. I just thought it's so odd. It is odd, man. But then I think, what the hell's he got to lose, right? He's never getting out of prison. No. He can do all the appeals.

He can do all the wacky fighting of different things because what else do you have to do? He's got all this time on a sand, so why wouldn't he? Yeah. Day later said that he loved being out on the open road. And he talked to a few papers about what he did. He said he didn't use fake IDs. He didn't try to disguise himself as, you know, he crisscrossed the country. He loved seeing new places.

He would talk to strangers and listen to music on his Walkman as he sat on the bus. He just had a grand old time. Well, mixing in that grand old time he was having, he had hurt all those people too. But that's the thing, Gibbs. He didn't have to kill any of these people. That's the part that really struck me. He could have robbed each and every one of his victims and taken their money and got back on his bus and continued his journey. He didn't have to kill any of them.

He was so worried that somebody was going to ID him and send him back. To jail, right? But was he? The police were already looking for him. He was an escaped convict. They knew what he looked like. So, yeah, I mean, I guess you can make that argument that he didn't want people identifying him in a certain city.

But I don't see why it mattered because he immediately hopped on the bus and was somewhere else. And it wasn't like the authorities didn't know this guy was out there. They were searching for him. He was into escape. convict. So I don't know. I really struggle with that part of it. You know, he said it got lonely at times out on the road by himself. He hated bus station food. Now, I'm sure it beat sitting in a prison cell. I would think it would. I don't know what the difference between prison food and bus station food is. Probably not a whole hell of a lot. Probably not. But one, you're inside of a building and can't go

nowhere. The other one, you have the option to leave and come as you like at the bus station. But I still think, Gibbs, it's very strange. And it's something I thought about a lot while I was researching this case. Why did William Scott Day decide to kill? Sure, he had been in trouble most of his life. But most of it was pretty small-time stuff, right? Even the kidnapping charges that I talked about, one of those was a cab driver that he just made drive to a location. Technically, it's kidnapping. He kept him or held him against his will. He didn't hurt the guy at all. Now, he did kidnap a woman and tie her to a tree. That's not good. But he had never killed as far as we know, but for whatever reason. And I don't think he's ever given it. He felt as though since he was

on the run, he was going to take lives. I just don't get it. It was like to try to figure out what made someone's switch finally turn on. Well, and you really like, it when they tell you. Yeah. Because if not, we're just guessing, right? And a lot of these killers, they like to talk, they like to tell you, this is why I did what I did. I couldn't find it anywhere where he actually said definitively, this is the reason why I chose to kill. Right. Because in the back of my mind, I just keep thinking, he didn't have to. Yeah. He didn't have to. he could have accomplished everything he did without killing a single person. So there really was no defining moment when he decided to turn. It was just he did what he thought

he needed to do. Yeah. Now, for the life of me, Gibbs, I couldn't find any recent information on William Scott Day. The Tennessee Department of Corrections lists him as deceased. Okay. But gives no information, doesn't give a date of death, nothing. We know he was. wasn't put to death because he didn't get a death sentence. Right. I couldn't find a single article on his death. And maybe that's the way it should be. Maybe they shipped him over to that farm where they take the dead bodies. The body farm? The body farm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there were, again, this wasn't a case where there was a plethora of information. Right. I just thought it was strange that the guy, you know, he did kill quite a few people. And there was no mention in any

paper I could find where he died in prison. But I'm assuming that's what had to have happened. I would think so too. Yeah. But that's it. That's it for the case of William Scott Day. What a terrible guy, man, for lesser known. Yeah, he was definitely terrible. And, you know, That's another thing that kind of strikes me. Why are some cases more well known? It doesn't always seem to correlate with body count at all. No. I mean, there are people that have only killed one or two people that become infamous and, you

know, they dominate the news cycle. And then you have a guy like this and heck, you can't even find much about him at all. No. You really have to piece together the information. And you've done a few of those who recently that absolutely terrible. And you just shake your head. You're like, man, why haven't we heard about this guy prior to this? And, you know, the sad thing is there's so many more out there.

Yeah. There's so many. We've got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, let's hear them. Hi, Mike and Gibby. I have been listening to your podcast for a couple of months now. And I called before.

I just wanted to say that y'all are awesome. And I am a Louisiana transplant in the upper Midwest. Go Tigers, by the way. And if y'all wanted me to send you some maybe Cafe Dumond or Community Coffee, I would totally be willing to do that. Anyway, thank you for your podcast. I want to remind you of a leave lead Nina. And Christopher Scarper has an actually interesting story before he murdered Jeffrey Hammer & Cousin. Thank you for all your podcasts.

And thank you for entertaining us during this entire craziness that's going to on right now. I just want to say, keep on time picking. Thank you. Well, what a great voicemail. And there's some interesting cases. And I know when you talk coffee, Mike's going to always want that Cafe Dumond. Especially, yeah, when you're talking the chickery coffee from Cafe Dumont. And if you're talking Ben-Jays. Oh, man. If you're talking the ones you can make at home, I'm all in. You want to see Mike smile ear to ear. here, man. Furgy loves that stuff. Never turn that down. Yeah. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Terry from Louisville again. I just listened to your episode on

Shanna Huber's very well done. And it reminded me of a case from Kentucky involving Steve Nunn, who was a politician. His father was a governor. And he shot his. then a girlfriend. It was a case of stalking and possessiveness and domestic violence and a lot of other themes, but his upbringing was very painful and very harsh, not that that excuses what he did. It's just an interesting case, and I'd wondered if he had heard of it or covered it. Keep your own time ticking, and you guys rock. Thanks.

Man, I don't think I've ever heard of that case. I don't know if you have. No, it's funny story because when I picked Shana Huber's, it was between the two. Oh, okay. Because I was in the kind of Kentucky, northern Kentucky-ish area, and he's a little bit farther south. But I looked at both of those. Yeah. And I knew I was going to do him at some point.

Right. For whatever reason, you know, I don't always know why I pick what I picked, but I went with the Shana Huber's instead. It was always good to hear from our listeners in Louisville. Yep, yep. Hey, Mike, hey, Gibby. This is Angie Johnson down here in Northburn, Kentucky. I just wanted to say, Love Your All's podcast. You guys do a great job suggestion on a future podcast.

This is in regards to Liz and David Carroll out of Claremont County, Ohio. Just outside of Cincinnati, they were charged with the murder of their foster son, three-year-old Marcus Faisal. He was an autistic boy. And they also had a live-in girlfriend, Amy Baker, who was also responsible for this little boy's death. Extremely tragic, a lot of gruesome details in that little boy's murder. So sad. And you guys may even remember this. I think it was like back in 2006. But anyway, just a case that was kind of closer to home for you guys. So I thought you might be interested. Anyway, I am team Mike.

I don't have a preference. I like both Givie and both Fergie. So you guys both rock. Love you what you do. And keep your own time ticking. Thanks, guys. Bye. Hey, we're getting a lot of the Kentucky voice bells here.

And I do remember that case. That was a very big case, especially around here. Yeah, very disturbing. So close to us, it received a lot of attention. So it's definitely one that I know we'll do on a few trips. Yeah. All right, buddy, we had mailbag one thing. Okay.

One very cool thing. Our friend Ari Ansbrough sent us the coolest beef jerky. It's basically a big slab. And it has writing on thanking us for doing the podcast during, you know, what's going on right now. And actually says stay safe during the quarantine and keep your own time ticking. It was cool. I don't know how you write on beef jerky, but I'm assuming that the writing is edible because I'm going to that beef jerky out. Oh, I know you will. You know how much I love beef jerky. That's your thing,

I just don't know how you write on it and then eat it. But I'm sure it's edible wink, man. Well, let's hope. And even if it's not, I'll be okay. Yeah, you've ate other things like that had things written on it. Plenty. Plenty. All right, buddy, that's it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.