True Crime Campfire - Silent Fear: The Murders at Gallaudet University

Episode Date: September 3, 2021

Gallaudet University is one of the world’s most prestigious schools for the deaf and hard of hearing. For the gifted few who pass the exclusive admissions process, Gallaudet is an oasis—a center of learning, a place of infinite possibilities, a home away from home. It’s a place where they can celebrate deaf culture, network with some of the best minds in the country, and feel a deep sense of belonging. But during a four-month period in the fall and winter of 2000-2001, that sense of security was shattered, as a brutal killer stalked the dormitory halls. Everyone at Gallaudet was forced to confront the terrifying possibility that the killer was one of their own. Before the nightmare ended, two students would be dead, lives and reputations would be ruined, and a killer no one saw coming would be unmasked. Sources:David Van Biema, Time magazine, "Murder in a Silent Place": http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,130940,00.htmlJeff Truesdell, People Magazine, "Who Killed Two Students at a Famed College for the Deaf?"Investigation Discovery's "People Magazine Investigates," episode "The Sound of Silence"Investigation Discovery's "Murder U," Episode "Signs of Murder"Investigation Discovery's "On the Case with Paula Zahn," episode "Gallaudet Murders"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/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]: https://shop.spreadshirt.com/true-crime-campfire/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

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. Gallaudet University is one of the world's most prestigious schools for the death and heart of hearing. For the gifted few who passed the exclusive admissions process, Gallaudet is an oasis, a center of learning, a place of infinite possibilities, a home away from home. It's a place where they can celebrate deaf culture, network with some of the best minds in the country, and feel a deep sense of belonging.

But during a four-month period in the fall and winter of 2000 and 2001, that sense of security was shattered as a brutal killer stalked the dormitory halls. Everyone at Gallaudet was forced to confront the terrifying possibility that the killer was one of their own. Before the nightmare ended, two students would be dead, lives and reputations would be ruined, and a killer no one saw coming, would be unmasked. This is silent fear, the murders at Gallaudet, you. So, campers, for this one, we're at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the only school in the country that's tailored specifically to the deaf and hard of hearing. Thursday, September 28, 2000. People were worried about Eric Plunkett, a gregarious 19-year-old freshman who had within just a couple weeks of arriving on campus become the life of the party around the dorm. Normally, unless he was sleeping, Eric kept his door wide open. His mom was always sending him care packages. from home, big boxes of top ramen and stuff like that, and Eric would invite any and everybody to

come in and share. He also had a great DVD collection with the same open door policy, so people were always coming in and out to say hi, grab a snack, borrow a movie, or just hang out with Eric. Tonight, though, the door was closed, and it had been all day. Not only that, but Eric's friend Joseph Mesa had a math class with him and said Eric was supposed to meet up with him for tutoring afterwards, but he wasn't there that day. And it wasn't like him to skip class, especially without telling anybody why he couldn't make it. Eric had cerebral palsy, so Joseph was concerned that he could have fallen and hit his head or something and couldn't call for help. And there was something else that worried Joseph. There was a smell lingering around the door to

Eric's room, something hard to pinpoint, but unsettling. So Joseph went to the RA, which if you're not familiar stands for resident advisor. The RA is a student, usually an upperclassman, who serves as a kind of combination, advice giver, and rule enforcer for the dorm. As you can imagine, some are great and some are freaking nightmares. Just depends. The RA for Cogswell Hall was a popular guy named Thomas Koch. Thomas had a master key that opened all the doors in the dorm, so he and another R.A. and Eric's friend Joseph headed down to check on him. They pressed the doorbell, which at Gallaudet was a little device that made a light flash inside the room. Thomas unlocked the door and walked into a scene of absolute horror.

There was blood everywhere. An Eric Plunkett's brutalized body lay sprawled on the floor. The remnants of a broken chair scattered all around him. It looked as if the chair had been broken over his head, possibly in the final blow of a horrendous fight. Someone had choked, kicked, and beaten him to death. His neck had been broken. There was a clump of his scalp lying on the floor near his body.

Eric had only been at Gallaudet for about six weeks. Gallaudet is a special place. First of all, it's very prestigious and very selective. They only accept about 2,000 students a year, so it's uber competitive. Getting in there is a huge deal. But beyond all that, to the students who go there, Gallaudet is a family. It doesn't just feel like a college campus. It feels like a home.

And small schools are often like that, but it's amplified at Gallaudet, possibly because all the students there share the unique challenges and struggles and triumphs and joys of being deaf. When you grow up different from most of the people around you, it means a lot to find a community of other people who've had that same experience. Gallaudet's current website says this on the front page. Here, being deaf is not something to overcome, but the place to embrace oneself, build connections within and beyond the signing and deaf community. At Gallaudet, our students find affirmative and positive acceptance of who they are and all they have to offer our world. So imagine coming to school there, so excited to learn and immerse yourself in deaf culture, and suddenly you're living in fear.

That's what it was like for these students after the murder of Eric Plunkett. It felt like a horrendous violation of their safe haven. Within an hour, D.C. police were swarming all over Cogswell Hall. The evacuated the students who basically had to walk out with the clothes on their backs. There was no time to let them pack anything. In Eric's room, even experienced homicide investigators were shocked at the level of violence the killer had thrown down. It was overkill, which usually means there's a personal connection between the killer and the victim. What it almost always means is, you guessed it, rage. They noted a few

things right away. Eric's computer, a nice one, was still on the desk. His watch was still on his wrist, and a few other valuable things were still in their places. It didn't seem like robbery was the motive here, and there was no sign of forced entry. Had Eric invited his killer in? The students first thought that the killer must have been an outsider, but when they thought about it, for a minute, they realized how unlikely that was. Gallaudet was in a sketchy neighborhood, but it was kind of a world unto itself. It was totally fenced in, for one thing. There were several gates, but all except one closed at 6 p.m. And the other one was staffed 24-7 by a security guard. You had to sign in. You had to show ID. It wasn't that easy to break into Gallaudet.

And even if you could, the dorms had even more security measures in place. What this meant was staggering. The killer could be one of them. This might sound weird, but several Gallaudet students and faculty told Time magazine writer David Van Biamma that no one could believe one deaf person could ever kill another. There was that much solidarity in that community. Outside, the students huddled together in groups, shell-shocked and rapid-fire signing the questions they all wanted answers to. What was happening? Who did it? Why? And why Eric? The homicide detectives were wondering the same thing. And soon, miles and miles away in Eric's Minnesota hometown, his mom and stepdad got a knock at the door. Their world, and Eric's fathers and

sisters two, was about to shatter into a million pieces. Eric was the light of his family's life. He was fun, hilarious, full of energy and adventure. His mom told journalist Paula Zahn that she didn't have a single picture of him where he wasn't grinning. He was fearless, and he loved playing pranks on his friends. Eric was ambitious, too. He'd been top of his class in high school, and he wanted to expand his education and travel the world. When he got his acceptance letter to Gallaudet, he was so excited he ran up and down the halls, jumping up and down. He hung his acceptance letter on the wall. He said in four years, he'd hang his diploma up there too. It was one of the best days of his life. Now he was gone before his life could really get

started, and nobody could imagine why. Who would possibly want to hurt the sweetest guy in the world? His friends had no clue. Even though he'd only been at Gallaudet for a couple of months, Eric had already gotten pretty tight with several of his neighbors in the west wing of Cogswell Hall, the Wild West, as he got everybody calling it. There was Ben Varner from Texas, shy and brilliant, who was close with his mom and had to be kind of drawn out of his shell before he'd open up to anyone. Ben tended to stay in his room unless he came in and got him, and of course, extrovert Eric took it upon himself to make sure Ben felt welcome and got included in all the fun stuff. Ben was quiet at first, but

once you got him talking, he was like scary smart. He just soaked up knowledge like a sponge could not get enough. One of his teachers had once limited him to seven questions per class because otherwise he would just rapid fire him until he totally took over the room. That's literally something I had to do for myself. I was only allowed to answer or ask one question per class. I feel your pain, Ben. I feel it. Everybody was convinced Ben would do something spectacular someday. And then there was Thomas Koch, the RA, who everybody thought of as a big brother. He seemed to feel protective of the kids who lived on his hall, and he had an open-door policy if anybody needed help or advice. Then there were the lovebirds, Joseph Messa and Melanie

De Guzman. They'd come to Gallaudet together from Guam, and they were capital L in love, had been since high school, like one of those, like, nauseating couples that are just always mooning over each other, you know, and everybody's kind of jealous of them, but also kind of wants to barf. Joseph was always given Melanie little gifts and stuff, but he was like that with everybody. else too. Super generous guy. He was always picking up the tab at restaurants and movies. He said it was all good because he was going to be rich someday. Everybody on the hall got along great. But now, as the days rolled along and the D.C. police continued their investigation, it was impossible to walk the halls without wondering whether one of your neighbors was a killer. When she finally began to shake off the

complete shock of finding out her brother was murdered, Eric's sister remembered something that made her go cold all over. She and Eric were in the habit of talking over webcam a few nights per week. They'd had a chat the night Eric was murdered, and she remembered that at one point during their conversation, she caught sight of a dark figure moving around in the background behind him. She couldn't make out the person's face, but it struck her as kind of strange that somebody would be back there, not announcing their presence, just kind of lurking. So she'd signed to him about it at the time. Eric, there's someone in your room. But by the time he turned around to look, the figure was gone. Eric told her not to worry. It was probably just somebody coming by to borrow a DVD.

That was how it was at Gallaudet. People were always in and out of each other's rooms. So at the time, she dismissed it. But now, his sister wondered if she'd seen Eric's killer. It made her feel sick. Yeah, God, that's creepy. It's like a horror movie, isn't it? Don't you all worry about that? Like, way in the back of your mind anytime you talk to somebody on webcam? Or is that just my issue from basically marinating my brain and true crime for two solid decades. I always think about that. It's like looking down the stairs to the basement after you turn the lights off, like you just see shapes. And not to mention that now people are on Omega, which is like that website that basically like matches you with people to video chat

all over the world. And they will pull this stuff like as a prank, like on purpose. So they'll have somebody in the background and people will be like, what is that? And you'll turn around and I don't see anything. That's mean. Yeah, I watched a compilation video once and I couldn't sleep for days. Well, yeah, I bet. I'm afraid to use stuff like that because I just assume it's just going to be some dude's penis. So many dicks. Just no thanks. I'm not going to risk it. Too many dicks. So rumors were flying around campus, obviously. And the LGBT students were worried that Eric's murder might have been a hate crime. Eric was gay and he'd just been elected as second. of the Lambda Society on campus.

Not only that, but shortly before he was murdered, he'd gone to the Judicial Affairs Committee to ask what to do if somebody was harassing you. Unfortunately, he didn't say who was bothering him or even if he was the one being harassed. But gay students had been getting death threats. It was nerve-wracking, and the LGBT community at Gallaudet was looking over its shoulder. And it wasn't a huge stretch to think this might have been a hate crime. I mean, the overkill suggests a lot of risk. age, and you see that kind of brutality a lot in hate crimes.

So it was a possibility the investigators couldn't overlook, even if there didn't seem to be any direct evidence to support it. And there wasn't a ton of evidence, period. That is, until Eric Plunkett's credit card bill arrived back at his parents' place in Minnesota. His mom opened the statement and glanced through it, just kind of curious to see what Eric's last purchases were, and then something caught her eye and the hairs on the back of her neck-pickled. Someone had used Eric's card 10 times in the few days after his death. Now, Campers, why the hell the D.C. police hadn't already checked on this? I cannot imagine.

Like, I thought that was standard procedure in any homicide investigation. But for some reason, they hadn't done it. Didn't even seem to have noticed that his credit card was missing. Now, they scrambled to fix their dipshit mistake, like hot-footing it over to the places where the credit card was used, but of course, I know all y'all true crime nerds are going to see this coming. The security footage had already been overwritten at every single place. I don't want to tell people how to do their jobs. But, yeah, right? I feel like checking the victim's credit card is like top five of what to do as a detective

after a murder. Like, yeah. Check for cause of death. Check for forced entry. for missing valuables, track the cell phone, call MasterCard. Like, that's day one, detective school type stuff. Let me think. Maybe they should get a mnemonic device for that. Like, here, okay, I have one. Okay. So, cold cases cracked thanks to MasterCard.

C-C-C-T-M, I like it. So, of course, there went the best chance. they'd had so far of finding Eric's killer. Just, ugh, infuriating. But then a few days later, the detectives got their first red-hot lead. A student came forward to say he'd seen Eric fighting with another guy a few days before the murder. This guy was new to their friend group. Eric had met him in a drama class and started bringing him around the dorm. People got the definite impression that there was something beyond friendship between them, or at least that Eric wanted there to be. The guy's name was Tommy Minch. He was a popular guy. Good looking, funny,

and smart. Didn't seem like a likely candidate for a brutal murder like this, but he was the best lead they had to go on at the moment. So they brought him in for an interview. Tommy said he was friends with Eric. Sure, but not really close at all. And he denied having any kind of romantic relationship with him. This didn't match with what other students had told them at all. And Thomas seemed really nervous, shaking, hiding his face with his hands, red flags one and two. He hadn't really seen Eric at all that week, Tommy told the detectives. He had been rehearsing for a play, and that had taken up most of his free time. He claimed he'd been at rehearsals all day and all night on the day Eric was killed,

but it didn't take long for investigators to find out that this wasn't exactly true. Actually, he would have had plenty of time after rehearsal to commit the murder. Ugh, that's not good. Yeah, that was red flag number three. They asked Minch about his argument with Eric. It had happened about a week before the murder, he said. They'd been hanging out and suddenly Eric, quote, made a move on him. Tommy said he wasn't interested in that, and he told Eric so.

But Eric kept pushing it. Finally, Tommy told the investigators he hit Eric, then knocked him to the floor. Red flag number four, the biggest one yet. And this was enough for the investigators. They arrested him, and because of his anxious demeanor, they put him on suicide watch. The detectives popped a bottle of champagne. It was a huge relief to solve this one. It was all over the news, and the whole Gallaudet campus was on edge.

Now, everybody could relax. Eric's parents felt like they could finally exhale a little bit, too. They knew who'd killed their boy. Now, maybe they'd find out why. But the relief didn't last long. They had barely gotten Tommy Minch fingerprinted, mug-shotted, and fitted for his orange jumpsuit before the DA sent word that there wasn't enough evidence to hold him. And that was it. They had to cut him loose. And a couple of very frustrated, very pissed-off

detectives had to tell the Plunkett family. Back at Gallaudet, everybody was close to panic. They let the killer out? What the hell are we supposed to do when he comes back? We can't go to classes with this guy. So within hours of Tommy Minch hitting the street again, the university suspended him. him. His parents collected his stuff from his dorm room, and Minch caught a plane back to his family's place in New Hampshire. He was a free man, for now, but the investigators had taken a DNA swab from him to compare with some evidence of the scene, light brown hairs that matched the color of Minch's hair. While they waited for those results to come back, they were determined to keep

digging, and it didn't take long for them to dig up some intriguing info about Mitch. He had a temper, according to some of the students who'd known him for a while. Some of them had been to a camp for deaf students with Minch in the years before they started at Gallaudet, and they'd seen him wig out before. One time, he got so maddy threw a trash can across the room. Yikes on bikes. Chill, dude. Seriously. So as Minch settled back in at his parents' place in New Hampshire and got a job delivering pizzas,

the residents of Cogswell Hall tried to get back to some sense of normalcy. The Wild West Wing wasn't the same without Eric. The energy was different without him bounding around. making jokes and throwing parties in his room. But holiday break rolled around soon, and when the students came back afterwards, there was a sort of change in the air. A sense of...

Okay, it's the spring semester. Fresh start. We're not going to focus on this awful shit anymore. Tommy Minch is all the way back up in New Hampshire. He can't hurt us, so we're just going to let the police do their jobs and figure out how to nail him. And we're going to try to go on with our lives.

Yeah, healthy attitude, right? And for a little while, that's exactly what everybody did. Gallaudet started to feel kind of like a home again. The sense of safety started to slowly flow back a little bit. But then... February 3, 2001. At around 4 o'clock in the morning, the students woke to the flashing lights of the fire alarm. The pattern of the strobe lights looked eerie in the darkness

as the students climbed out of bed and filed into the hall. As they stood outside in the cold, it became clear pretty quickly that there wasn't a fire, so why had somebody pulled the alarm? Was it a prank? Glancing around to check on the students from his hall, R.A. Thomas Koch noticed that Joseph Messa and his girlfriend Melanie were there, but he didn't see Ben Varner anywhere. He motioned to one of the other RAs, hey, somebody from my hall is missing. And they headed back inside to check on Ben, thinking maybe he was just a heavy sleeper and didn't see the lights. But when they used the master key to open his door, a sick feeling of deja vu grabbed hold.

Ben's body was lying on the floor in a puddle of blood. His injuries were horrendous, stab wounds to the head and shoulders, a slash across his throat. His broken glasses and bloody hearing aid lay on the floor near his body and a bloody pairing knife. Thomas Coke recognized it. Ben's mom had given it to him to cut the apples with,

that he was always eating while he studied. Oh, my God. It happened again. How could it have happened again? D.C. police showed up within minutes, followed shortly by the FBI. They could see right away that this murder was startlingly similar to Eric Plunkett's. The overkill. Ben had been stabbed 17 times. The up-close and personal method. The fact that it happened in the victim's own room. This time, they could see right away that the killer had left them some pretty good evidence. Bloody shoe prints, clear as day, around the body. Nike AirMax cross-trainer specifically. And they weren't. Ben Varner's. Now, I don't know if you all know this, but a shoe print can be as good as a fingerprint. Because as you wear a shoe, the soul develops little characteristics that are unique. You step on a rock one day and it rips a little bit of plastic off, or you put out a cigarette

and you get a little melted area. The odds of any other shoe on Earth having exactly those same blemishes are astronomical. So a shoe print in blood is really solid evidence. And when the CSI started to spring luminal outside the door to Ben's room, they ended up following a trail of glowing bloody shoe prints all the way to a dumpster outside. Oh my God. When they searched the dumpster, they found a blood-stained jacket. They quickly put out a photo of the jacket to see if anybody knew whose it was. As the police worked the scene and words spread around campus, everyone was just stunned.

And what had sort of settled into a vague sense of unease in the four months since Eric Plunkett's murder now flamed into pure terror. Anybody living on a campus that just saw two brutal murders like this is going to feel vulnerable, but there was maybe an extra edge to that feeling for the students at Gallaudet. As one former student put it in an interview with investigation discovery, I'm not able to hear footsteps or keys going into locks, whereas hearing people can. Oh, that gives me the creeps. The university had ordered 12 new security cameras after Eric's murder, but they hadn't been installed yet, which just, again,

I know. I'm right there with you. It's just for the love of God. And now, of course, the students were wondering if they could ever feel safe here again. Between the police not catching the credit card theft and the lack of a sense of urgency from the university, I think this might be up there for the most bungled cases for me. Yeah. Like, I realize that the admin probably thought the pressure was off now that they thought they had the killer. but that doesn't mean that something else won't happen. Yeah. They had four months to get this done, and they didn't. A third of a year? Are you fucking kidding me?

What could have possibly taken priority? You didn't even have students there getting in the way for most of that time because they were on winter break. Like, come on, guys. Yeah. So not only that, but everybody's mind was turning to Tommy Minch, who despite having been released for lack of evidence, was still the prime suspect in Eric Plunkett's murder while the cops were waiting on the DNA results. But, of course, Minch had gone home to New Hampshire.

It couldn't be him. Right? Well, it just so happens. Guess who had flown into D.C. the day before for a grand jury hearing on Eric's case. You got it. Our boy, Tommy Minch. And when the detectives dug into it, they discovered that he'd been supposed to fly back the night of the murder.

But he hadn't. When they questioned him about it, he said he'd stayed on because his parents thought it would be a good idea for him to talk to a D.C. attorney while he was there. He said, I didn't kill Ben. I wasn't anywhere near the university. Yeah. So on a night, when you just happened to be back in D.C., another Gallaudet student gets murdered. This was not looking good for Tommy Minch. The detectives were starting to feel pretty confident that they were about to get their man. But life is weird sometimes, especially when murder is involved. And it wasn't long after Ben Varner's murder that something happened to throw a gigantic wrench into the investigator's case.

DNA testing usually takes its sweet time to come back, and the lag times were even worse back in 2001. But now, as if on cue, just as Tommy Minch began to think he might never see daylight again, the results from the Eric Plunkett case came back from the lab. Campers, the DNA did not come from Tommy Minch, no matter. Not only that, but Minch was able to show the receipts from his various meals and whatnot during his trip to D.C. And the timestamps on them made it unlikely that he could have been at Gallaudet at the time of Ben's murder. He wasn't the killer. Ben getting killed the weekend he came back to D.C. was just a bizarre coincidence.

And if it hadn't been for that DNA evidence, he might have gone down in history. as the unluckiest dude to ever draw breath. No kidding. I think that maybe he should never, ever buy a lotto ticket in case he ends up in a holdup. Yeah, he'll like, somehow the lottery numbers will say that he has to pay them a million dollars. Right? Poor guy, Jesus. So then, who the hell killed Eric and Ben?

Well, the investigators had to be. an idea. One of the things both murders had in common was that there was no sign of forced entry, so either the victims had invited their killer in, or the killer had a key. In Cogswell Hall, there was someone who had a master key that would open any room in the building, the resident advisor, everybody's big brother, Thomas Koch. And it just so happened that Thomas Coke had been the one to discover both Eric's and Ben's bodies. Huh, what were the odds of that? The investigators were now pointing some serious side-eye in the direction of the West Wing's good-natured R.A. The more they thought about him, the more suspicious he looked.

He lived on the same hall as both victims. He had a friendship with both. And there was this. From the start of the investigation, Coke had been extra helpful. Anything the investigators needed, he told them. They only had to ask. Now, I'm sure y'all know this already, that a lot of the investigators needed. that a lot of times killers will reach out to the police

kind of inject themselves into the investigation. It's a way for them to, A, divert suspicion away from themselves because, look how hopeful I'm being. And B, get information. What do the police know? Are they suspicious of me? Is this what Thomas Koch had been after all along? So they hauled him in for questioning.

Coke denied everything. Of course I didn't kill Aaron. and Ben, I would never hurt anyone. He agreed to give a DNA sample, fingerprints, and anything they wanted. But, hold on, I do have to say that as a true crime obsessed person, this feels a little weird. Like, if you don't help the cops enough, you're suspicious. If you help them too much, you're suspicious. If you get on a plane to a country with no extradition treaty, you're suspicious. I'm getting whiplash over here, fellas. But I digress. They manage. They to rush the DNA results this time, and when they came back, it was a crushing disappointment.

It wasn't Thomas Koch after all. Cogswell Hall's favorite RA was in the clear, and the investigation was back to square one. Okay, I'm sorry, but we got to put a pin in this for a minute. We keep talking about RAs, and I am never going to forgive myself if I don't take a second to tell y'all my R.A. story, okay? It'll be worth the detour. I promise. We don't usually do this. No.

You're not going to regret it. When I was in undergrad, I stuck around campus one summer to take a few summer session classes, and the R.A. in that summer dorm, y'all. ooh lord this girl was wound so tight you could practically just hear her vibrating you know like a crock pot that's just about to pop one of those people who ironed their jeans you know her dorm room was so neat it was like aggressive it looked like nobody actually lived there her hairbrush didn't even have any hairs in it you all know this girl you know what i'm talking about right geez yes yes i do yeah i don't remember her name so i'm just going to call her priscilla because she was prissy Priscilla ran our floor with an iron fist, or tried to. Anyway, unfortunately for her, most of the summer school kids on our hall were there just because they didn't want to have to go home and live with their parents and be under rules for two months. So, you know, they were a lot more interested in drinking or playing Dungeons and Dragons all night or whatever than they were in class. Must have been a rough time for Priscilla, bless her heart. Her two least favorite things in the world were, A, people making noise when she was trying to study. This included pretty much any kind of. kind of noise, from loud death metal all the way down to sneezing. And B, any kind of candle, incense, cigarette, or joint.

They were a fire hazard, and some of them were illegal, and did we want the police to come and take us all to jail? Because that's what was going to happen. If we kept on with this stuff, we're all going to jail. Anywho, so one evening, my boyfriend and I got tickets to see the midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show with this gorgeous old, restored movie theater downtown. So we were stoked, you know, you could get beer and wine at this theater, and we were going to dress up as characters from the movie like you do. So I went as Magenta. Now, if you've seen Rocky Horror, you can imagine what my get-up was like, right? If you haven't, well, she's basically a sexy

French maid, but with like vinyl and high-heeled boots and fishnets and a big bouffant wig, you know, sexy, naughty. So we went, we had a blast, and when we got back to my dorm room, we were kind of tipsy and still all jazzed up, so we put on the Rocky Horror. We put on the Rocky Horror soundtrack. And we were kind of dancing around, just being stupid and laughing our asses off. And might I add, in our defense, that this was a Saturday night around 2 o'clock in the morning. So a time when you might expect to hear some noise in a dorm. But a few moments later, Ms. Priscilla started banging on the wall. But yeah, I forgot to mention, I was lucky enough to be her neighborino. And she hated me already because of my Tori Amos albums, my scented

candles and the fact that I used to bring boys over sometimes, which wasn't exactly against the rules of the summer dorm, but like heavily frowned upon by Miss Priss, who I'm sure was concerned that my sinfulness might infect her somehow, like maybe through the air vents. Sluttyness is airborne, apparently. So she banged on the wall. So we sort of kind of quieted down like a little bit for a few minutes, but obviously not enough for the RA because she banged on the wall again. And this time we just pretty much ignored her. We're doing the time warp, okay? What do you want from us?

So, anywho, finally, there's like a furious knock on door. You're bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And I hear her, like, out there muttering to herself like, this ridiculous, I'm trying to study, blah, blah, blah, blah. Y'all, I was so done with this bitch. I went over and just flung the door open, forgetting for the moment, what I was wearing. I looked like a goth dominatrix,

looking furious and I mean you've seen my bitch face right like it's scary so looking furious and holding for some reason a feather duster

campers this girl literally just turned and rant like a kid who just accidentally summoned Bloody Mary in the bathroom whatever she'd been plan to say to me she just decided it could wait

and she just booked it back to the safety of her dorm room And for some reason, I didn't hear another peep out of her for the rest of the summer. I can't imagine why. You traumatized her, I imagine. I know. She probably still talks about it.

I think she probably still has anxiety dreams where you're chasing her down in your gimp suit or whatever. And I would like to point out that our... It was not a gimp suit. Gimp suits in quotes. Gimp, gimp adjacent suit. And now I'm picturing the gimp suit with a feather duster, and that's a bit much of me. Well, now I'm just picturing, like, you know, the lamp from a Christmas story. It's just two giant legs chasing.

Oh, right. The fished leg. Yeah. And I do have to point out that our college experiences were just, could not be more different. Our quiet hours, our quiet hours started at 10 p.m. And no boys were allowed on our floors, let alone in our rooms. So. Children are coddled. I'm telling you. We've been, we started. coddling kids right around the time when you ended up in middle school probably and it's gone

downhill ever since that's the most boomer thing i've ever heard from you ever i am proudly gen x for the jillian's time i'm not convinced you know what a boomer is i know i'm just saying that is a boomer thing you said because i had plenty of a wild night in college just our rules were different if if anyone made a peep past 10 a m we were getting a visit from priscilla I was wild in an orderly fashion when I was in college. Nerd! All right. I also went to a private university, which I think like...

Yeah, this is true. I went to a state school. Yeah, those... Big diff. You reprobate. I had a wild enlistment use, okay? I don't, I regret nothing. Oh, delightful.

Okay. After that detour. Sorry, Priscilla. With Tommy Minch and Thomas Koch ruled out as suspects, the investigation was in serious danger of going cold. Gallaudet was so locked down that it was starting to feel more like a prison than a university. Some students had just decided to drop out for the semester and go home. That's such a bummer god. And I don't blame them.

I'm shit. No, I know. It's just so sad because they were all so excited to be there. It just sucks. At a press conference, Ben Varner's dad asked anyone with you. information about either case to please come forward. Ben was pure love, his dad told the reporters. He said, there was nothing but sweetness in that boy. He taught me so much about life. Not long after the press conference, two things happened in quick succession. First, remember how

police had neglected to check Eric Plunkett's bank records after that first murder? So by the time his mom realized that somebody had been using his credit card after his death, it was too late to get security footage? Well, they remembered their mnemonic device this time. At the Ben Varner crime scene, they quickly figured out that Ben's wallet and checkbook were missing from his room, and they were keeping a close eye on his bank and credit card activity just in case. And a few days after the murder, bingo boingo read on the money, Ben's bank

called. Someone had been in to cash a $650 check on Ben Varner's account, forging his name on the check. And this time, the security footage was still in play. A couple of investigators raced over to look at it. And then the tip line got a call from a nervous-sounding student from Gallaudet. He'd seen the news footage of that bloody jacket they found in the dumpster, he said, and he was pretty sure he knew whose it was. Come in now, the officer told him. The student said, I'm on my way. At Ben Varner's bank, the detective sat down to watch the security footage of the person forging a check on his account. And when the young man looked up,

Up at the camera, they couldn't believe what they were seeing. The face was familiar. They'd talked to him along with everyone else who knew the victims, but he'd never been on the radar as a suspect. It was Joseph Mesa, the bright, handsome student from Guam, the romantic who was always giving his high school sweetheart gifts, the math tutor who was willing to help anybody who needed it. He'd lived across the hall from Eric Plunkett,

just down the hall from Ben. As far as the investigators knew, he'd never been anything but kind to anyone at Gallaudet. No one they'd spoken to had said anything bad about him. Back at the police station, the nervous students sat down to look at the picture of the bloody jacket. The interpreter spoke for him as he signed. Yeah, he said, that's Joseph Mace's jacket. Was he sure? they asked him. Absolutely.

Joseph's my roommate. I've seen that jacket lots of times. Oh, that poor guy. They got a search warrant headed for Joseph Mesa's dorm room. Within minutes, they'd found the bloody Nikes, plus a t-shirt of Ben Varner's in his closet. Because, of course, he kept him. Threw the jacket out, but kept the bloody shoes. Yeah, makes sense.

Good job, man. Not to mention the stolen shirt. Yikes, bro. So, it was time to bring Mr. Mesa in for questioning. He was evasive at first, not willing to say much. but once they told him about the search of his dorm room, his attitude shifted. He seemed to be thinking hard. Finally, he sat back in his chair and looked over at his interpreter.

Okay, he signed, I did it. And over the next four hours, he told the story. He needed to get some money, he said. Valentine's Day was coming up. He wanted to buy Melanie something nice. So one night, he crept down the hall to Ben's room. He pressed the doorbell to flash the lights inside. and Ben let him in.

Was the shy kid happy to have a visitor? Was he confused about why Mesa was there? I asked him if he had a checkbook, Mesa signed to the detectives. He said he did, and he asked me why. I told him I was just curious. Scanning around Ben's room, he spotted a paring knife under the microwave, and when Ben turned his back, Mesa grabbed it and lunged, stabbing Ben again and again.

He kept looking up at me, Mesa said, and I felt guilty. I knew he was going to remember. report me to the RA, so I just kept stabbing him. Once he was dead, I knew he couldn't turn me in. One creepy thing, by the way, and y'all can watch any of the TV shows on the case to see this. Like, People Magazine Investigates did a good episode on it a couple of years ago. But his sign language interpreter was a woman, and her kind of soft, like, calm, feminine voice gave the confession such an eerie feeling. Like, it just seems so incongruous with the awful stuff he was saying. It's just, it's a really eerie effect.

So when the detectives asked why he'd chosen Ben, Mesa just kind of shrugged. He knew he probably couldn't put up much of a fight, he said, which by the way was not true, Ben fought like hell. And then he described taking one of Ben's t-shirts to wear over his bloody clothes. It was obvious to everybody in that room that Mesa was enjoying himself no end. He was enjoying describing every gory little detail of his crime. It took him two full hours to tell the story. He wrapped it up with a casual little, oh, by the way. He wanted them to know that after he'd stabbed Ben Varner,

he'd kicked him in the head a few times, too. Wow. I'm sure the detectives, as experienced as they were, probably felt like they needed a shower or maybe two or five after this gross little performance, but after everybody took a moment to regroup, they asked Mesa if there was anything else he wanted to get off his chest. There was.

Eric Plunkett, he signed. I did that one. on too. He'd picked Eric, he said, for a couple of reasons. First, he knew he was, quote, kind of weak. I knew he limped a little, he said. I didn't think he could really be that strong. He said he'd planned the murder for days. And when he was finally ready, he'd put his arm around Eric's neck from behind and choked him as hard as he could. When Eric passed out and slumped down to the floor, Mesa kicked him over and over and then broke a chair over his head. As he described this part to the detectives, he acted it out.

He was really getting into it, see, just having a blast, getting to tell his story. Shit-stain. Oh, you know he'd been replaying it in his head for months. Killers always describe their actions with a fascination that I'm sure they're feeling and felt at the time and expect others to feel, too.

Like, bro, you murdered someone to buy some corny Valentine's jewelry and a stuffed bear or something. It's just the most fucking pathetic thing I've ever seen. Get a job loser. No kidding. And Mesa had one more little bomb to drop before he wrapped up his confession.

He'd tried to frame Tommy Minch, he said. He was the one who told the detectives about the argument Minch had had with Eric a week before the murder. Wow. Devious little scumbag, ain't you? Didn't work, though. Did it? Asshole. And on February 14th, 2001, I love that it was Valentine's Day. And a little less than two weeks since the murder of Ben Varner, D.C. police arrested Joseph Mesa for both murders. When they found out who had murdered their son, the plunkets were stunned.

Joseph Mesa was one of two students who had come up to them at Eric's funeral, hugged them, and said how heartbroken he was about losing his friend. What a complete piece of shit. And one with pretty good acting skills, too. Eric's family never got the slightest inkling that anything was off about him. and neither did most of the students who knew him. But there were a few little signs along the way. Police discovered that Mesa had stolen an ATM card from a former roommate

and spent $3,000 of his money before the guy found out and canceled the card, and he told a couple of people he'd been involved with a gang on Guam, said he'd, quote, seen a lot of blood. He was strong, too. He'd been a star wrestler in high school. During one infamous match, it took three guys to, take him down. Damn. Despite how fast he'd

confessed to the murders, Joseph Mesa soon entered a plea of not guilty. Specifically, not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Mesa was pleading

insanity, y'all, and his story was a doozy. He claimed he'd been instructed to kill Eric and Ben in sign language by a pair of

black-gloved hands he saw in his mind. These hands, campers, belonged to the one, the only W.W.E. Wrestler, The Undertaker. I swear to God, we're not making this up. The flippin undertaker was ordering him to kill. A forensic psychologist Mitchell Huguenette, who interestingly enough also popped up in our Albrecht's moose case a few weeks ago, evaluated Mesa in prison over the course of about

four months. His job was to figure out if Mesa was competent to stand trial. And as he got to know him, it became increasingly clear that this guy was a serial killer in the making. His eyes just lit up when he talked about killing. He told Dr. Huguenot a story about killing animals when he was a kid. And I'm not going to tell you that story because it's fucking awful and I don't want to. Mm-mm. You. And he was just gleeful to describe what he'd done. Acted it out and everything. Yeah, just like he did with the chair thing in his confession. Dr. Huguenette said he had a twinkle in his eye when he talked about it. The police and prosecutor's official line was that robbery was the motive for Eric and Ben's murders,

but Dr. Huguenette disagreed. Joseph Mesa loved killing. Murder was, as Dr. Huguenot put it, an end in itself. And if he wasn't stopped, he'd do it again and again. And why was he so sure? Well, aside from what I already told you earlier, Mesa told Dr. Huguenot that he'd gone back to Ben's room three or four times between the murder and the time Ben's body was found, just to stare at the body. Holy shit. He stood and stared at him for 20 straight minutes the last time. And it was only then that he noticed the checkbook and took it with him. Now, if robbery was the motive, wouldn't he have taken that with him in the first place? Yeah, Dr. Huguenette said he seemed to be, quote, transfixed by what he'd done.

Oh, yeah. It was also clear to Dr. Huguenette that Joseph Mesa was not insane, either clinically or legally. He didn't even mention these alleged black hands to him or any of the other psychiatrist he saw during that time. Not a word about the undertaker or any of that bullshit. But here's the thing. If you're having these kinds of hallucinations or delusions, you can't control when they pop up. As Dr. Huguenette told the show People magazine investigates, you can't turn them on and off like a faucet. This would have come up during their sessions at some point if it was real, but nope.

All Mesa wanted to talk about was murder. Not only that, but he clearly understood that what he'd done was wrong, and he didn't demonstrate an inability to control his behavior. So Huguenot told the court that he was competent to stand trial and both sides moved forward. Mesa wasn't dropping that Hail Mary defense, though. His defense attorneys entered his plea, not guilty by reason of insanity. And the prosecutor was a little worried that it actually might work. I mean, these murders were so brutal, and he got so little out of him, money-wise. And then there was the fact that Mesa had a reputation as a great guy, a generous friend,

a role model for the kids in his neighborhood on Guam. Not exactly right out of central casting for the part of a cold-blooded killer. So they were thinking, might the jury by this insanity defense as the only reasonable explanation for this absolute horror? So that was keeping him up at night as they moved closer and closer to trial. But they needn't have worried because campers, as we've seen so many times on true crime campfire, murderers tend to be dipshits. And our boy was no exception. Joseph Mesa, bless his heart, had been writing to his beloved Melanie from jail.

He told her to burn the letters after she read him, but Melanie was a softy, y'all. She couldn't stand the thought of burning those romantic missives full of hearts and flowers and, you know, trial strategy. She kept them. And when the prosecutors got their hands on those letters, the champagne cork started popping again. Because in these letters, Mesa had laid out a detailed plan to fake insanity in court so he could skate on both murders. He'd just do a couple years in a mental hospital. No big deal. Convince him he was cured. Bada bade a bada boom and then waltz right back into Melanie's arms. Yeah. Well, not anymore, my dude.

Womp, womp. What kind of fucking fantasy world do these smooth-brained imbeciles live in that a mental hospital, a hospital for the criminally insane, is some kind of quick stop vacay? Like, they'll cure me right up with those sugar pills and immediately let me out when I drop the act. That's what they think. The fundamental misunderstanding that these lazy douche pirates have of the legal system is astounding. You're telling me that you are capable of committing a heinous crime, one that could put you away for the rest of your meaningless existence, and you think that playing pretend at the police for a few hours will get you off the hook. the legal definition of insanity is a high bar and Mesa you little cockwomble aren't that fucking tall you clearly concealed your involvement in the crimes and you took steps to frame others

that's right that strikes one through three for the legal system go to hell fucko i hope you die slowly yeah and also beyond that like those aren't nice places no And it almost never happens that you just get out in a couple of years. You know, people end up staying there for years and years and years. And it's not nice. I mean, you might argue it's worse than prison. You don't want to try this. Right.

Look at Ed Gein. He died in a mental institution. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's a guy actually who's in Broadmoor, which is the prison for the criminally insane in Great Britain. Who John Ronson writes about him in the site. psychopath test. He actually tried to fake insanity and ended up in Broadmoor and deeply regretted it. It was like, I should have just taken a plea and done my time and gotten out. That's a great book, by the way, the psychopath test. You should read it.

So anyway, wrote to Melanie. Melanie kept the letters. They found the letters. And now he's screwed. It makes you wonder, doesn't it, what she knew about the murders. I hope she didn't know anything. It was just in denial. But it's like, damn, girl, your guy tells you he's going to fake insanity at his double murder trial, and that doesn't give you pause? You still want to marry the guy? Really? Who are you turning down? Is it like slim pickings where you live or what? I'm just saying, I think you can do better, Melanie. Bless your heart. And by the way, although I don't think robbery was the main motive here, it was definitely a motive. And part of that was his desire to impress his girlfriend. I mean, there's just no doubt about

it. He was always giving her gifts and playing the big man at the bars when they all went out with their friends, you know, paying for everybody and stuff. So money was obviously important to him, and I think it was because he felt like it made him look good. And that was, if not the motive for the murders, at least a major perk in his mind. So it only took the jury three hours to find Joseph Mesa guilty of the first-degree murders of Eric Plunkett and Ben Varner. They sentenced him to six life terms plus 90 years in prison.

Dudes never going to see daylight again. Thank God. because he for sure was going to kill again. And again, I mean, think about what a short cooling off period we have between those two crimes. For months, that was it. And those are supposedly his first murders. That is really scary. So I think he was going to keep going until somebody stopped him.

So, few. Eric's family set up a scholarship fund in his name at his old high school after the trial. And a lot of the kids who win it end up at Gallaudet, which I think he would really like. The university itself also honored Eric and Ben, awarding them each a posthumous degree. And I'm glad. I'm glad they both got to do, at least in death, what they wanted so badly to do in life, which was graduate from their dream school. One more thing I want to say before we wrap this up, campers, is that in addition to Eric and Ben and the dozens of people who loved them, Joseph Mesa had one more victim. him. And that's Tommy Minch. Tommy was so excited when he got into Gallaudet. He had big dreams about what his college experience was going to be like and where it would take him. And that was just

snatched away from him. And apparently, Gallaudet never apologized for that, which I think just absolutely sucks. It's a great school, but like, really? Joseph Mesa robbed Tommy of the education he earned and all the contacts and experiences that would have given him. And that's the kind of stuff you cannot replace, the kind of opportunity you can never get back. back. So, shame on him for that too. 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 we want to send a shout out to a few of our newest patrons.

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