True Crime Campfire - Creep: Serial Killer Wayne Nance Pt 2

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

When we left you at the end of part 1, Wayne Nance had begun his career as a serial killer with the murder of Donna Pounds. As much as he tried to blend into normal society—joining the Navy, working as a bouncer at a busy Western-themed bar—he could never completely hide the strangeness…and darkness brewing inside. Not everyone who saw it up close lived to tell about it, but as we’ll see in this episode, there were two who did. Join us for part 2 of this terrifying story. Join us live at Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp in Equinunk, PA, September 10-13th! Visit ⁠badmagicproductions.com⁠ for more info and to buy tickets.   Tickets are on sale now for CrimeWave 2.0! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! The cruise is Feb. 8-12, 2027. Sources: John Coston, To Kill and Kill Again https://www.eastidahonews.com/2021/05/1980s-montana-shooting-victim-identified-through-dna/ https://www.montanarightnow.com/missoula/sheriff-ids-remains-found-36-years-ago-near-crystal-creek/article_f42f8a76-b1aa-11eb-8aa2-bbf7674e53d1.html Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. When we left you at the end of part one, Wayne Nance had begun his career as a serial killer with the murder of Donna Pounds.

As much as he tried to blend into normal society, joining the Navy working as a bouncer at a busy Western-themed bar, he could never completely hide the strangeness and darkness brewing inside. Not everyone who saw it up close lived to tell about it, but as we'll see in this episode, there were some who did. This is part two of Creep, serial killer Wayne Nance. Wayne was difficult to get along with and hated being told what to do, so it's no surprise that he didn't do well in the Navy.

things started out okay. He was obviously intelligent, so the Navy sent him to the nuclear prototype school in Idaho Falls, but they kicked him out after a year, and he had a note saying, demonstrated unreliability fixed his record. Unreliability being one of those traits you probably don't want in somebody who's training to operate nuclear reactors.

We got Homer Simpson over here. He was transferred to the destroyer USS Robeson, where he served a mediocre two years before being caught with weed, LSD, two butterfly knives that were absolutely not allowed in the Navy, and a pair of binoculars that he'd stolen. In November of 1977, Wayne got a general discharge by reason of misconduct and slunk back to Missoula to move back in with his parents. Womp, womp, womp. His military career had been brief and inglorious, but he immediately started decorating his room with naval memorabilia and military chotchkes, like, he, he immediately started to be brief,

like he'd been Frickin' General Patton or some shit. Other than his failure at nuclear school and his discharge, Wayne's time in the Navy is pretty opaque. Given he left Missoula in a hurry with the suspicion of murder hanging over him, it's natural to wonder if he committed

more crimes while he was in the service. The Robeson was based out of San Diego, and there is no shortage of unsolved missing persons cases from California in the mid-70s, but somehow I don't think so. In serial offenders, there's often an extended cooling off period after the first murder, partly driven just by nervousness about getting caught.

The authorities in Missoula were still ineffectually investigating Donna Pounds's murder, and Wayne got called back to a grand jury on the case in the middle of his service. So he'd never felt like he was in the clear, so I'd be kind of surprised if he killed again so quickly, but who knows. With some serial killers, we know a lot of details about their lives and crimes, and that's usually because they talked, either as part of a confession or in later interviews with groups like the FBI's behavioral science team. Wayne never talked to anyone, so there's an element of supposition about a couple of the deaths associated with him, but before we get to his next possible victim, I want to talk a little bit about precipitating stressors.

These are pressures or events a killer might experience shortly before they commit a crime, a breakup, losing a job, even just being embarrassed in postures. public. They can be triggers for violent fantasies to become more intense and ultimately spill over into violent actions. For a guy as self-important as Wayne, getting humiliatingly booted out of the Navy definitely fits the bill. In the late spring of 1978, just a few months after he got back to Missoula, Wayne visited Seattle and stayed for a while with a Navy buddy. In July of 78, also in Seattle, Devana Nelson disappeared. Devana was 15 years old, a wayfish blonde who was five foot two and weighed less than 100 pounds.

Her parents were in the middle of a nasty divorce. She'd been staying with her dad in Illinois and Louisiana and had only recently come to her mom's place in Seattle. When she didn't come home one night, her family thought she'd run away. Maybe she had. A year and a half later, in January of 1980, a slow-moving Burlington, northern freight train was chugging along about 15 miles southeast from Missoula. Beside the tracks, raised on a low embankment was I-90, the main east-west road through Montana.

A chain-link fence ran along the bottom of the embankment, and the crew of the train were startled to see what looked like a human skeleton slumped against the fence. They couldn't be sure. Maybe it was the remains of a deer that got hit by a vehicle on the highway. They called it in, and shortly afterward a railroad repairman drove to the spot and trudged through the brown winter grass to take a look at what the crew had seen. He found the remains of a young woman, almost completely skeletonized by long exposure to the elements and carrion birds. A faded flower print dress was pushed up around her neck. There was far too little left of the body to do any testing for sexual assault, but there was no underwear on the skeleton. Injuries on one of the ribs suggested she'd been stabbed,

and that was probably the cause of death. Her body had been tossed from I-90 like a bag of garbage, rolling down the embankment to come to a stop against the chain-link fence. She'd sat there, for a year and a half, only being noticed when her bones were exposed enough to catch the winter sunlight. Five years after her discovery, dental records would identify the body as that of Devana Nelson, killed not long after she'd gone missing from Seattle.

Did Wayne Nance kill her? I think he did, although we'll never know for sure, or how their paths may have crossed. Maybe he picked her up hitchhiking, maybe he just saw this tiny girl on the street and knew he'd be able to overpower her. Devonna Nelson was probably his second victim and carelessly discarded.

He'd just gotten lucky that it took so long for her body to be found. That doesn't mean he was always careless. The U.S. around Missoula is a huge wilderness area about the size of England, full of mountains and forests. There are a lot of dark, secret places where a body could lay undiscovered forever. We don't know how many people Wayne Nance killed. We do know, however, that another major precipitating stressor soon came along. In April of 1980, Wayne's dad, George Nance, got back into town after midnight. He was a long-haul trucker and had been driving for dinner.

days. He wanted to sit in front of the TV and have a beer, and he expected his wife, Charlene, to be there and get it for him. But as he pulled up to the house, he saw right away that Charlene's sporty little car wasn't in the driveway, and his temper, never far from the surface, started to burn. He knew where she'd be. Charlene had two jobs, as a waitress at Tabor's truck stop, and a nighttime gig as a barmaid at the cabin, the western-themed bar where Wayne also worked as a bouncer. The cabin was not the classiest of joins. and the manager had no problem with the staff getting hammered while they worked. Charlene enjoyed that and often stayed at the bar after her shift was done.

George marched in and demanded she come home, and within seconds everyone in there got to watch them have a screaming argument, which was not exactly a rare occurrence. They moved things out to the parking lot, where Charlene, yelling with every step, stalked over to her car and got behind the wheel. She roared out of the parking lot, George scrambled into his pickup truck and tried to follow,

but Charlene's car was faster and she raced away from him. Charlene burned rubber across the river on Deer Creek Road, then sped along a long, easy curve. There was a huge ponderosa pine tree beside the road at the apex of the curve, and Charlene drove the sports car straight into it. The impact tore the car in half down the middle. Charlene died instantly. There was no indication that she had braked or tried.

tried to turn away from the tree, her death was ruled a suicide. Wow. Before his mom's death, Wayne had enrolled in the University of Montana, where he kept a 3.53 GPA, despite crashing and burning in a couple early courses. One was an English course on modern fantasy, which I'm guessing he lost interest in after finding out it wasn't all about Conan the Barbarian. And the other was introduction to woman, which I am 100%... He took just to Mac on girls.

Oh, my God, man. You got to love those 70s course titles, right? Introduction to woman. Not women. Not women's studies. Just introduction to woman. And I can just, I know what this professor looked like. I just can see her in my head.

I can just envision the hair short, but like fluffy. No makeup. clothes draped. I just can see her. The scent of petulia wafting around her. Oh yeah. Especially in the 70s, definitely. Yeah.

And I have actually heard guys say before that they took like women's studies classes to Mack on girls. So I think you're definitely right about that. And that's the joke, right? But here's the thing is like, Wayne Nance doesn't take that as a joke. at like right like men like that's the thing that in in tv shows people say is like I'm going to take women's studies to to meet women yeah and well he wanted an introduction to woman you know what I mean he needed that yeah he needed an introduction to woman real bad he was probably pretty pissed when he

figured out what the glass really was oh god it's not a pickup artist class hon god he would have he would have done numbers in the early 2000 He would have gone viral so hard with a fucking phantasm or whatever his name was, the guy with the peacocking and the negging with the stupid hat. Wayne got A's in his art classes. He started class in the fall after his mom had died, but obviously had given up, racking up a bunch of Fs and soon dropping out. That doesn't mean he wasn't busy, though.

The night of July 3rd was hot, at least by Missoula standards. most people didn't have central AC, especially not in trailer homes like the one Denise Tate lived in. She'd left the windows open and the front door ajar when she'd gone out, hoping the place would stay cool. Sure enough, the trailer was pleasant when she got back. She shut everything up and got ready for bed. In her bedroom, Denise felt her skin crawl as she discovered that someone had tied lengths of rope to her bedposts, the rope looping down around the frame of the bed. There was no way for Denise to know it, but that was exactly the way the ropes binding Donna Pounds had been tied when she'd been murdered six years before. Denise thought this must be some kind of practical joke.

She untied the ropes, made sure her trailer was securely locked up and went to bed. She called the police in the morning, but not before she'd already thrown out the rope. It had to have been Wayne, who tied the ropes on her bed, setting the scene so he could more easily restrain his victim, just like he'd done it. at the Pounce house. Who knows why he didn't follow through with this, but if I had to guess, I'd say he found the preparation alone exciting enough to satisfy his need in the moment,

and we'll all be much happier if we don't think too deeply about exactly what that entailed. But he was clearly having powerful fantasies about killing again. Doesn't this remind you so much, by the way, of Russell Williams? Like, getting off on just being in her house,

leaving a creepy little calling card to make sure she knew her privacy had been violated. Ugh. At the cabin, Wayne had become friendly with a fellow bouncer, Rick Davis.

Rick was a Vietnam vet, a former Marine who'd experienced some truly awful combat and now suffered from PTSD. After he got close with Wayne,

Rick tried to explain his condition, telling Wayne about a terrible fight when his artillery placement had been overrun, blood everywhere,

people getting shot in the head just a horrific scene. His point, of course, was how traumatic it had been, but Wayne just laughed. He thought it was a hoot. He wanted to know more, especially the gory stuff. Wayne was a good bouncer, but insisted on letting Rick take the lead. I get real violent, Wayne told him. I don't want to lose my temper. It was clear to Rick, an actual tough guy, that it was hugely important to Wayne that Rick think he was a tough guy, too.

The cabin was a pretty easy place to hook up in. Wayne sometimes had women in. Wayne sometimes had women interested in him, but he always fumbled the ball, either by just being weird and awkward or just not interested. Like a lot of serial killers, Wayne remained fundamentally adolescent in a lot of ways. If he was attracted to one of the women at the cabin, he didn't tell Rick that he liked her or would like to date her or even share some old-fashioned grown-up filth about what he thought about her body. He'd just say, I really want to do it with her. This was years before Beavis and Butthead was on TV, which in a lot of ways would have been like looking in a mirror for Wayne.

Whoa, those chick really wants it. Yeah, yeah, we're going to score. Like, that's the level we're dealing with here. Wayne didn't pursue his interest in any of these women, though, or rather he didn't pursue that interest in any normal way. Later, investigators would find stacks of detailed, hand-drawn plans of houses and apartments in Wayne's bedroom, including those of many of the women he knew from the cabin.

He'd been in their homes, sometimes while they were out, sometimes while they were sleeping. Take a moment to shake that off, y'all. Such horrible nightmare fuel. Yeah, it's just, oh my God. In the fall of 1981, Rick Davis left the cabin and got a job in the warehouse at Conlon's furniture. A few months later, he suggested that Wayne apply for a part-time. gig there. When Rick left at the end of 1982, Wayne got the newly vacated full-time position, working in the warehouses and making local deliveries in the company truck. Conlands quickly became

the center of his life. It gave Wayne most of what he wanted in life, getting into strangers' houses and meeting women he could obsess and fantasize about. When customers cheerfully invited Wayne to come right in with whatever furniture they'd ordered, he would surreptitiously memorize as much of the house as he could, so he could draw a map of it later. Some customers just left a key with one of the Conlands saleswomen, so the furniture could be delivered while they were out, and that gave Wayne a chance to make a thorough investigation of their homes. Janet Wicker and her husband had furniture delivered from Conlands to their townhouse in the cobblestone apartment complex close by the Clark Fork River.

On April 27, 1983, Janet got home just before dark, when her husband, husband was still at work. She unlocked the door and stepped in, reaching for the light switch. A hand shot out of the darkness inside and grabbed her arm, pulling her inside. A masked man stood there. Wayne Nance. I just want money, he said. Janet screamed. Shut up, Wayne said. I want money. I'll tie you up if you don't cooperate. Janet kept screaming, and Wayne started hitting her, shouting, shut up, shut up. He pulled a knife from the sheath on his belt and said,

Shut up, shut up, or I'll stab you. Just shut up. Janet froze. Wayne told her that everything would be fine if she cooperated, then he forced her up the stairs at knife point. As soon as they were upstairs, they both heard the front door open. Janet's husband had come home. Wayne was gone in a flash, racing for the second floor balcony,

vaulting over the railing and sprinting for the darkness by the river as soon as he hit the ground. The Wickers called the police, but Wayne had disappeared into the night by the time they got there. Much later, police would find a detailed drawing of the Wicker's apartment in Wayne's room. He'd even drawn his pre-planned escape route

down to the river, using little footprints to mark it out. That is simultaneously so creepy and so dorky. I don't know how these two can coexist, but they definitely do. It's also, to your previous point, So childlike. Mm-hmm.

This encounter with Janet was terrifying and interesting, too. Wayne did not just want money. He would use that line later to try to get victims to cooperate, deliberately lowering the stakes so they might not try anything too desperate. But what he really wanted was to get Janet into the bedroom and sexually assault her. Would he have killed her? Possibly, but not definitely. This attack was meticulous.

planned and carefully executed. It's hard to believe that Wayne hadn't done this at least several times before. If he'd recently killed people in this way, that would have got a lot of attention. If he'd raped his victims and left, though, that wouldn't necessarily be the case. Most sexual assaults in the U.S. go unreported, often because of a combination of shame, fear, and the victim's belief that they won't be taken seriously. there's an excellent chance that Wayne Nance was a serial rapist as well as a serial killer, which is not that uncommon for these kinds of creeps. We'll continue with 1983 in just a minute,

but first we have to jump forward a couple of years to September of 1985, where a hunter was tracking a black bear up the dry bed of Crystal Creek. He had his eyes on the ground, and suddenly his attention was grabbed by a pale, round shape that didn't fit in with the rest of the rocks on the creek bed. It turned out to be the top of a human skull. Captain Weatherman of the Missoula County Sheriff's Office led deputies farther upstream

where they found most of the rest of the skeleton. The naked body had been dumped there maybe two years before. It was now almost entirely skeletonized due to the elements and animal activity. The skull had come loose and rolled down the slope where the spring waters had washed it downstream. Forensic examination of the bones would provide the vaguest indications of an identity. A young woman around 22 years old, between 5 foot and 5'2,

she had been shot twice, once in the back of the head, and once in the temple. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drape you denim wide leg.

Last week we discussed the murder of Marcy Bachman, who had briefly been Wayne's girlfriend until he murdered her. He had shot Marcy once in the back of the head and twice in the temple, then buried her naked body in a shallow grave. The similarities with this new crime scene discovered nine months after Marcy were unmistakable. With no identification, Captain Weatherman temporarily named this new victim Chrissy Crystal Creek. She'd likely been killed just a couple months after the failed attack on Janet Wicker. Her body was found less than three miles from Marcy Bachman's. When Devonna Nelson's body had been found back in 1980, it had been just 10 miles in the other direction, all close by I-90 as it wound through the Clark Fork Valley.

The real identity of Chrissy Crystal Creek was discovered through genetic genealogy in 2021, almost 40 years after she'd gone missing. She was Janet Lee Lucas from Spokane, Washington, who'd been 23 years old in the summer of 1983, when she was last seen alive in Sandpoint, Idaho, about 150 miles from Missoula. Janet's family have chosen to not share much about her history, which is absolutely they're right. We know she had a five-year-old son and is now a grandmother four

times over. We don't know why she was in Idaho or how she might have crossed paths with Wayne Nance. Like Devonna Nelson, there was too little evidence available from Janet's body and too little information about her whereabouts to draw an exact evidentiary line connecting her with Wayne Nance, but I think we can use some common sense here. Wayne killed Marcy Bachman and Janet's murder was almost a carbon copy. Look, Wayne Nance isn't going to sue us, okay? I'm saying it. He absolutely killed Janet Lee Lucas.

Allegedly. Definitely, definitely, allegedly. If it walks like a duck and kills like a duck. And I mean, we're talking Missoula, Montana. There are not a lot. I don't think that's a super populous area. Like, the idea of there being two people of this type in such a small population, like, I just think it's common sense.

Two months before Wayne started at Conlin's Furniture in 1982, they'd hired a new saleswoman, a petite blonde named Chris Wells. Within a couple of years, she was the sales manager, and the year after that, she was managing the whole store. She was Wayne's boss, and he was obsessed with her. Chris and her husband Doug had gone to the same high school in the endless flat plains of Western Illinois, with Doug a couple years older. He was on the football team, and Chris was a church. cheerleader. Chris was a beautiful girl and definitely caught his eye, but they didn't start dating

until Doug was back in town from college at the University of Montana in Missoula. They weren't particularly similar, but they made a really solid couple. Chris was bright and quick, and Doug was quiet and thoughtful. He'd fallen in love with Montana, but soon realized that college wasn't for him. He loved the outdoor life, hunting and fishing, and he got a job on a logging crew. One day, he watched his boss fall from the logging truck, break his back, and die almost immediately, and Doug decided that maybe working indoors had its advantages. He started gunsmithing school. Chris, meanwhile, had gone to college in Iowa and gotten a degree in interior design, and then briefly worked as a flight attendant for TWA. She and Doug had only been semi-serious until now, but Chris decided that

he was where she wanted to be, and she packed up her car and headed west. They briefly went back to Illinois to try to make more money, where they got married in a courthouse wedding, but they both missed Montana and soon headed back there. Chris soon got her job at Conlands, and Doug's gunsmithing business started taking off. They got a little house on Parker Court and started building a comfortable life for themselves. I don't know if we can unravel the spider web of his psychology, but although Wayne started fantasizing about Chris Wells almost as soon as he met her, his obsession intensified as she quickly got promoted and gained authority over him.

Let's get a picture of Wayne at Conlands. He was a stocky, square, powerfully built dude with pale skin and frizzy red hair and a beard. He wore glasses with a slight tint. There was no AC in the Conlands warehouse, and in summer the guys often took their shirts off when they worked, which showed off the tattoos Wayne had gotten in the Navy and afterward. Because his imagination hadn't advanced since he was four, 14 years old, these made him look like the cover of a generic 80s heavy metal album. Snake, spiders, bats, the grim reaper's scy.

Wiggy-a-wiggily, wow. I'm guessing he used ink to cover up the pentagram he'd burned into his forearm in high school. Nerd. And listen, if you have those kinds of tattoos, I'm sure they look very cool on you. Oh, yeah. You have seen a picture of, you have seen a picture of him at this point. This is Wayne. He's a poser. He's a loser, okay?

He's a nerd. I have these tattoos. He's a fucking nerd, okay? Jesus. Yeah, he's a fucking loser. God. Wayne was sullen and moody, but he was a fast, reliable worker. He seemed to delight in doing more than he was asked for,

building up a martyr's grudge that he really enjoyed. Ugh. You know, the kind of coworker. We've all had them, right? guy that always is like, I come here early and I stay late and I bring my work home with me. It's like, all right. Nobody else does anything around here. Yeah. It's like, no one asks you to do that, buddy. The employees at Commons were divided by gender, all men in the warehouse, all women on the salesroom floor and an admin. Most of these ladies were old enough to be Wayne's mother. He was always polite and told them they looked nice,

remembered their birthdays and wedding anniversaries and brought them flowers or little homework trinkets, which on the surface might seem kind of nice, but also why is someone at my job thinking about me this much? Yeah, I'm good. You know, that's just freaking creepy. For Wayne, I think this was the problem psychopaths often have when trying to mimic normal human behavior, that old line about how they hear the words but not the music. He didn't know how weird he was being. Also, I think this appealed to the part of him that enjoyed creeping around in other people's houses. It was an intrusion, making himself a part of their lives.

One evening, Chris Doug and a few friends went to a wine tasting party and afterwards decided to round out the night at the cabin. Chris kept herself pretty cool and efficient at work, but by now she'd had a few chardonnays and was feeling bouncy. Wayne, she called out with a big smile as she saw him work in the door. We thought we'd show our friends from California a real cowboy bar, so here we are. Wayne turned on his usual gracious mask and let the group in with no cover charge. It's on me, he said. He was loving, playing the big man in front of his crush. Chris thanked him. As they all went in, Wayne called out,

Hey, save a dance for me. Sure. Chris called back. The cabin was jumping, as it usually was on the weekends. After a while, Chris said to Doug, I'm going to ask Wayne to dance. She loved to dance, and Doug did not. But he never minded when she danced with other guys.

Tonight, though, he said, I don't know if I would egg him on. Oh, come on, just one dance, Chris said. I just wouldn't do it, Doug said. Not this guy. He, more than Chris, got the impression that Wayne's opinion of Chris had an uncomfortable intensity behind it. And he was also currently more sober than her.

But Chris wasn't asking for permission. She got up and danced with Wayne. On Monday morning, Chris was at her desk in her office when Wayne asked if he could come in for a minute. Her heart sank as he came into the room. I have something for you, he said awkwardly, and handed her a card. Y'all buckle up for this. Oh, God.

On this card, he'd done a watercolor drawing of a sexy woman in her underwear sitting in a giant wine glass with her legs hanging over the side. He'd inscribed it, first wine tasting. No, no, sir, E. Bob. Both offended and embarrassed, Chris didn't know how to react. As soon as Wayne left, she threw the card in the trash, already dreading the I Told You So, she'd hear from Doug later on. Oh, come on, Doug, man, she's suffered enough already. Doug had good radar, though, didn't he? Some people do. Wayne was a creep. Several women started receiving obscene phone calls after they'd had furniture delivered from Conlands.

One changed her number and the call stopped. When she got something else from Conlands, the call started again immediately. Wayne found a way up into the crawl space over the woman's bathrooms at the store and on his lunch break would go up there and stare down through a ceiling vent over the stalls. And thank you so much for this, you fucking asshole, because this has always been a fear of mine. Like, I can't go in a public bathroom without thinking about this. I've been this way since I was a kid. And now I know that at least one asshole actually did it and was a flippin' serial killer. So thank you so much for me never being able to relax in a public bathroom ever again. Asshole.

Boy. And it got worse. He soon wanted a different angle, so he drilled a peephole in the wall. When Chris Wells went for a run around her quiet suburban neighborhood, she had no idea that Wayne was often hidden in the bushes, taking pictures of her in her shorts. Wayne had made himself a pest at Conlands when he'd gotten a little Kodak Instomatic disc camera, snapping endless pictures of the,

ladies who worked there and more of Chris than anyone until she told him to stop bringing the camera to work. In his bedroom, Wayne kept most of the pictures he'd taken in a box, but not the ones of Chris. He had a separate album just for those. The first page was a big picture of her smiling face. Wayne had cut her signature out of a documented work and pasted it below the photograph. There were pages and pages of Chris photos, cropped to remove anything and anyone else. Wayne had written on the back of some of the photos. Chris Zimmerman Wells. I love you, Wayne. Chris Zimmerman Wells. I'm crazy about KZ. Chris, I want you to live with me and my lazy boy, Wayne. Great, googly-moogly. Again, he is both terrifying and ridiculous. Like if Stephen Seagall

started shooting up movie theaters, just like it doesn't go together. How are you such a dweeb and so terrifying at the same time. In his toolbox at work, he kept a note he'd pasted together from various work order messages Chris had written by hand, including an order for love seats and lazy boy recliner, so he could have a note that read, I love you, big boy. My dude. Oh my, God, that's cringe. Like, that's physically painful. I love you, big boy. Oh, my God. And Wayne, of course, would not know love if it's shit in his hair, so just shut the hell up. He broke into Chris and Doug's house, found her teal green silk wedding dress, which she kept in a garment bag, and smeared it with blood, most likely his own. Then he put the dress back in the bag.

He was, to say the least, not a fan of Chris's marriage to Doug. Doug often came by to pick Chris up for lunch, or just to drop off a sandwich from the deli if she was busy. Whenever Wayne him, he'd clench his little fists and his face would turn as dark as a thunder cloud. People at Conlands often talked about Chris and Doug as a single unit, as is common with a couple. And Wayne would always get mad when he heard somebody do it. He hated Doug Wells for no other reason than that Doug had what Wayne wanted. In August of 1985, a pleasant, attractive couple in their 30s came into Conlands and bought a living room set, but wanted to wait until November to have it delivered. when they'd move into the new house they'd built for themselves.

Mike Shook was a high school history teacher, and his wife Teresa stayed home to look after their three young kids. They lived about 50 miles south of Missoula, a couple miles outside of the pretty little town of Hamilton. It was a beautiful place, rolling green land close to the Bitterroot River, with mountains cradling the valley to the east and west. Mike and Teresa were a happy, loving couple, building a small, beautiful life for themselves and their family.

In November, Wayne and another guy from the warehouse, Mike, drove down to Hamilton with the furniture. Teresa was at home when they arrived and happily let them in to deposit the couch, love seat, chair, and ottoman. She signed the delivery receipt and thanked them. Wayne fixed the receipt to his clipboard, and he and Mike got back in the truck for the hour drive back to Missoula. There was nothing at all strange about the delivery, although by the time they got back to Conlands, Mike could tell Wayne was falling. into one of his dark moods.

There was nothing unusual about that. One of the ladies who worked the sales floor, Sheila Claxton, had family in Hamilton and knew the Shooks a little. She came by the warehouse later on and asked how the delivery had gone. That Mike Shook's an asshole, Wayne said. Sheila asked if Mike had done something to upset Wayne during the delivery. No, Wayne said. You know, I used to buy drugs from his brother, who was one of the biggest pushers in the northwest, and his brother was killed by the mafia. Sheila was completely astonished. She knew that this was bullshit.

Not only was Mike Shook's brother still alive, he was a police officer in Hamilton. Like people had done throughout his life, she shrugged this off as Weird Wayne being Weird Wayne. Is there a lot of mafia out in Montana in Missoula, Montana? I would think not, but I could be wrong. She didn't know that Mike hadn't even. even been home when Wayne made the delivery. Wayne had never met him. But Mike had a beautiful wife, so Wayne hated him. When serial killers choose to kill, it's usually because of a combination of circumstance and the clock in their heads ticking down to the point where their violent compulsions take over. Wayne was consumed by a frustrated obsession with Chris Wells. The Shooks lived on a

quiet country road, and Teresa was beautiful. It was enough. On the evening of December, December 12th, Mike Shook sat on his new couch watching TV. Their oldest kid, second-grade or Matt, was already in bed. The younger two, Luke and Megan, were helping Teresa in the kitchen as she cut dough to make some ornamental sugar cookies to hang from the Christmas tree. Right after the cookies went into the oven, there was a knock on the door. Mike and Teresa looked at each other. Did you see any lights? Teresa asked. Mike had not. The headlights of any cars, approaching their house would have shown through the windows, but before they had time to wonder any further, little four-year-old Luke had scampered to the front door and opened it.

Wayne Nance, eyes wide behind his tinted glasses, pushed in. I'm Conan the barbarian, he announced. Mike jumped up to his feet. I want money, Wayne said. Stand back. I want money. Nobody will get hurt. All I want is money.

Mike could see that Wayne had a gun in his hand and a big knife in a sheath at his belt. He tried to convince Mike and Teresa that if they let him tie them up, he'd just steal some money and leave. Eleven years ago, when he'd murdered Donna Pounds, Wayne had fired a warning shot to convince her he was serious. He did the same now, but he missed. The 22 bullet hit Teresa in the leg, and despite the pain and fear she was in, this hero mom held herself up on the kitchen counter and told Luke and Megan to get behind her. Oh, God. Mike refused to let Wayne tie him up. up. Wayne clubbed him over the head with a candlestick, then tied him up while he was stunned.

Then he pulled the knife from his belt and stabbed Mike in the chest. Mike slumped sideways, bleeding horribly and quickly dying. Teresa grabbed a tennis racket and swung for Wayne, but he overpowered her and forced her and the kids upstairs at gunpoint. He shoved Luke into the bedroom with Matt, who was still sleeping, and put little Megan into the crib beside her parents' bed. Wayne tied Teresa to the four posts of the bed, pulled down her pants, cut off her panties and braw with his knife, then raped her. Then he stabbed her in the chest, killing her. Either before or after he killed her, Wayne had put the pillow over Teresa's face. When killers cover a victim's face after the crime, it can sometimes indicate a degree of regret or some kind of attempt to undo what they just did.

I don't think Wayne Nance was capable of those feelings, and I suspect that. he covered Teresa's face before he raped her, so he could pretend she was Chris Wells. Oh my God. I was about to go into the whole thing about, you know, shame versus guilt and that he might be ashamed of what he'd done. That doesn't mean he has remorse, you know. But you know what? I think you're right. That makes a lot of sense. And that is freaking bone-chilling. Oh my God, that poor woman. After Teresa was dead, Wayne used the knife to dig around in her ankle to try and recover the 22 round. But he failed. He left the house, but came back shortly after to rummage through things. He stole Mike's silver dollar collection and couldn't resist the handmade stag-handled knife

that Mike's dad had given him the previous Christmas. He also took a foot-high plaster statue of a stag that he thought would make a good Christmas gift for his own dad. The statue was unique, hand-cast by Mike's sister-in-law. Then Wayne tried to burn the house down and kill the kids. From the parents behind law and order comes a missing. the whole family can enjoy. Patrick Pickle Bottom Everyday Mysteries. Step into the whimsical world of Patrick Pickle Bottom, a precocious 11-year-old with a love for reading and an uncanny ability to

solve mysteries. Inspired by the beloved children's book of the same name, this podcast vividly brings Patrick's tales of deduction and everyday adventures to life as he unravels baffling enigmas and solves clever cases. Patrick Picklebottom Everyday Mysteries is perfect. for kids, and is just as entertaining for grownups who love a good mystery. The whole family can listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm just going to tell you now the children did not die. They got out alive despite Wayne's best efforts. He shoved wooden bar stools from the kitchen under the stairwell, then piled magazines underneath them and set fire to them with a match. He waited for the stools to catch, then left, shutting the front door behind him. With restricted

At air flow, the house never caught fully a light, but it smoldered and smoked. In their room, with the smoke alarm blaring, Matt and Luke tried to open the window, but couldn't. They got on the floor as smoke filled the room and soon fell unconscious. In her crib, Megan fell into a coma. There were no roaring flames for neighbors to see. The fire soon burned itself out. It was zero degrees outside. The house started to become deathly cold. In the morning, a family friend Greg Lakes brought his young son Jesse over to spend the day with Luke. There was no answer to his knocks, and eventually Greg tried the front door, which was open. Akrid's smoke came out, and he could see Mike shook lying on his side in the living room.

Greg came close. He didn't see the blood or Mike's injuries, but he could see that Mike was absolutely still. He was dead. Greg went out and told Jesse to stay. where he was, then went inside and called the sheriff's office to tell them there had been a fire and someone was dead. He went to the back bedroom and found Matt and Luke on the floor, unconscious and covered in vomit, but alive. He carried them into the living room and put them on the couch, then opened the front and side doors to get some air moving through. Then Greg went into the main

bedroom. In his alarm and with smoke still in the air, he didn't notice the ropes binding Teresa shook to the bed, just saw that there was a bloody towel on her leg, a pillow over her head, and she was deathly still. She was dead, but Megan was unconscious but breathing in the crib. He took her down to the living room and called the sheriff again to make sure the authorities knew the situation was urgent. There's two dead adults, there's three kids that are alive, I don't know what to do. The dispatcher told him to take the unconscious children outside. geez, it's 10 degrees outside, Greg said. The dispatcher told him to wrap them up,

but get them outside and away from any fumes. They were laid out in a row on the frozen snow when the first responding officer arrived. Megan nearly died in the ambulance when her lungs collapsed, but all three children would make full recoveries. Physically, at least, their lives had been torn to pieces. Greg Lakes thought there had been an accidental house fire

and that Mike had almost made it to the front of the same. door before being overcome by smoke. The awful truth was soon apparent. Mike and Teresa had been stabbed to death. The investigation into the Hamilton murders didn't go anywhere, wasting time going after the wrong suspect. Things weren't helped a whole lot by Sheriff Dale Dye, who jealously guarded his county's autonomy. If deputies from Missoula County came into town or even just passed through on their way to Idaho or wherever, Sheriff Dye insisted they came by his office and explain their presence. He kept the details of the shook investigation

as sealed and secret as he could and didn't share much or ask for help from other local authorities. If the investigation had been more open, there's every chance that someone in law enforcement in Missoula would have recognized the similarities with Donna Pounds' murder

and the suspicion that it hung over Wayne Nance. This is what happens when they get into those stupid little territorial pissing contests. Wayne, though, didn't know the investigation was floundering. He followed it avidly in the newspapers. In August, he read Sheriff Dye declared that they had new evidence and a new suspect, and Wayne started to freak out. Who knows what this new evidence was, or if it even existed?

Sheriff Dye had a habit of promising big results just around the corner that never materialized. Wayne felt the stress of impending capture hanging over him and fell into a funk that was dark and gloomy, even by his standards. I'm just getting tired. I'm just getting tired, he said to one of the guys at work. Nobody cares. It doesn't make a difference. You work your ass off, and it just doesn't seem like it makes any difference.

I'm sick and tired. I don't care anymore. I don't care. I just don't care. Asshole. Earlier in the day, when Doug Wells came in to see Chris, Wayne had intercepted him with a smile, brightly asking how Doug was and asking if he wanted to coffee.

It was the only time anyone, had seen Wayne being even remotely pleasant to Chris's husband. It was because Wayne had decided to kill him. On the evening of September 3rd, Chris and Doug came home from a fun afternoon shooting and barbecuing with friends and saw an orange and white pickup truck parked half on the street and half on their yard. Look at this guy, Doug said, irritated. When they were inside, Chris headed straight for the bedroom, while Doug grabbed a flashlight and went out to look at the truck. He shined it in and saw somebody slum in the front seat. Somebody had too much.

Doug called out to Chris when he got back inside. That was as far as he could get, so he came in for a landing and was trying to get a few zes. Doug the gunsmith went down to the basement to clean the gun he'd been shooting, an antique savage lever action rifle. This was a hunting rifle that could be used on game as large as elk and bear. This particular gun didn't fit together quite as snugly as it once had,

and Doug had been testing it with custom rounds. to see what combination of powder and primer worked best. Six of his custom rounds sat on the loading bench as he leaned the savage against it and went upstairs. That truck out there had been nagging at him. He called out to Chris again. That's too weird. I'm going to go to license number and call the cops.

But when he went outside, the truck was gone. Its presence had been entirely coincidental. It did belong to a creep, just not the creep Chris and Doug needed to worry about. Some guy was dating one of his neighbors and thought she might be cheating on him, so he'd been stalking and spying on her. Oh, my God. Doug started taking the trash out of the garage for pickup the next morning.

His heart skipped a beat when he saw the outline of a man in the bushes. Who's there? he demanded. Wayne stepped out into the front yard. Wayne from Conlands, he said. What the hell are you doing here? Doug said. I saw something out here, Wayne said. If you have a flashlight, you better get it. Doug's first thought was that Wayne must have been driving around

and seeing the guy in the orange and white truck doing something weird on their property. It would have taken him just a few seconds to wonder what Wayne was even doing in their neighborhood in the first place, but by then, he was already stepping from the garage into the living room, and Wayne hid him in the back of the head with the billy club. Doug blacked out for a second, and when he came to, he was on the floor, the back of his head bleeding badly, and Wayne was stalking towards him with the club and his hand and his eyes wide and wild. Doug rolled and managed to kick Wayne, knocking him down, and they started wrestling on the floor. Chris and her nightshirt in the bedroom heard bangs and thuds from the living room and rushed in to find her husband struggling frantically with the man.

She did not, for the moment, recognize. Doug and Wayne broke apart for a moment, long enough for Wayne to reach inside his blad shirt and pull out. a gun he'd had in a shoulder holster. It was his dad's gun in holster, the same weapon that Wayne had used in Hamilton. Get back. I've got a gun, he said. Doug, still on the floor, scooted back close to Chris. Wayne's face was weirdly distorted with rage, and it took seconds before Chris recognized him. She screamed, Wayne, what are you doing here? Why are you doing this? What's wrong? What's happening? Wayne started pacing back and forth, ranting, I've done something really bad. I've done something really bad. I got to get out of town.

I know Conlin's got paid today. I know you probably have some money here. So I'm going to get some money and I'm going to get out of town. He pulled out a long white clothes line from under his shirt, then used a knife from his belt to cut off a length. Then he told Chris to tie Doug's hands and feet. Chris said, you don't have to tie us up. Don't worry about it.

Wayne said, do it. She did, but loosely. Wayne inspected her work and told her to tie the rope more tightly. Wayne kept asking for money, and Chris and Doug told him where their wallet and purse were. Wayne pocketed around $130, but kept pacing around half frantic. He closed all the blinds and shades, then tied Chris's hands together. I've done something really bad, and I've got to get out of town, he said again. Once I get out of town, I'll call somebody and they'll come and untie you.

Then you'll be free. I'll be gone. But he wasn't in a hurry about getting gone, just kept pacing frantically through their small house. I've got to separate you two or you'll untie each other too fast, Wayne said. And he lifted Chris off the floor and took her to the bedroom. Probably because of adrenaline and the bizarre nature of everything that was going on, this was the first time that Chris realized exactly the kind of danger she might be in. Wayne tied Chris's hands and feet to the bed frame, then asked if she had any nylons.

She said, yes, and told him which drawer to look in. Wayne got them, and also a pair of Doug's socks from another drawer. He shoved one sock into Chris's mouth and tied the panty hose around her head to secure it. Then Wayne went out and stuffed the other sock into Doug's mouth. Excited and frantic, Wayne hurried back and forth between the living room and the bedroom a few times, then half carried Doug down into the basement. There was a supporting column down there beside the washer and dryer. I'll tie you to this, Wayne said, and then I'll call somebody and they'll come and get you.

He pulled Doug toward the wooden column. When he let Doug go, Doug slumped forward, and right away Wayne started beating him around the head with the billy club, as Doug scrambled around on the floor. Doug managed to spit out the sock and yelled, get out of here. Why don't you just get the money and get out of here? Why don't you leave us alone? Wayne took out his gun again. Get back against that post or I'll shoot. shoot you. Doug did as he was told. Wayne took out more clothesline and tied a length tight around Doug's neck and the column. Wayne looped the rope around Doug's torso under the armpit and then around the column and pulled the rope tight. Then he raced away, hurrying up the stairs and slamming the basement door behind him. There was just one bare bulb in the basement. Under its light, Doug stared

at the savage rifle leaning against the reloading bench and the six rounds sitting on the bench. He started pulling and twisting his hands against the knots Chris had tied. Chris tied to the bed in her night dress had been picking at the knots with her fingernails. She could feel one coming loose. Wayne came in and made a cursory check of the knots and her gag then left. She soon heard the basement door banging again. Doug had almost gotten one hand free, but pressed them both to the same. together as Wayne came downstairs again. He marched back and forth at Doug's feet,

ranting again. You've got to be smart. You've got to be smart. You're smarter than they are. You're going to pull this off. You've got to think. Now think. He walked straight past the rifle, time and again, but he didn't notice it. Doug could still feel blood leaking from his head wound, and he started to feel dizzy. Then Wayne heard a sound from upstairs and hurried up to check on Chris. This went on for what seemed like forever, Wayne hurrying up to the bedroom where he just silently glared at Chris and checked the knots, then racing back down to Doug, sometimes pacing and ranting in front of him. Wayne seemed more manic with each trip up and down the stairs. Then one time Wayne came down and walked behind Doug, who was getting closer and closer to unconsciousness through blood loss. Then he felt what he first thought was a punch to the chest.

Doug looked up into Wayne's face, then down at the handle of the knife sticking out of his chest. There was a heavy sigh as air leaked out from around the blade. It had gone through his diaphragm and stabbed through just the barest fraction of an inch below his heart. Certain he was dead, Doug looked straight into Wayne's eyes. There was no emotion there at all. Doug slumped against the ropes tying him to the column. Wayne pulled the eight-inch blade out of Doug's chest and wiped him. it clean on dog's pants. No longer frantic and hurried, he walked calmly up the stairs,

leaving the basement door open. Chris had managed to get her left hand free and started trying to untie her feet. She was working on the knot around her right hand when Wayne walked in. What are you doing? he yelled. You called the cops, didn't you? Chris realized she should have, but had been too focused on freeing herself. No, I didn't call the cop, she said. You'd have heard me. I can't leave you like this, Wayne said. I've got to tie you better. Downstairs, Doug felt his vision narrowing to a pinpoint, but he suddenly jerked alert when he thought about Chris.

He discovered that when he turned his head to one side, there was some give in the rope around his neck and torso, and managed to wriggle free of them. He freed his hand from the loose knot, then loosed his feet and stumbled over to the reloading bench and grabbed the rifle. He'd done a lot of hunting, and had seen a deer run for maybe half a minute before they fell after getting shot in the chest.

He knew Wayne would come running at any sound, so he kicked the wall a few times. Sure enough, Wayne came running, and froze solid when he saw Doug at the bottom of the stairs, a bloody man who was supposed to be dead, a rifle at his shoulder. Doug fired, and Wayne vanished. For an instant, Doug had the awful thought,

I missed him. But then he heard the body hit the floor. And Wayne wailed out. Oh, God, I'm a dead man. Doug wasn't taking that for granted. He managed to stumble up the stairs and found Wayne on his hands and knees trying to get up. Doug grabbed the rifle by the barrel and smashed the stock onto the back of Wayne's head. Doug was a long way from full strength, and this only knocked Wayne down rather than knocking him out.

Wayne crawled toward the bedroom. Doug right behind him, clubbing him with the rifle. As Wayne crawled into the bedroom, Doug hit him hard enough to break the rifle stock. Wayne crawled into the corner and rolled over, lifting up his hands. Doug, stop, he yelled. Don't do this. Please, stop. Doug did not stop.

Just kept whacking at Wayne until with the remains of the rifle as he scald backwards until he was close enough to Chris that she could start punching him with her free hand, screaming, you son of a bitch, you son of a bitch. She was in the way of Doug hitting Wayne, and Doug could see him reaching for the gun at his belt. Doug shoved Chris back onto the bed and swung the rifle again, ducking as Wayne pulled the trigger. The shot went into the ceiling. Doug swung the rifle again as Wayne fired a second time, and this shot went into Doug's leg just above the knee. He swung again, accidentally smashing the bedside lamp and plunging the room into darkness.

Doug, frantic and furious, swung the rifle again, felt it hit something hard, and saw the flash of another shot from Wayne's gun. Doug leapt across the bed and scrabbled in the nightstand for the loaded gun he kept there, racked the slide, and turned on the overhead light. Wayne was slumped in the corner, wheezing and quivering. His eyes rolled up, blood leaking from a hole in his head just above his ear. Right at the moment when Wayne had fired for the third time, Doug's flailing rifle had smashed into Wayne's hand and knocked it back so that he shot himself in the head. Oh my God. Doug told Chris to grab Wayne's gun from the floor,

then lay across the bed. I don't know how long I've got, he said. Call 911. At the hospital, Doug half surfaced from unconsciousness as he lay on a bed in a hallway beside an ER operating room. He could see a little ways inside and recognized Wayne's pants and shoes on another bed, with doctors and nurses all around him. He heard a nurse say, his vitals aren't all that bad, his respiration is there,

his pulse is quick but strong. Another said simply, he's okay. I didn't even kill the son of a bitch, Doug muttered. Chris was close by. Wayne's dead, she said. Doug said, are you sure? Go check and make sure. They just said he's fine.

I love this. Doug just has final girl energy to the absolute core of his soul. Make sure he's it. Hell yeah. Chris patted his hand and said, they were talking about you, hon. In fact, that first shot

from the savage rifle had been fatal, tearing through Wayne's renal artery, spleen, pancreas, lung, and liver. It was just that the wound would take a minute to actually kill him. All the frantic struggle afterward had taken less time than that.

The shot from Wayne's own gun had gone straight through his brain and lodged in his skull on the other side. When the TV news broadcast the story, including that Wayne and Chris had worked for Conlon's furniture, Bob shook, Mike's father, felt his heart grow cold. He thought, Christ, that's where the kids got the furniture. He tried to call Sheriff Die, but was told that both he and the lead detective on the case were done for the day. What the fuck? I know. Clocked out, huh? I cannot stand that sheriff.

I want to smack him. Bob got in touch with the Missoula investigators instead and spoke to Captain Weatherman, telling him to look out for a bone-handled hunting knife and a statue of a moose. Weatherman was already seeing both of those at Wayne's house, and the Hamilton murders were close to being solved with very little help from the police.

The similarities between the wells and shook attacks and the murder of Donna Pounds were clear, and Wayne was upgraded from suspect to near certain perpetrator in that case. In the hinge of Wayne's truck door, investigators found a long strand of hair, which even in these pre-DNA days they were able to match to Marcy Bachman, thanks to the multiple hair dyes she'd used. The other two victims in this story, Devonna Nelson and Janet Lee Lucas, can't be tied as conclusively to Wayne Nance,

but I don't have much doubt that he killed them. I'm reasonably confident that he killed more women that we know nothing about and maybe never will. Doug Wells almost didn't make it. Wayne's knife had nicked his stomach lining and the fluids that leaked out irritated Doug's paracardium, which inflamed and put pressure on the heart, reducing his blood flow by two-thirds. He had to have open chest surgery to prevent a heart attack. Even after Doug's physical recovery, he and Chris both had frequent nightmares about Wayne. Doug found that he couldn't be out alone after dark anymore.

Chris kept a gun on her at all times. She and Doug had loaded handguns throughout their house and drilled like Navy seals on how to react to any intruder. Well, you guys did a great job with no training. They were often invited to talk at the FBI's behavioral science unit. People who survive a direct attack from a serial killer are pretty rare. We can be certain beyond any reasonable doubt that Wayne Nantz, killed Mike and Teresa Shook, Donna Pounds, and Marcy Bachman, and extremely confident that he also

killed Devana Nelson and Janet Lee Lucas. As we mentioned a second ago, his actual number of victims is almost certainly higher. He was a confident in calculating killer, and that confidence comes from getting away with murder. Because Doug Wells ended Wayne's sorry life, there was no plea deal or FBI interview in which he identified the locations of other bodies. The victims he killed quietly, rather than during home invasions, were discarded in the wilderness. And even just a couple of years out under the Montana elements had been enough to remove any DNA evidence he'd left. As far as we know, there's been no connection made with Wayne's DNA and ongoing cold cases of murder or sexual assault, and given his preferred method of disposing

of his victims, there probably won't be. But there's an awful lot of big, empty land in the northwest where the bodies of unknown victims might still lie hidden. I'm pretty sure, though, that if Wayne hadn't died in the Wells' house that night, he'd have killed again, and probably quickly. He was clearly losing it, and I think there's a good chance he'd have spiraled out into the kind of wild killing spree that Bundy did in Florida. But he did die, and we should end this story by reflecting on the extraordinary courage and determination shown by Doug and Chris Wells, who had a monster invade their home,

and defeated it in a way that couldn't have been more heroic if they were knights in armor standing over a slain dragon. I can only hope that all of us might find strength like that in such desperate circumstances. Now, before we go, don't forget about our two live shows coming up. First, we've got summer camp, September 10th through 13th, an amazing four-day festival in Equinunk, Pennsylvania at a real summer camp, hosted by Dan and Lindsay Cummins of Time Suck and Scared to Death. We'll be performing live alongside them and the podcast astonishing legends in addition to a roster of awesome stand-up comedians and local bands. Go to Bad Magic Productions.com for more info and to buy tickets. Then we've got our True Crime Cruise, Crime Wave 2.0, February 8th through

12th, 2027. If you want to come to the Bahamas with us and some of the biggest true crime and paranormal podcast in the world, like case file, last podcast on the left, no sleep, true crime garage, scared to death. Here's what you got to do. Tickets are on sale now, but they're 90% sold out as of now. So if you want to go, get on it. Get over to crimewave at c.com slash campfire and book your cabin ASAP. You'll get $100 off, plus a private meet and greet with us. And the great thing is you can pay all at once or you can pay it off over time. So get on it, Jall. You don't want to miss it. the most fun I ever had in my whole life. That's CrimeWaveatC.com slash campfire.

So that was a wild one, right, campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely Patreon supporters. Now, hope I'm getting this right. Thank you so much to Ollie underscore Ver. Ollie Ver, I guess. Claudia, J.M.E.

Eva, Ellen, and Stephanie. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free, at least a day early, sometimes more, plus tons of extra content, like patrons-only episodes and hilarious post-show discussions. And once you join the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker, a rad enamel pin, or fridge magnet while supplies last virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come. Come join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down.

in real time and when that flame dies something else rises to finish the job this is a brutal rules light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make this is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s and man it is so good to be back join the glass canon as we plunge into the shadow dark every thursday night at 8 p.m eastern on youtube.com slash the glass canon with the podcast version dropping the next day see what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. Life moves too fast. Scrolling, swiping,

headlines, sound bites. Nobody's really seen. Even the people everyone thinks they know. I'm Evelyn. I'm a television producer and director and I've spent decades behind the camera creating shows with people everyone knows. On the podcast, Reppin, I sit down

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