True Crime All The Time - Xmas Spectacular

Episode Date: December 24, 2016

Join Gibby and I as we take turns detailing some of the craziest crimes to happy around the Christmas holiday time. We have a mix of heinous family massacres, strange and bizarre crimes, and some on the lighter side (we can't make them all too dark at this joyous time of year!) True Crime All The Time wishes all of our listeners a happy Holiday. Thank you so much for your continued support of the show. It is amazing what you've built us up to in a month's time! Please visit our website http://truecrimeallthetime.com for all the information you need related to the show. You can help support the show through the Patreon button for as little as $2 a month. Support our sponsors: Go to http://sockclub.com and receive 15% off your order when you use the discount code "TRUECRIME". These socks are amazing and anyone you give a subscription to will love you for it! Switch to a Simplisafe home security system and get the best and most affordable protection in the industry. Go to www.simplisafe.com/crime to get $200 off SimpliSafe's Defender security package. This is an amazing deal and will not last long. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome, everyone. This is the Christmas spectacular episode of True Crime all the time. This episode should drop right before Christmas, so hopefully some of you out there are listening to it right now on some new fancy phone or tablet, maybe a computer that you just opened. But either way, Gibby and I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Isn't that right, Gibby? It is. I hope everybody's having a great one. So we've got a few shoutouts for this episode. Jordan in Texas sent us an email claiming that she is our biggest fan. Jordan is also the one that made the very funny meme of Alton Coleman mentioning...

Love it. Yeah, it was funny. Yeah, it was funny. mentioning don't accept candy or Frankfurters. Frankfurters. So you know she was listening closely. You can see that on our Facebook. page or if you follow us at TC all the time on Twitter.

Thanks, Jordan. I really love the meme. Yeah, it was great. It was really cool and Merry Christmas to you. Yeah, definitely. So I've got two more shoutouts. Roberta and Annie, and these are actually second time shoutouts. And that's because they are our very first donators on our Patreon page.

If you have not been out to the Patreon page, please visit it. You can get there through our website at True Crime. all the time.com look for the Patreon button and if you click on that it'll take you straight to the Patreon page. We're adding new content all the time and there's some content on there that is available to Patreon only supporters but you can support the show for as little as two dollars a month. You know, I want to sound like Sally Struthers but that is far less than a cup of coffee a month, right? So less than one Starbucks a month, you can help support the show. If you're using iTunes, please go out and take the time to rate the podcast.

You can write a review as well if you want. You know, if you love the show, it's a great way to help support us. And it gets us out there and seen by our rating. So we appreciate that. So as I mentioned, this is our Christmas spectacular. And what Gibby and I thought we would do is instead of focusing on one crime or serial killer or murder, we would go through and give our favorite Christmas crimes. We'll go back and forth taking turns, talking about him.

Is that right, Gibbs? It is right. Do I have that right? Yeah. All right. You want me to start? Well, you look like. you really want to get going, I can tell.

I'm jumping. Yeah. Jumping at the chance. All right. So I'll start. I'm going to talk about the Kavana Massacre. So this is 2008. So you're going to be a little on the light side.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to jump out the gate with really gruesome one. Yeah. So let's start with a mask. Yeah. Okay. Sorry.

We may have some funny ones in here. This is not one of them at all. They can't wait for me to get in because I got a funny one. Right. So we'll go. back and forth. We don't want to make it too dark all the time. We've got to, we've got to bring a little lightness to it. But this one is dark, unfortunately. So it's Christmas Eve night. And around 1130 p.m., a man named Bruce Pardo, who had rented a Santa suit at a local costume shop. He puts on the

Santa suit and he heads over to a party that's being held at, his former in-laws plays. So at this point, you know, we know that Bruce is no longer married. And my assumption is he's not invited to this party. Right, right. But he's going to head over anyway. The problem is that Bruce is bringing presents. And normally that's not a problem.

But the presence that Bruce is bringing include, a homemade flamethrower. Sweet. I don't know how you make a flamethrower. How you get one of those? I mean, you can... Can you buy them? I don't know.

This says it was homemade. He actually made this flamethrower. He put this together. And on top of that, he had four nine millimeter handguns. Well, nothing wrong with that. Got to have your handgun ready.

Nothing wrong with having handguns. What he's going to do with them, what he's going to do with them, that is definitely something wrong. So Pardo enters the home and right away he starts shooting at random.

I mean he's, you know, he's probably got a gun, I'm picturing like a Tarantino type film gunning each hand. Dropping the clips and grabbing the next two. Right. He runs in. He starts shooting at random. Unfortunately,

right off the bat, he shoots an eight-year-old girl. And this girl what is sad about this part is I think this was his niece on his ex-wife's side. Wow. And she's actually excited to see him

when he comes in the door. So she's running to greet him and he shoots her. That's sad. So, you know, horrible. He ends up shooting many, many members of his ex-wife's family

and then he uses the makeshift flamethrower that we talked about to basically set the whole place on fire. In the end, nine people are killed by either gunshot wounds or flames, and this includes his ex-wife and former in-laws. Besides the nine that were killed, three others were wounded. So the eight-year-old girl was shot in the face, but she lived. So that's a bright side of the story. She had severe injuries, but they were not life-threatening.

A 16-year-old girl was shot in the back, and a 20-year-old woman suffered a broken ankle while she was jumping out of the window trying to get away from this guy. One of the survivors called the authorities during the attack after escaping, police come and the fire and rescue come. And it was said that

the fire that resulted from this flamethrower soared as high as 50 feet in the air. Wow. Like, I don't know if he had gasoline or what, but it went up quick. And it took 80 firefighters

an hour and a half to put this fire out. So it was, I mean, it was pretty substantial. Because the fire was so intense, the only way that they could identify the victims was by dental and medical records. So it doesn't stop there, though.

Right. So he's committed the deed. Right. But he gets away. The police don't get there to get him. So Pardo puts on, he gets out of the Santa outfit, and he puts on some street clothes,

and he drives a rental car to his brother's house. And it was about 30 miles away. It's at his brother's house where he would ultimately die from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. So his brother wasn't there at the time. So he leaves the scene,

change his clothes, goes back to his brother's house. And shoots himself. Nobody's there. And that's where he decides to shoot himself. Yeah. Okay. I'm not sure. Why? I mean, obviously, he's not right in the head at this point,

or he wouldn't have done any of the things that he's doing. Yeah, right. He had purchased an airplane ticket on Air Canada, so it was thought that his initial plan was to flee to Canada. It was ultimately discovered that his flight itinerary was actually from Los Angeles to Moline, Illinois. You notice how I said Illinois? Well, make sure you say it right, you know.

And not Illinois. Now, come on. So he had, Pardo had called a high school friend a couple of days before to say, hey, I'm going to come out and visit you. So that's what ultimately they said that why he was going to Molin. That's really a crazy story.

Yeah. Wow. You know, the only other thing that I had on that was, you know, he did suffer some third degree burns, which, I guess to be expected, he's using a flamethrer to, you know, try to melt down this house, basically.

But when police find him after he shot himself, they find $17,000 in cash on him inside a girdle. I don't know why he's wearing a girdle, but I guess that's where he's hiding his $17,000. They find the rental car that he had parked at his brother's house. and they find the Santa suit, obviously. They find all a bunch of handguns, and I think they recovered 200 rounds of ammunition. And then when they go to his home, they find something else,

which is described in some of the readings as a virtual bomb factory. Really? Yeah, so this guy had been planning this for a long time. You know, obviously he made the flamethrower. He was making sure whatever method he used was going to take care of some serious, do some serious damage. Yeah, no doubt.

So that was the Covina Masser. It occurred in 2008. Now, that's a bad Santa. That is. Bad Santa. Bad Santa. Well, look, so on the lighter side. We'll go from dark to light.

Yeah. So I just got this short little one here that I just find it funny, you know. It's near our hometown, Dayton, Ohio. This is Christmas of 2011, and there's this gentleman named Terry Trent. So he gets wasted on some bath salts. So I just want to make sure, right, bath salts is the one that causes people to eat other people's faces off? They can, you know, sometimes, yeah, the zombie effect. Right, right.

Right. Right. that the big story a while, you know, back in the few years ago. Yeah. Bass salts caused somebody to eat somebody else's face off. Somebody's face, yeah. That's a, that's a whole other podcast, I think. Sorry to interrupt.

Yeah, well, you know, you're into that zombie stuff, aren't you? Yeah. You like shooting them, I think. I like, I like Walking Dead. Walking Dead, yeah. So anyway, so this Terry Trent, you know, he is wasted on these bass salts. And, and he just, he walks in the, back door of his neighbor's house and he just starts to decorate the place for Christmas.

I mean, just he's high on bath salts, just decides he's going to, you know, get it all Christmassy. Well, what else would you do if you're high on bass salts? Oh, yeah. Well, at least he's not eating anybody's face right now. So that's good. But, so, you know, he lights some candles and, you know, he decorates the house, the coffee table, the kitchen table. he even takes the time and hangs a wreath out on the garage store. And then, of course, he's blaring the TV with some kind of Christmas show on.

And he's sitting playing with the toys underneath the Christmas tree. It belongs to the kids that live there, right? So they have an 11-year-old boy that he wakes up hearing the noises, and he goes to his mom's room and wakes her up. And, of course, they look downstairs, and they see his strange guy, just having a good old time, the house decorated,

TV blaring, so, you know, of course, she calls the Dayton police and you can figure out what happens from there, but some guy, just picture this guy, you know,

picture coming home, you know, and got some guy high on whatever, you know, sitting underneath your tree, playing with your kids' toys. I just think it's funny, man. Yeah, that would not work out well for me. Exactly.

You know, what's funny, when you said you were going to do this one, that when this one was on your list, I looked it up. And one of the quotes said, what the hell else are you going to do in Dayton, Ohio? Yeah. I found that kind of funny. That's the excitement around here. Yeah, since we live here.

Yeah. So the story of that one is don't do bas salts. Yeah, are basaltz even around anymore? You used to hear about them years ago. Yeah, I don't think he... Yeah, I don't think you can buy them at the convenience stores like you used to. I sure as hell hope not. I don't want anybody eating my face and I don't want anybody in my living room.

Playing with your kids' toys. All right. So I'll go on to what was described as the Santa Line slang. So this happened. Actually, I don't even have the year, to be honest with you. You know, it was back, I want to say it was in the 80s. and it happened in Cleveland and 21-year-old Tyrone Howard and his pregnant wife had taken their three sons and this is where I this one of the reasons why I like this is because

one of the sons is actually Terrence Howard the actor so a lot of people will probably recognize Terence Howard he's just been in a ton of movies So this is actually, you know, Terrence Howard is actually one of the three sons that is going to see Santa Claus at Higbee's department store in Cleveland. So they're waiting in line to see Santa Claus. Also waiting in line is 36-year-old Jack Fitzgerald who had three of his own children and his wife is pregnant as well. But he's got just his three children with him in line. his pregnant wife is shopping with their with their oldest daughter at one point they're they get into an argument so that tyrone Howard and jack fitzgerald are arguing supposedly about one or the other

cutting in line now I will say there's a lot of information on there's quite a bit information online about this but there's a lot of differing stories So some of what, some of this I, the way I say it may be ambiguous because as many times you'll hear it said one way or see it said one way, you'll see it said the complete opposite way. But I think this part is pretty, you know, unanimous that they're arguing about one of the other cutting in line. And so an altercation ensues. and what was said in the argument is really what most of the witnesses differed on. And so what was said and who initiated it. That's what, you know, I think a lot of people said it was, went one way and a lot of people

said it went the other way. Two sides of every story. Which there is. There is. But the end result was that Fitzpatrick, who I believe was white, Howard was African American. Fitzpatrick grabbed Howard, pinned him up against the wall, and need him in the groin. That part was pretty well substantiated.

That was not one of the parts that was differed among the witnesses. But somehow Howard's groin begins bleeding, apparently from a previous injury that he had. and Howard obviously didn't take kindly to be in need in the nether regions. And so he uses a sharp object and stabs Fitzpatrick several times in the thighs and the neck. And Fitzpatrick falls to the floor. Howard flees the scene, goes to his mother's home. But hours later, he turns himself into the police. Fitzpatrick at this point is taken to a nearby.

hospital, but he ultimately dies from the wounds that he received. So Howard's charge was second-degree murder. He pleads self-defense at his trial. And this is where it really gets into the he said, she said, because the Howard's side is that Fitzpatrick used a lot of racial slurs, against them in the argument. So racial hate crime? Racially motivated altercation,

maybe as much as it was about cutting in line. At least that's what, you know, was alleged at trial. But that was denied by Howard's wife. So, which is kind of strange. Right. But she did testify that Fitzpatrick said, had said made this quote. Doing things like this has set your race back five years.

Howard testified that he, you know, had cursed at Fitzpatrick and that's what led to the altercation after the line cutting. So again, it was really hard to piece the story together because there were so many different versions. Fitzpatrick's widow testified that a security guard had separated the two men at some point when they were having this scuffle, right? But that's when Howard pulled a knife from his jacket and he lunged at Fitzpatrick and, you know, stabbed him multiple times. Howard and his witnesses testified that while Howard was pinned against the wall, a woman handed him a nail file, which he used to stab Fitzpatrick. That would be supporting the self-defense. But the nail. But the nail.

file was never recovered and this supposed woman that had come to his aid with the nail file. Right. She was never identified, never came forward, and never testified at trial. So mystery woman. Yeah, mystery woman. I don't want to say she was made up, but they could never substantiate the facts about it. Today they'd have video. Yeah, TMZ would probably be there.

Right. At some point. So I did read where the jury foreman said that the issue of race did not come up as a factor in the jury room. And after a long deliberation, Howard was convicted of manslaughter. He was originally charged with second degree murder. So they only convicted him of manslaughter. And he received a sentence of one to 25 years in prison. And this is the really interesting part that he was paroled after 11.

months for good behavior. Really? 11 months. That's it. That's it. Yeah, I mean, I personally know people that have been in jail for a lot longer than that and never killed anybody. For a lesser of a crime.

Yeah, there must have been something there where, obviously there was something there for them to give him the lesser charge of manslaughter. And then there was something along with his good behavior that allowed the prison system or made them think that he was a good candidate to be eligible for parole. It is said that he had no previous criminal record, but unfortunately he and his wife divorced shortly after his release from prison. So she waited the 11 months and then- Then divorced him.

Then divorced him. Should have divorced him why he was in there. Yeah. Yeah. But- he was over it by then. The reason I picked this one and why I thought it was so interesting, interesting was the

the Terrence Howard connection. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, you got that fame. Famous actor. Yeah, what's that show he's on? Is he on Empire?

Empire. Yeah. I don't watch it, but I think that's the one he's on. He's been in a lot of great movies. He's a great actor. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's pretty,

he's a list. Yeah, so, you know, Iron Man. He's been in all the Iron Man's and, yeah, he's, maybe not all of them, but he's the,

Wendy in the very first one, wasn't he the Air Force guy? I think he was, and then I think that Don Cheedle takes over. Yeah. Sorry, we're getting away from true crime here a little bit. So the moral to the moral to that story. Moral? Moral. Is walk away. Walk away? Yeah. Something happens while you're in line. Walk away.

Like a Kenny Rogers song. Yeah. There you go. Want me saying it? No, please do not. I don't think anybody wants to hear that on Christmas morning. You know, if we should have started the podcast out with letting everybody know that if every time you hear Gibby say, um, an angel gets its wings. Is that what you're going to say?

That you have to take a, you have to take a drink. Oh, drinking game. Christmas drinking game. Yeah, sometimes I say I'm a lot. And before the podcast is over, I'm sure you would feel pretty good on this Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Pretty little woozy even. Yeah. So here's a quick little funny thing that happened one Christmas time.

And of course, this is not in the United States, but this is just a real quick... Well, where is it? You got to tell us. It's in Chile. Chile. Yeah. So anyway, reportedly, this woman told her neighbors that she picked out the best Christmas tree and that, you know, her kids, they were going to have the best holiday ever because of this. As well, they should.

Be sure. Yeah. So, you know, when the neighbor goes to look at the tree, it turns out what she picked out was just a gigantic cannabis plant. On accident or on purpose? You know, I think she's playing it off as she did it by accident. I mean, I don't know how you get that mixed up with a Christmas tree. They look pretty, not that I've seen a lot of cannabis plants. Yeah. In person. I've seen them maybe on TV.

but they look very, very different. Now, I don't know about Chile. Maybe Chile, they term them like a Christmas tree. I don't know what Christmas trees look like in Chile, but. So anyway, I thought, I just thought it was funny that that was one of the stories I read out there. Well, you can see how we went, right? So I picked a little darker and you obviously went lighter, which makes for good. We don't want to be too dark on Christmas.

Maybe I went too dark. I do have a little bit of a little darker one, but not too dark. Okay. Real quick here. And it's, you know, we got some fans down in Kentucky. Yeah, a lot of fans, actually, Kentucky. Yeah. Yeah.

So this one is in Ashland, Kentucky. No, it's an older one. It's just, we're going back to the late 1800s. But I just thought it was for our, for our fans in Kentucky. they need something else to hear besides the the UK basketball team all the time winning Do not disparage my UK Wildcats

They got a big game coming up Pretty soon, don't you know I got a bunch of big games coming up Every game is important to them It is So anyway, this is Ashland, Kentucky And there's a Robert Givens He's 17 years old, Ampute

His sister Fannie 14 and their friend Emma, she's 15. They were asleep and someone breaks into the Gibbons house. And very, very early in the morning, they decide to blundgeon them to death. And the method they used was crowbar and an axe. That can't be a good way to go. Yeah, I can't imagine a crowbar.

That has to be. Actually, I think you could go. pretty quickly. Yeah, but it's got a sharp edge on it, you know. Crowbar might take a while. Yeah, that's just... That would not be my method of choice. No.

Not only do they do this, then the killers, they go ahead and set the house on fire. And, of course, the neighbors, they see the flames and they rush over to try to help. And they pull the three bodies out, and, you know, they see that the skulls are smashed to pieces. and later the, go ahead.

No, I was just going to say, it didn't take much to set a house on fire in the 1800s. No, back then it was probably pretty easy. You didn't need a homemade flamethrower. No, not like your one story. No, they would go up pretty easily, I would imagine. So the doctor comes and he looks at the bodies and he realizes that the one girl was raped before she was murdered.

And ultimately, they find three men. cues of the crime and one is uh george ellis one is william neil one is george craft throughout the trial later ellis you know he kind of recants his whole confession but he he go ahead you know back then they they they they hung you right they lynched you oh they don't mess around now they they there was no put you in prison for a while feed you give you dental educate you let you appeal for yeah let you let you become a lawyer while you're in prison so you can appeal your own case right at us. So anyway, I will say that with the recent cases that have been cropping up where people have been proved innocence by, proved innocent by DNA. I don't want to say it's a good thing that we

don't do that, but it might be a good thing that we don't do that anymore. Yeah. Because how many people did they hang the next day? Oh. And then maybe they even, the day after, found out some evidence and they were, well, I guess that guy didn't do it. Yeah, well, let's just. Can't take that back. Yeah, let's just move on, folks. You know, yeah, I don't know what they would have done. But you're right, they did not mess around back in those days.

No, so, yes, so they, I mean, even though he recanted, they went ahead and lynched them. And then eventually the other two, they were hanged also after their trials. So, I mean, Back in 1881, you know, it's just, uh, so I, you know, what's interesting about that is, number one, they had crowbar is in 1881. Right. But that true crime and murder, it goes back as far as you can. It's human nature.

It goes back to the beginning of time, right? Right. There was a caveman that wanted something. So he took the big rock and he, hit the other caveman over the head and killed him. Goes back to the Bible, man. Yeah. Cane and Abel. It's definitely not new.

All right, Gibby. It's my turn, isn't it? It is. So I'm going to be talking about the Lose-Filis murder mansion. How do you say that? I believe Lose-Felis. So a little shorter than my other ones. This happened in 1959. And this happened at the house of Dr.

Harold Perilsson, who apparently was a very respected family man. He was a doctor. This is in an area, a very nice area of Los Angeles. At least it was in 1959. I'm not sure about right now. The problem with Dr. Harold Perilsson is that he murdered his wife in cold blood on Christmas. So apparently, the family had a nice dinner. put the two younger kids to bed.

And as soon as that happened, Dr. Perilsson went and got a hammer from his garage. He returned to the bedroom and pummeled his wife's head repeatedly. Jeez. Yeah. Killed her. Wow. His eldest daughter, Judy, must have walked in because she saw what was going on. and then the doctor goes after her

and he's swinging the hammer at her and attacks her hits her in the head luckily the wound kind of grazes off you know it wasn't like a real landing blow right but he hit her a couple times but they were all kind of you know grazing type blows so she was basically just wounded and stunned, she's screaming out, don't kill me. And it's her screaming that alerts the neighbors who call the police.

So at this point, I don't, and never did really find out what drove Dr. Perilsson. There was no information that I found that really. Just being married? Yeah, it could be. We've all, you know, we've all been there at some point. what he does after after his oldest daughter gets away and she's screaming he knows the police are coming he basically downs a bunch of pills and basalts and and and bas salts which i'm sure they didn't have at that point but killed himself and he was dead before the ambulance even arrived

so the good thing about that is it left all of his other children alive right his oldest daughter that he attacked didn't die and he didn't go after any of the the two younger kids at all. I'm sure mentally they were fine after all this. Oh, yeah, I'm sure they lived a great life. Right. Had no trauma whatsoever. I'm sure they can't wait for Christmas to come around every year. Yeah, I really hope they're not listening to this.

That would be bad. I hope not. I would feel bad about that. You can write Mike Ferguson at True Crime all the time. actually this murder occurred on December 6 so I was around the holiday it was around the holiday it was around the holiday why I put it on but it was interesting enough but what really capped it for me and why I wanted to put it on the list was that you know it was December 6 but they already they lived in this big mansion and that's why I guess it's called the Los

Phyllis murder mansion but they had the mansion all decked out for Christmas right lights, tensile, whatever you had in 1959, they had it. They had all of the, they had the Christmas tree up already. And they had all the presents already under the tree.

So, I mean, that's pretty early, I guess, at least in my household, December 6th, to have everything ready. And maybe some families do it like that. But,

you know, we wait for San Francisco. to bring our gifts and and make sure everything's under the tree, you know, Christmas Eve. What am I talking about? There's no kids listening to this, right? There better not be any kids listening to this. I'm telling you right now. So, as I say, the Christmas tree is up.

The presents are wrapped under the tree. And they remain there today. Really? Yeah. That's what I find so interesting about this. What do you mean they remain there today? Like, this house is still there. Really?

And apparently from what I read, now I don't know how old what I was reading is, but this has been a destination for visitors interested in the gruesome and the macabre to visit. I don't know who owns it. I don't know who runs it. So the family said, after all this, don't open those. I guess. Leave the presence behind. Yeah.

That's freaky. And I know. It was bought and sold many times over the years. But for whatever reason, obviously, they must have known what happened there. Right. And maybe they bought it to, I don't know. What state was this in? It's California.

So California. Yeah, Los Angeles. So, you know, happened in 1959. Maybe one of our L.A. fans. We do have a lot of, we do have a lot of listeners in Los Angeles. So if anybody knows about the loss, Fieless murder mansion, send us an email

because I just thought that was so interesting that they left the presence wrap, they left the tree up, they left everything for visitors. I want to know what's in the presence. That might ruin it. I don't know. Could be something really cool.

Antique-like. But there's a no trespassing sign. So this is not a... So the family still owns it. I guess, or... No, I read that... I read that it had passed.

So it's what's so strange. So it's somebody's keepsake of brutal... I don't know. If I buy a house and I'm not... A mansion. A mansion. I'm not leaving that up as a sign

that every time I see it, I know a woman was... I'd like to get that backstory. Killed by her husband. Even with the no trespassing sign, it's not stopping people from... walking on the property. Right, trying to look in windows and view it.

That's an expensive keepsake. Because people are into that. So what do you got for us? So can you lighten us up a bit? I was going to go. Or go dark. I was going to keep the dark theme just one more time. Because, you know, I've got some friends over in Pittsburgh, PA,

and I thought they might enjoy just a Christmas murder. We'll hit them. So this was a go back about 100 years. But I just find it interesting. This was actually at a holiday dinner party. I thought you were going to say holiday in. No, back 100 years ago. Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn.

We won't let them sing, folks, don't worry. Sorry. So anyway, it's a holiday dinner party. And there's a young man, John Johnson, his wife Amy, and they have their friend Daniel over. Daniel's wife had a mutual friend named George Castle.

And they all gathered together at the Johnson's house and they were spending a nice evening celebrating Christmas with good food, drink. Eventually they started airing their past grievances. I guess you did that back then, right? Kind of like the Christmas New Year's thing.

Talk about your past grievances. Get over them. Or the sign fell out of episode. So the airing of grievances. Yeah. What was that called? With the metal pole. Festivus.

Festivus of the rest of us. Festivus for the rest of us. Yeah. So anyway, they were airing their grievances with each other. The booze started making its rounds. So about 7 o'clock after an argument over an old grudge turned a little bitter, Daniel, he grabs a gun and he tries to shoot. John Johnson. John's wife, Amy, sees him that the gun is going to be pointed at her husband.

So she leaps into her husband's defense and jumps right in front of him, which she ends up taking the bullet to her right side. Of course, at that point, Daniel realized what he did and he, you know, backs down and runs out of the house. However, at that point was too late that the wound that Amy suffered was fatal. So again, it's just, you know, here they are, everybody, enjoying the holidays. We've all been there. Get together with your family, your friends, your relatives, and start talking about things in the past.

And then sometimes at some of these family events that get heated. Yeah, it gets a little heated, you know, and, of course, this one went a little too far. And somebody pulled out the gun and decided to shoot somebody over an old argument. Mine get heated over card games. Is it over card games? Yeah. Because someone's cheating? It can be.

I know some of your family's listening, so you have to be careful. I do. Some people just get mad because they lose. Yeah. That makes them mad. Makes them mad, and they get upset and walk out, huh? Some people get upset because I eat the last of the certain food I like at mine, and they want to know why I didn't save it for them,

and I say, too bad. Too bad. It's so sad. once a year I get to eat this food so first come first get it's the way it should be absolutely you're done with that one I'm done with that one all right so we got time for one more yeah you do we do yeah all right all right so I'm going to talk about the Charlie Lawson murders and I'm going to go back a ways to 29 and this happened just before Christmas Charlie Lawson, who apparently had a very large family, his wife, Fanny.

There again, got a couple of Fannies here that we're talking about. You don't really hear that name anymore today. Not too much nowadays. His children are Marie 17, Arthur 16, Carrie 12, Maybel, 7, James 4, Raymond 2, and Mary Lou four months. Wow. So one, two, three, four, five, six, seven kids. So a lot of cold nights in that house. Yeah, seven, seven kids. That's a lot of kids. So we know what they were doing. They weren't sleeping a lot. Well, and do the math on Marie 17 and Arthur 16. So yeah. So anyway, Charlie's taking his family on what was described as

an uncommonly lavish trip to buy new outfits. I'm assuming they didn't have a ton of money, especially with seven kids. That many kids. So they needed these new outfits because they were going to take a family portrait. The problem is that the new outfits that they bought would turn out to be burial clothes for everyone. So on Christmas Day, this is when Charlie Lawful. begins slaughtering his whole family.

Wait, wait. So this is not a, this is not a cheerful Christmas. This is, you're going dark again. I'm ending on, yeah, this would probably be our last one.

I'm ending dark. Nice. So he starts shooting up his whole family with the shotgun. He shoots Carrie and Maybell first. And then starts to go after his wife. The boys they all tried to hide, as soon as they hear the shots. And Maurice is screaming.

But eventually he finds them all and he kills every one of them. Even the poor little four-month-old Mary Lou. Jeez. Maybe we should have ended with one of your funny ones. Yeah. So I'm sorry, there was one survivor and that was Arthur 16, who was not there, he returned to the farm,

or he escaped and went and got a police officer, and they returned to the farm to find out that his father, Charlie, had committed suicide. Probably the craziest part of this story that I had read was the motive. So on some of these other ones, we've kind of maybe known the motive. Some of them we really didn't know as much about it.

And this one, it was alleged, and I'll say alleged, even though this is 1929, so I don't think it matters, but it was alleged that Charlie and his eldest daughter, Marie, had been having an incestuous affair. It's a hard word to say. that's hard i can't say it yeah it's hard to think about i can't i wasn't asking you to try yeah that's good i can't even say illinois's right right so a friend of marie's and again marie is is the 17 year old daughter even claimed that marie told her she was pregnant with charlie's baby

her father's own her own father's baby and both charlie and his wife knew all about it so the theory is is that either Charlie was so ate up with guilt or he was so unwilling to be a dad to this child that he was going to be having with his 17 year old daughter that he didn't know what else to do and he just snaps and he slaughters the whole family. Either way, I mean, the reason why I wanted to do this one last is it, you know, it probably goes down. as one of the most heinous Christmas murders because keep in mind, this happened actually on Christmas. This is probably one of the most heinous murders in United States history.

So on Christmas. He wasn't happy. So he decides to take out the whole family and then himself instead of just taking himself out and letting the family live their own lives. Well, I've never understood that, right? We've seen that in a lot of news. or media stories where somebody went on a rampage and they killed a bunch of people and then killed themselves.

Sure, your first story. Yeah. Was that? Yeah. Right? Why not just kill yourselves and be done with it? Yeah. I mean, I'm not advocating that anybody should commit suicide.

Well. But if your plan is to go out and kill a large number of people and you know you're ultimately going to kill yourself, just take care of yourself. Yeah. I don't get that. I mean, is it fame? Is it not?

Obviously not in 1929. No. He wasn't looking for fame. Which is even strange for 1929. I'm even thinking, you know, you're better with a shotgun than I am, but I'm just thinking

how fast you had to be, how fast you had to be with a shotgun back in 1929 to go around the house to shoot the wife and seven kids. Yeah, one got away, but still, I mean, you'd have to be pretty good with a shotgun. Well, I guess it depends on what...

And it corral them all, so make sure you can get it off. And I think... If it's a double barrel, I mean... Yeah, and I'm sure the kids were shocked, too, that they weren't scattering and running. They just probably were shocked what was happening. Well, it said they tried to hide, and of course he found them, and they were probably pretty easy targets. So not very good at hide-and-seek, then.

So, yeah, sorry to end it. on such a downer. You got to have one. You got something. Something to go out on a, I, I wish you did. I wish I did. You don't have another giant Christmas weed tree story. I wish I, yeah, I can't even finish this sandwich now. All right, Gibby. So we wanted to do just kind of a hodgepodge of Christmas stories for people, you know, they didn't have to pay too close attention to they could listen to on on their new uh their newly unwrapped gifts um but we definitely wanted to get a christmas episode out and we wanted to definitely tell all of our listeners that we wish them a a very merry christmas and and uh yeah happy holidays yep happy holidays and again how

unbelievably grateful we are for the number of people that have been listening to this show. It's beyond, I think, either of our, we couldn't have imagined that it would take off this quickly. So again, thank you very much. Send us a message. Let us know how your holiday went. Yeah, definitely.

We love the interaction. Absolutely. Those of you that have been interacting with us on Twitter and Facebook, you know that we're very responsive, email. We got an email from a gentleman in Ireland. Yeah. The other day, which I just thought was amazing. It was pretty cool.

And I think he ended up with, you know, keep up the good job, lads. Yeah. And I was doing it in my head with an Irish brogue. Yeah. It was awesome. Just to think we're out in Ireland. Yeah. I thought it was pretty cool.

So for Mike and Gibby, we really want to wish you a Merry Christmas. And I'll say, stay safe. and keep your own time ticking.