True Crime Campfire - When Nerds Attack - Raging Fool: The Crimes of Charles Severance

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

Anger can be useful. If you need to defend yourself or those you love, or if you need to stand up against some outrage in your community, anger can give you the necessary fire to get things done. It can also be poisonous, eating away at a soul until there’s not much left but dense fury that constantly leaks out like oil from a ruptured tanker. This week’s story is about a man who let his anger consume not only himself, but the lives of three innocent people. 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: The Parable of the Knocker by Bryan Porter ID's See No Evil, S9E6, “Shaken and Disturbed” https://web.archive.org/web/20160215131616/http://mentaldisorder.com/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/mother-of-severances-son-testifies-of-frightening-threatening-letters/2015/10/14/270a887c-729d-11e5-8d93-0af317ed58c9_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/at-severances-trial-nancy-dunnings-son-describes-finding-her-dead/2015/10/15/5375017c-7364-11e5-8248-98e0f5a2e830_story.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/alleged-alexandria-serial-killer-scheduled-to-appear-in-court/2015/09/16/472604b2-5bc6-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/police-look-for-gunman-clues-in-fatal-shooting-in-alexandria/2014/02/07/da370d26-9004-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/virginia-serial-killer-charles-severance-sentenced-to-life-in-prison/2016/01/20/0ba176c6-bfb0-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html https://northernvirginiamag.com/culture/2020/04/22/recently-released-the-parable-of-the-knocker-sheds-new-light-on-charles-severance/ 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/TrueCrimeCampfire https://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/ Facebook: True Crime Campfire Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=en Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfire Email: [e-mail] MERCH! 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. Anger can be useful. If you need to defend yourself for those you love or if you need to stand up against some outrage in your community,

anger can give you the necessary fire to get things done. It can also be poisonous, eating away. at a soul until there's not much left, but dense fury that constantly leaks out like oil from a ruptured tanker. This week's story is about a man who let his anger consume not only himself, but the lives of three innocent people. This is when nerds attack, Raging Fool, The Crimes of Charles Severance. So, campers, for this one, were in Alexandria, Virginia, January 1997. Adrian Miller was an experienced police officer, who was currently working as a field training officer for a rookie. Right now, on this cold night,

they sat in their patrol car in the parking lot of a grocery store, while the rookie finished writing up a report. Miller watched the front of the store, and as soon as a man stepped out, her spidey sense started tingling. The guy was of average height, with dark hair receding from a widow's peak above a gaunt face, and as soon as he walked out of the store, he stopped and stared right at the police car across the park.

parking lot. Miller was pretty sure he couldn't actually see that there were officers in the car, but his gaze was intense, creepy. He stared at the car for maybe 20 seconds, then walked on away from the store. Out front, the store had parked a shopping cart full of canned goods, with a big sign next to it reading Christmas campaign to help the homeless, a donation drive. As Miller watched, the strange man stopped beside the cart and looked around to see if anyone was watching him. Then he reached in and quickly grabbed a few cans, which he shoved into the pockets of his leather bomber jacket. I think that asshole just stole a can of soup, Miller said.

Which, you know, it's not the crime of the century, but the fact that he was taking stuff intended to help the homeless, fired up some righteous indignation. The man got in a beat-up old Ford truck and started it up. Smoke spewed out of the exhaust, and only one taillight came on. As he started driving away, Miller told the road, rookie to follow and pull him over. As they walked up to the truck, the rookie on the driver's side and Miller on the other, they could hear country music blaring from the radio. The rookie started with

the standard, may I see your license and registration please? But the man just stared straight ahead keeping a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel. The cop asked again, and without turning his head, the driver said, I am a proud citizen of this city. I will have you know I recently ran for mayor of Alexandria. Then he shouted, I do not play by your rules. Uh-oh. Were sovereign citizens a thing in the 90s? Very much so. Yes. And before. This reminds me so much of that Australian guy getting arrested in that video. Like, what is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal? Yeah, like, rest in peace to that guy. He has fueled generations of memes. I don't even know what his charge was. That's how, that's how disconnected I am from it. He's just,

just says something funny. We just all know about the succulent Chinese meal. And that is very much this guy's vibe. So just like keep that in mind for the whole thing. After a little more prodding, the man handed over his wallet, which was full of scraps of paper he'd written on and his license, which identified him as 36-year-old Charles Stannard Severance. Still staring straight ahead, Severance said,

I am a proud homeowner and taxpayer. I ran for mayor and received 10% of the vote. in the last election. I demand you release me immediately. Ten whole percent, huh? Well, excuse us. You're free to go. It kills me when people say shit like that. Oh, okay. No problem. Go on your way.

Standing at the passenger side window, Officer Miller saw that the door of the truck was unlocked and that there were cans of food on the seat. So she opened the door and grabbed them. I saw you steal these, she said. You need a warrant for that, Severance said. for the cans and knocking one out of the officer's hands. Both the cops had a bad feeling about this guy. Miller walked back over to the grocery store to see if they wanted to press charges.

The rookie told Severance to stay put and then got back in the patrol car to wait. As he watched, Severance seemed to reach under his seat in the truck for something. That's always a red flag, right? The store did want to press charges, and when Miller got back, she and her partner approached the truck again. The rookie said, Mr. Severance, I need you to step out of the truck. You're under arrest. Never a guy to miss an opportunity for high drama. Severance yelled, I am a proud citizen of this city, and I will not suffer this lunacy.

And he's so awful, but you just can't take him seriously. And then he quickly bent forward and reached under the seat. Oh, hell no. The rookie threw open the door of the truck and grabbed him. keeping his hands from going under the seat. Miller ran around and helped pull the shouting, struggling severance out of the truck, and between the two of them, they got him handcuffed and shoved into the back of the patrol car. Then they went to look under the driver's seat of the truck. Under a piece of black canvas was a 380 caliber CZ pistol,

which was not only loaded, but had a round already in the chamber. That was what Charles had been fudson around with under the seat, racking the pistol so they only needed to pull the trigger to fire. This man had been ready to go out guns blazon rather than be arrested, over a couple cans of soup. This obviously made quite an impression on law enforcement, but the only consequence Charles actually faced was a 10-day stretch on a concealed weapon charge. No one thought this would be the last they heard of him, though,

and as I'm sure you've figured out by now, they were right. Alexandria is an old mid-sized city just south of Washington, D.C., and it's mostly a pretty safe place, especially in the wealthy Delray neighborhood. That was where Jim and Nancy Dunning lived. Nancy was a successful real estate agent, and Jim was the elected sheriff of Alexandria. On the morning of December 5, 2003, Nancy made a lunch date with Jim and their adult son, Chris, and then drove to Target to do some Christmas shopping for a charity drive. Nancy was a gentle, sweet-natured lady who was always looking for ways to help others. Her Toyota Avalon had a sheriff's license plate and a Jim Dunning for Sheriff bumper sticker.

Jim and Nancy had never thought to worry about it, but that made the car easy to identify and follow. And that was exactly what happened. After Nancy had been shopping for about half an hour, she passed a clean-cut guy with a pronounced widow's peak and a black leather bomber jacket. Nancy didn't notice him, but he sure noticed her. He looked surprised, faked a cough, and pretended to tie his shoe lace so she couldn't see his face. It wouldn't have made any difference. Nancy had never seen this man before in her life. He'd been waiting outside for her, but had gotten impatient, come in to look for her. She shopped for another half hour, unaware that the stranger was trailing her throughout the store,

or that he left immediately after she did, without buying anything. Back home, Nancy put her bags on the kitchen counter and tried to call a friend, but the friend didn't pick up. Then there was a knock on the door. There was no reason for Nancy to worry. It was the middle of the day in a safe neighborhood. She thought it might be a delivery driver with something for Christmas. She opened the door and saw the man from Target, although she didn't recognize him at all. And if you see pictures from this case, you might wonder why she wasn't more alarmed, because a little later in life, Charles Severance would adopt a personal aesthetic that I think can be best summed up as a messed-up Gandalf. And those are the pictures that tend to pop up when you research this case. But at this point, he was still a clean-cut, ordinary-looking dude. Charles lifted one hand. He wore latex gloves and

held a small, 22-calibre revolver. The first shot hit Nancy in the chest and probably would have killed her, though not quickly. Nancy stumbled back, lifting her arms to try and shield herself. The second shot went through her arm and hit her chest again, although it no longer had the force to penetrate. Nancy stumbled into a table, knocking over family pictures, then fell into her back. Charles Severance walked in, put the revolver against Nancy's head just behind her left ear, and fired a third and final time, killing her instantly. Nancy had plans to meet her husband and their son, Chris, for lunch at a local restaurant. When she didn't show and didn't answer their calls, they got worried.

As soon as they got home, Chris started to panic when he saw that the garage, garage door was still open, the Avalon parked inside. He hurried into the house and found his mom lying dead on the floor with blood all over her face. Other than the bullets, there was no physical evidence at the scene. The killer had just shot her and left. There were no witnesses, and although security camera footage from Target showed a man trailing her throughout the store, the images were too poor for any kind of identification. This case seemed close to unsolvable, and at least in the local rumor mill, suspicion fell on Nancy's husband, Sheriff Jim Dunning. People can have messy lives. Jim had cheated on Nancy and initially did not come clean about the

affair to investigators. Ooh, bad choice. He also received substantial amounts of money in inheritance and life insurance. We've seen dozens of spouse murders that fit that broad outline, but investigators quickly eliminated Jim as a suspect. Apparently, some people in Alexandria still insists to this day that he must have had something to do with Nancy's death, but he didn't. He was not involved. He was heartbroken and soon retired to Hilton Head, where he died in 2012 with his wife's murder still unsolved. Fast forward now to 10 years later, November 11, 2013. Ron Kirby lived with his wife on quiet, tree-lined Elm Street, not a neighborhood anyone would just wander into. It was about a mile from where Nancy Dunning had been murdered 10 years before. Ron was

69 years old and starting to think about retiring. For decades, he'd worked as a director of transportation planning for the Council of Governments, the COG. The area around Washington is complicated, a big population divided between the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland, and the COG brought people from all three governments together so they could address common issues. Ron's work was building bridges, usually metaphorically, but sometimes literally. He was one of the driving forces behind the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge connecting Virginia and Maryland across the Potomac. He was well liked by everyone he worked with, without an enemy in the world, which is quite an achievement for 30 years in government work, right? Like most of us, Ron's own mechanical skills were not quite up to bridge building.

A couple of days earlier, he'd noticed a slow leak under his kitchen sink, and after, some tinkering, he determined that this was not something he could fix himself. Been there. He called a plumber, who arranged a visit on November 11th. A little after nine, Ron's wife kissed him goodbye and headed out. She had a doctor's appointment, and after that was going to do some volunteer work. At 1132, the plumber called Ron's cell phone to let him know he'd be a little late, but by the time the plumber actually got there at 1142, Ron wasn't answering either his door or his phone. The plumber waited 15 minutes, tried to call again, then went on to another appointment. Ron's adult son Joseph had made plans to meet him for lunch. He arrived not

long after the plumber had left, and when no one answered his knock, let himself in. He found his dad lying dead on the living room floor in a pool of blood. The evidence suggested that Ron had had been sitting in his living room, reading, when he'd heard a knock at the door. He'd taken. He'd taken off his reading glasses and was still holding them when he opened the door. It looked like his killer had started firing immediately, two quick shots of 22 caliber rounds into his chest at extremely close range. One of the bullets went through a lens of the reading glasses Ron was holding, shattering the glass.

A 22 is a small round, something intended for hunting rabbits and plinking tin cans, but it can absolutely still be lethal. In some circumstances, it can cause even more damage than, larger rounds because it might bounce around off of bones inside the body rather than just going straight through. The shots that went into Ron's chest tore through major blood vessels and would kill him very quickly, but he didn't drop right away and turn to try to run. The shooter fired three more times, missing twice but hitting Ron once in the hip. Ron fell to the living room floor, where blood loss from his chest injuries took him rapidly into unconsciousness and then to death.

The medical examiner recovered the three bullets from Ron's body, and investigators found the two that had missed, one in a piano that had been behind Ron as he fled, and one on the floor where it had bounced off a cast-iron radiator. There were no shell casings found, which made investigators think the killer had used a revolver. The wild shooting, with two shots missing at close range, suggested the killer had fired as often as he could, emptying his weapon.

So five shots from a 22 caliber revolver. As it turns out, there's exactly one 22 revolver with a five-round capacity readily available in the U.S. The North American arms mini-revolver. And we're not joking about the mini part. This thing can sit on your open hand with room to spare. It's a teeny little thing. It's kind of a creepy little gun, to be honest. I mean, I know people make arguments in favor of concealed carry,

but why would you need to hide a gun actually inside your closed fist? That's just weird. Anyway, the possible identification of the kind of weapon used in the murder would become really important later on, but for the moment didn't help the investigation much. It's not a particularly rare gun, and the investigation needed all the help it could get. There were no witnesses and no physical evidence other than the bullets. With Ron apparently having no enemies, investigators looked closer to home, but no one in his family had any reason to hurt him, and they all had.

alibis that checked out. This case, for the moment, looked unsolvable. A clean, ruthless assassination. The killer, of course, was Charles Severance. But Ron Kirby didn't know that. When he opened the front door and saw his murderer, Ron had no idea who the man was. He'd never seen this dude before in his life. Three months later, on February 6th, 2014, police were no closer to finding Ron Kirby's murderer, and they were about to be shocked by another brutal assassination. Ruth Ann LaDotto was 59 years old and had lived almost all her life on Ridge Road Drive. Her parents' house was there, and after Ruth Ann finished college and married her husband Norm, they bought their own place right across the street.

Yeah, you know, I can't say that living right across the street from my mom and dad would be my idea of bliss, to be honest. You know, it's the pop-ins. I don't want anybody popping in. But it seemed to work out fine for Ruth Ann. I'm going to be real. I would love it. I know. I know you would. I pop in on my parents all the time.

In fact, I'm technically on a... Well, yeah. Still their food. Still their paper towels. I'm technically on a pop-in right now because my house is being clean. I showed up and I was like, oh, I forgot you were coming over today. So she had no idea. No idea.

Ridge Road Drive was close to where both Nancy Dunning and Ron Kirby had been killed. and was a similarly safe, leafy neighborhood. When Ruth Ann's dad died, her mom moved in, and Ruth Ann and Norm hired a home health aide named Janet to help take care of her. Norm worked for the state government while Ruth Ann worked from home as a music teacher, teaching hundreds of kids over the years. They all loved her. She was a fixture of the community, a warm and compassionate person.

It was impossible to think of anyone wanting to hurt her. On February 6th, Norm left early for an appointment, in Fairfax. At 8.30, Janet arrived to work with Ruthanne's mom. Ruthanne taught in the afternoon and evenings. She had a noon appointment but spent the morning working on her lesson plans and talking to her daughters on the phone. At 1130, the doorbell rang. Ruthanne wasn't expecting anyone, but why would she worry? When she opened the door, Charles Severance said something to her, then fired three times. The first shot, the one that would kill Ruthanne, was in the middle of the chest. The second

went through her left arm and also hit her chest. Ruthanne screamed and stumbled back, falling to the ground in the family room. Severin stepped into the foyer, lifting his revolver ready to shoot her again. Janet came out of the kitchen wondering, what the hell? She'd heard Ruthanne answer the door,

heard a male voice say something, and then heard two quick cracks followed by a scream from Ruthanne. Now she saw Ruthanne scrabbling on the floor, bleeding heavily. In the foyer, she saw a gaunt-faced, bearded middle-aged man. She didn't see the gun, which was concealed by his hand and the sleeve of his light-colored coat. I hope none of us ever have to be in a situation like this, but what do you

think you would do? Janet felt her knees go weak and just collapsed onto the floor and terror, which I suspect would, in truth, be the most common reaction. I'd probably dive back into the kitchen. I don't know, but you don't know until you're there, do you? But Janet, as you're about to find out, amazing human being. Severance turned and glared at her, then turned his gun on Janet. She still couldn't see it, just a black circle inside his sleeve. Then she heard another crack, saw a flash of flame from the sleeve, and felt a burning pain in her arm.

There was another shot, but this one missed. Severance didn't bother to check if his victims were dead, just turned and walked calmly out of the house. Janet, of course, didn't know if he was gone for good. Bleeding badly from her arm, she screamed. scrambled onto her feet and hurried to the back of the house to grab Ruthanne's elderly mom and take her out the back door and across the yard to a neighbor's house. She asked the neighbor to call 911, then hurried back to try and help Ruthanne, even though she didn't know if the shooter was still there. What an absolute badass.

Ruthanne was still alive. When police officers and paramedics arrived, she was able to answer a few of their questions. Her shooter was a middle-aged man with a gray beard. Matt Dow Candolph. She had no idea who he was. Although Ruthanne was given quick, skilled care, her wounds were just too severe. She died that afternoon. 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 Cannon podcast 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. From the parents behind law and order comes a mystery the whole family can enjoy. Patrick Picklebottom everyday mysteries. Step into the whimsical world of Patrick Picklebottom, 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 Pickle Bottom 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. Just like at Ron Kirby's death,

crime scene investigators and the medical experts, examiner recovered a total of five 22 caliber bullets with no shell casings. He's just unloading this thing every time. But unlike at the Kirby scene, police had a witness. Janet was wounded in the arm, but would make a full recovery. And when officers canvassed the neighborhood, they got lucky. Nowadays, if the police ask residents of a well-to-do neighborhood if they have any surveillance cameras watching their property, there is a pretty good chance the answer is going to be, yeah, I've got one here, here, here, which one do you want, right? But that wasn't always the case in 2014.

But one of Ruthanne's neighbors did have a digital security camera, which he handed over to the police. This murder shook up law enforcement in Alexandria, not only because it was so similar to Jim Kirby's death just a few months earlier, but because a lot of them knew Ruthanne Liddetto, at least a little. Both her father and her brother were judges. Everyone immediately thought there had to be a connection to the Kirby killing, but opinion was divided as to whether there was any relation to the murder of Nancy Dunning, 11 years previously. There were certainly similarities, but there was such a long gap between the killings.

Could it really be the work of the same person? They consulted with the FBI's behavioral analysis unit, who agreed that the same killer was likely responsible for all three deaths. All the victims either were or were married, to people active in local government, and that suggested someone with a serious grudge against officialdom. From interviewing Janet, investigators were able to get a composite sketch of the killer on the news within a couple of days. As composite sketches tend to be, it was only a rough likeness of the actual person, Charles Severance. This was partly due to the limitations of the procedure,

and partly because Janet was just in shocked terror when she saw him. The eyes and nose are kind of off, Severance's gaunt cheeks are unmistakable. The sketch brought in thousands of calls. White guys in their 50s and 60s with gray hair and a beard aren't exactly thin on the ground. There's a few of those dudes running around. Investigators followed up on every one of those that identified a specific person, rather than just being like, I think I saw this dude on my bus. One such call identified a kind of weird local guy who vaguely resembled the shooter.

An Alexandria PD detective and an FBI agent went to interview him. Now, this guy was quickly able to convince the investigators that he was not the shooter, but by a weird coincidence, he was able to give them a lead. He'd gone to school with someone who was frequently furious at the city of Alexandria, and although the guy hadn't seen him in person in years, pictures on his website showed that he now looked kind of like the man in the composite sketch. This, of course, was Charles Severance. Charles was born in 1960, the son of a high-ranking officer in the U.S. Navy.

His dad's career meant they moved around a lot when Charles was young, but they eventually settled in Fairfax, Virginia. He was a bright kid who read a lot and was fascinated by political history, and he had a strong mechanical inclination, eventually graduating with a degree in engineering. You know what bright, bookwormy kids with strong mechanical inclinations often do? They often play dungeons and dragons. Sorry, nerds. He's one of ours. I mean, not just D&D. Charles made role-playing and board games a cornerstone of his life

and was definitely the kind of guy who would, well, actually, you if you got one tiny little detail wrong from a World of Darkness source book. Oh, God, he's a rules lawyer. Yeah. Charles even created games. most notably one called mental disorder, which he sold online and in a local game shop, although we should probably say made available rather than sold, because I have a real hard time

imagining anyone parting with cash for this shit. Mental disorder was a card-based game that Charles made instead of going to therapy. Not going to therapy was almost the whole point of the game. Here's the intro to the four points. page instruction manual. Oh, God. Imagine yourself as an eccentric psychopath being diagnosed with schizophrenia and having an opportunity to submit to a toxic lifetime maintenance medication program every day for

the rest of your life. Or, how about sending someone you just met to an insane asylum because you, as a licensed mad doctor, have legitimate authority and forensic credibility to influence judgment, order, and sentence. These and many other fascinating scenarios await every. everyone who endeavors to journey into the hideous realm of mental disorder. I'm pretty sure they don't give out licenses for mad doctor. I mean, I could be wrong.

Jesus, Jones, man. My favorite insinuation is that your doctor has to get to know you a little bit better before diagnosing you. Like, take you out to dinner, you know. You got to romance me a little there, dog. Play some board games. I don't know. I need to be wooed, sir. I need to be wooed before you diagnose my depression, okay?

The game designer slash author profile reads, buckle in. It's a, oh my God. Although vilified and ordered by lawful evil measures in March of 2000 have no contact with his infant son. What us beginning. Severance is the nurturing fit father and strong parent of Levite severance, despite the inferior opinions of an infamous circuit and jealous family court.

Indignant dad severance is also a highly respected and solid citizen. As a legitimate candidate, he finished second in a 1995 special election for mayor of the city of Alexandria with 10% of the vote. That 10%... Which I'd like me to tell you how many candidates there were. Yes, please. In that race that he finished second in, there were two. Yeah, it was just two.

So the other guy got 90% of the vote. And he got 10%. Oh my God. He advocates the economic collapse, political isolation, and unregulated international militia hunt of all infant child and adolescent psychiatrists, neurologists, pediatricians, researchers, government agents, and democracy educators that promote licit, mind-altering, patently legal, toxic biological behavior. oppressive maintenance psychotropic drug medications like tamoxatine, Ritalin, Louvox,

Prozac, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRI to precocious youth. Levite and his father are reverent, defiant, and alive in the wake of September 11, 2001. What? So. So he sounds like fun, right? Yeah. And that wording, by the way, honey, it makes it sound like there are infants and children out there practicing psychiatry.

Like, you need to proofread this shit. Now, I'm not going to pretend I tried too hard to understand the rules, which seem, frankly, bananas. But to give you the flavor, here's one sequence of play. All players, beginning with the offensive player and continuing left, conspicuously vote on a diagnosis by gesturing offensive favor, Aryan salute, or defensive favor, civil rights salute. Why am I not surprised to see the Aryan salute? up in this freaking fever dream of a game. Like, my question is, is, do all homemade TTRP creators have to be white supremacists?

Or is it just the ones we cover? Is that one of the rules is like, when you're creating a TT RPG game is like, add some racism, and like, I do think Varg Vigerness would have a blast with this one. Oh, hell yeah. Did anyone actually play this bullshit? it. Well, sort of. Charles got his family and role-playing buddies to play, but no one participated more than once. This game wasn't for other people. Many of the cards just recounted events from Charles' own life. Like, for example, the 1997 concealed weapons arrest that we started this episode with,

and that arrest led to Charles spending 10 days in the city jail, a jail run by the sheriff, Jim Dunning, husband of our first victim, Nancy. I don't think this man knows how a role-playing game works. It's it's not a role if it's just you dips you. And there we go. We've got the first connection, right? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's Jim Dunning. It's straight up, it feels like a Pepe Sylvia situation where you're just connecting red strings, but this was really what happened. This is really... Well, yeah, it's, that's what it's like in his head. I mean, his head is all like poster board with red strings. I mean, that's what this man's brain is like, I think. Charles' actual involvement with mental health professionals was briefer,

unfortunately, than the rants and mental disorder suggested. In 1989, he and his buddy were arrested for illegally firing weapons in a wooded area close to suburban homes. Charles had stuck photos of President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, onto the targets, which won him a visit from the Secret Service. The White House was just 15 miles away, so I guess that made sense. after this, his parents convinced Charles to see a psychiatrist, but Charles abruptly ended the therapy

after a session where he admitted to having fantasies about killing his father. He never sought out any kind of therapy again after that and developed a deep Elron Hubbard-like fury against the whole profession, including the infant ones. Those infant psychiatrists are the worst. You're just staring at them.

All the other one to do is push a pacifier into your mouth. It's her answer for everything. You're just staring at them. Like, did the soft spot in your head close yet? No answer. Interesting. After college, Charles had a series of brief engineering jobs getting canned from each of them for being weird, starting intense political arguments and being the kind of guy who delights in making other people uncomfortable. At one job, he started driving to work with a big Soviet Union flag draped over his truce over his child. truck. Big edgy move in Reagan's America and not something that's going to encourage anyone to

renew your contract. Our boy's given off big manifesto guy energy, isn't he? I can smell it, y'all. The stinky scent of angry dude manifesto is just waft in on the breeze. By the mid-90s, Charles was working for the local wastewater authority and had bought a small home on the edges of the Delray neighborhood where all three murder victims lived. In 1996, he decided to run for mayor of Alexandria. It's not quite clear why, other than having an overinflated sense of his own intelligence and importance, one of his policies was to end the 2% merit raise for city employees. He was a city employee, and I guess he didn't get the merit raise and was pissed about it.

His mayoral platform was, let's call it, eclectic, lower taxes on everything except for the those on cigarettes, which would be quadrupled, an end to all funding to anything connected to mental health, and the imposition of square dancing classes in all the schools. I swear to God, I'm not making this up. Square dancing. Yeah, it's like peeling an onion with this dude. It's just one weird-ass layer after another. Swing your partners, docee, do, all taxation is theft. Oh man. Forever after, Charles would brag about getting 10% of the vote in the mayoral election, and that was mostly true. I mean, he did.

Around 150,000 people live in Alexandria, but only 5,700 voted for mayor. 490 of them for Charles Severance. And I'm willing to bet that almost none of them knew who the hell he was. Please, vote in your local elections, people, or we'll all just be square dancing into oblivion. Yes. The Republicans hadn't managed to field a candidate, so it was just Charles and the victorious Democratic candidate on the ballot. There was a televised debate, which Charles showed up to wearing a long leather coat like a duster and dark sunglasses looking like a dumbass. I'm sorry, I meant absolute badass, of course. No, wait, I think I was right the first time.

like he was doing like Andrew Dice Clay cosplay or maybe like Lorenzo Lama's I don't know or Fonzie. There were Fonzie vibes. He ran for Congress later that same year. During a debate for that office, he grabbed an American flag that was on the stage, pointed it like a spear at his opponent,

and then the audience, then just fled out the door. Sorry, this guy. A bold strategy. How do we think it went? Well, he won a glorious 0.32% of the vote, then ran again for mayor in 2000, not even cracking 400 votes that time around. What are you?

You pointing a flag as a spear and then just running off stage. I'm surprised he didn't, like, put one of those little smoke bombs down before. Oh, God. He would have if he, You know he would have if he could have. He didn't have one.

If he thought of it. Yeah. Lord, this guy is just preposterous. Despite his future bragging about his performance, Charles was furious at the results of these elections. They just showed how stupid and ignorant the people of Alexandria were. Wasn't his genius apparent to them? Fools? And we're making that up, but Charles is absolutely the kind of guy who would say fools and like mean it.

Remember, the first time we met him, he told a cop, I will not suffer this lunacy. Again, it's a little hard to believe looking at recent photos of the man, but in the 90s, Charles Severance was not an awful looking guy. I mean, he was kind of a horse face and had a sneery smirk that made you immediately think he was a hundred percent pure asshole, but some people can work with that. The square dancing in schools thing wasn't just random. Charles loved a little bit of docee dough. In July of 1998, he went to a dance at a Western-themed bar in Northern Virginia and hit it off with a pretty young woman named Tamila Nichols. I mean, I guess they really hit it off because their son Levite would be born nine months later.

By then, Tamila was living with Charles in his Delray house. She wanted to try and make the relationship work, but there wasn't much chance of that. In addition to his general weirdness, Charles was emotionally abusive and trolling. He imagined himself as some kind of colonial patriarch. One time when they were arguing, he roared at Tamila, I am the lion in this home. You must submit. Really? I wish a bitch would. Don't you just wish somebody would say that to you? God, please. Oh my God. So, surprise, surprise. Before the kid was one year old, Tamila took him and left. Good for her. Charles filed for custody, which was normal under the circumstances, and least surprising thing ever,

chose to act as his own attorney, which I'm sure we don't have to tell you, doesn't tend to work out great, especially for someone as preposterous as Charles Severance. He filed hundreds of pleadings, most of them sarcastic and insulting. Court loves that. Oh, yeah. And at the hearings, he verbally abused Tamila, her attorneys and the people work in the court, so much so that the judge asked for additional deputies to be present. The court ordered him to undergo psychiatric evaluation, which he refused.

The judge granted Tamila full custody of their son and then said Charles could say goodbye to him if he wanted. But because the judge was worried for the kid's safety, this farewell would happen right there in the courthouse, with deputies nearby. Immediately afterward, Charles was served with a protective order to keep him from contacting Tamila or Levite. deputies signed Charles's copy of the order and also wrote the name of the person whose authority they were acting under. Sheriff Jim Dunning. Oh, man. Tamila left the state immediately and Charles had no idea where she was, so he settled for sending hundreds of threatening letters to her parents.

She'd later testify that for 13 years, after that last custody hearing, she was terrified every day that Charles would find her and kill her. Good Lord. In 2014, a detective followed up on their lead concerning Charles Severins and went to the last known address they had for him, which was his parents' house in Fairfax County. There wasn't any special urgency in the inquiry. This was just one of hundreds of tips that they had to chase down. Charles' parents told the detectives that he was now living in a townhouse in Ashburn, a few miles west, with his girlfriend, Linda. Which, we don't know what her deal was, for the record. Nope.

No idea. We don't know. I mean, whoof. Linda is a woman of mystery. Maybe it's better that way. Yeah, yeah. The detective logged the information for a future visit. The investigation was gathering the kind of evidence that didn't necessarily bring them closer to finding the killer, but would help put him away once they did.

Digital security camera footage from a neighbor of Ruthan Ladado caught a maroon Ford escort driving away just after the murder, but the driver wasn't visible and the footage. wasn't good enough to read either the license plate or the round bumper sticker next to it. Damn. Forensic analysis determined that the bullets used in all three murders had been fired from three different guns, but each of the same make and model, a North American arms five-shot mini revolver. The kicker was that all the bullets were from Remington, which could be determined because the company put quality control letters on the base of their bullets.

All the bullets used in the murders were marked as being from Remington's quieter subsonic range. That combination, a North American Arms Revolver and Remington Subsonic had only ever been used in three shootings, these three. In early March, two things happened coincidentally that really shook Charles up. The chief of the Alexandria PD gave a news conference in which he stated that the three murders we've discussed were connected, meaning that the area had a serial killer. This was obviously huge news, and there on the TV was a composite scale. of Charles. Roo-ro.

The same day, a detective got in touch with his girlfriend, Linda, who owned the townhouse, asking if Charles could get in touch with him. He could feel the net closing around him. And I want you to take a second to try to imagine how our boy reacted to this, because I guarantee you, you're not going to get it right if I gave you all week. There are names that echo in the world of true crime, names that carry unanswered questions. Oakley Carlson, a friend. five-year-old girl who deserved safety, protection, and love. Yet the system built to protect her

failed and Oakley disappeared. Her community still calls her name. Or Ellen Greenberg found in her locked apartment with 20 stab wounds. A case declared a suicide. But how does a locked apartment tell two different stories at once? These are not just cases we have covered. They are people. They were loved and they mattered. Their stories deserve to be told. with care, with depth, with truth. I'm Ashley. And I'm Ricky. We are the husband and white duo behind crime salad.

Every week we uncover stories of the missing, the silence, the misunderstood. We ask the questions that were left behind. We refuse to let these stories be forgotten. Because behind every case is a family holding on a community seeking answers and a story that deserves to be heard. We invite you to listen to Crime Salad. Your healthy portion of true crime. wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mandy.

And I'm Melissa, and this is Moms and Mysteries. We're two Florida moms obsessed with true crime, from infamous cases like Ellen Greenberg to shocking Florida stories like the Dan Markell killing. With 55 million downloads, we bring you new deep dives every Tuesday and Thursday. Listen to Moms and Mysteries on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. The next day, he drove into D.C. and parked near the National Cathedral, then got his bicycle off the rack on the back of his car. He started peddling down Massachusetts Avenue,

wearing several pairs of pants and a few extra shirts under a sweatshirt to make himself look bulkier. Over the sweatshirt, he had on a southwestern-style poncho, and to top off this ensemble, he wore a black Revolutionary War-style tricorn hat. God, you absolute nerd! He was headed for the Russian embassy. When he got there, he hung out until he saw a visitor get passed through security and just trying to walk in after him.

The Russian guard stopped him. I mean, of course they did. Dude, you're rolling up in a poncho and a tricorn hat. Stealth missions are kind of off the table. Charles started loudly declaring that the city of Alexandria was persecuting him and he was requesting asylum. The Russians ignored him and called the Secret Service. Good, good. Yeah.

Agents arrived to talk to Charles. They took pictures of him, mostly for their records, but I'm sure some were just to show their friends. He repeated his rant about being persecuted by Alexandria, who he said had taken his son away from him. The agents asked the Russians if they wanted to press trespassing charges, but they didn't, so Charles was told he was free to go and peddled off. But this is the secret service. They followed him to the parking lot and watched him fix his bike to the back of a maroon Ford escort. They approached Charles again and asked if they could search his car.

He refused, angrily. The agents took pictures of the car, and when they got back to the office, they filed a police report on the incident. They were well aware of the killings in Alexandria, and because Charles had ranted about that city, they sent the report to the Alexandria PD, including the pictures of the car that matched video footage from the La Dado. murder. The morning after his little Russian adventure, Charles had managed to focus the whole investigation on him. He said, good job. Charles had already assumed the police were onto him. He told his girlfriend that he was going camping, which she knew meant he was going to vanish for a long time. Linda Robra was a real estate agent and substitute elementary school teacher that Charles

had met in 2011 at a square dance. Apparently, if you want to hook up in northern Virginia, the place to go is a Western-themed bar and let yourself be seduced by the erotic allure of cowhorns on the wall and all you can eat nachos. It's a roiling cauldron of raw sexuality up in there. Yaha. A month after they met, Charles moved in with Linda, an unemployed 51-year-old man living with his parents. Girl, I think you've hit the jackpot. Linda had some conspiracy theorist leanings herself and shared Charles' distrust of the government in general and law enforcement in particular, but he still managed to shock her with his deep and genuine delight whenever the news reported on police officers or people in the military being killed.

Theoretically, he was supposed to pay $400 a month in rent, but that didn't last long. Charles couldn't keep any relationship going for long, and by 2014, Linda was sick of him. When he said he was going camping, she told him to pack up his shit and leave for good. He'd been gone for a couple of days by the time the police and FBI executed a search warrant on her home. In 2004, Charles had gotten a second concealed weapons charge, which in Virginia meant that it got upgraded from a misdemeanor to a felony. This meant he could no longer legally own a firearm, so he'd gotten Linda to buy two of his favorite little mini-revolvers and some subsonic, ammunition. These were theoretically for Linda herself, but as you might expect for a square dancing conspiracy theorist, she already had bigger guns of her own. The new weapons were for Charles.

The search of Linda's home revealed that the many revolvers and ammo were missing. Charles had taken them, making him a felon with illegal firearms. He could be arrested and held if investigators could find him. This was not one of history's great manhunts. The warrant for Charles Severance's arrest on the firearms charge was issued on the evening of March 12th. In the middle of the next day, a federal agent told investigators that the dumbass had just used his debit card at a hotel in Wheeling West Virginia. Continuing to win, I see. Let's get him as Mensa card, y'all. If you're that paranoid, shouldn't you be dealing in like gold bouillon or something? Like, what are you doing? I know, right? Using a debit card where they can track you. It's always like this.

Fake. The local coughs were asked to look out for him. The briefing included a picture the Secret Service agents had taken of Charles beside his bicycle, which was blue and had a distinctive yellow strap wrapped around the handlebars. One officer left the briefing and walked outside. And there, in the parking lot of the public library right across the street from the police station, was a blue bicycle with a yellow strap. Because Charles was considered dangerous and might react poorly to seeing a uniform, the The officer asked a couple of undercover detectives in civilian clothes to go in, where they found Charles at one of the library computers. One of the few smart things Charles did was to only use library computers for research about his crimes and victims, making the searches impossible to track.

At the moment, he was looking at campsites. The officers arrested him without incident. In his car were a bag full of latex gloves and a gun cleaning kit, but no actual guns. Somewhere along the 200-mile drive to wheeling, he ditched them. Detectives also got a good look at the round bumper sticker on the back of Severance's car, which showed a revolver's cylinder with five rounds loaded, and the words, Assassination City Derby printed around the cylinder.

This was the name and logo of a roller derby league based in Dallas, Texas, but do we think Charles was a big roller derby fan? This was just him thinking he was clever, broadcasting his crimes and secret. He always had to try and be edgy. Good luck with that in court, dude. The time of his arrest was also when Charles gave up on personal grooming and quickly evolved into the aforementioned crackhead Gandalf look, which is what you'll see if you look him up.

This was probably a half-ass attempt to confuse identification at his inevitable trial. So authorities had the shooter in custody, but they still had no idea why he'd killed his victims. It would never be crystal clear. From his car, they recovered pages of scribbled handwriting that has sometimes been described as a manifesto. Did I call it? Or did I call it? But it's not really organized well enough for that, just endless, pompous, apocalyptic-themed ranting against what he called the Alexandrian utopian elites and self-indulgent justifications for violence against them.

Remember, this was a person who wanted to make it legal to hunt down psychiatrists. Charles Severance could not be whiter if you pasted wonderbread and mayonnaise all over him, okay? But he claimed a shared justification with colonial-era Native Americans who attacked settlers on their land. He gleefully imagined scenarios he called tomahawking, where warriors would surprise and kill settlers in the doorways of their homes. There was no specific mention of the murders or his victims, but there was a weird, almost poem that fit the killings. extremely well. Oh, my lord. Knock, enter. A metaphor, a translation, a mystery. Knock and the door will be answered. Seek and ye shall find.

Knock and the door will open. Ask and ye shall know. Wisdom. Knock, talk, enter, kill, exit. Murder wisdom. Patience is an excuse for cowardice. Jesus is the Lord. Wow. He also wrote, can you forget? someone for kidnapping your son? Can you murder someone for kidnapping your son? Of course, this is how he views the family court process as kidnapping. And you hear this a lot from particularly unhinged parents who are involved in custody, you know, situations. Kidnapping. Yeah, that's not, that's not kidnapping. Although Sheriff Jim Dunning had not been directly involved in Charles losing custody of his son, his name was on the protective order that Charles obsessed over.

So in 2003 he took his revenge, but because he's a coward, he didn't go after the sheriff directly. He assassinated his wife when she was home alone. The other two murders were essentially random and based on nothing more than where they happened to live. Charles wrote, Introduce murder into a safe and secure neighborhood. It shudders with violence. Do it again and again and again. Add violence and increase uncertainty among status quo utopian approach.

elites, emotionally disturbed them with violence. Terrorism, essentially, furious action against an elite of which he, the pampered son of an admiral, remember, was very much a part. I'm sure his daddy was so proud, don't you bet? Charles's trial was a circus, just like his custody hearings had been, with him yelling, giving the judge the finger, and just livid that he, the smartest and most important man in the world was being treated like this. And we should probably talk briefly about his brain. Charles clearly was several peanuts short of a full snickers, but that alone is not a legal defense. If he was aware of his actions and showed premeditation, which he clearly had than he was culpable. One of our main sources for this story was the book The Parable of the Knocker, written by Brian Porter,

the prosecutor in this case. And as you might expect, it goes into the trial in quite a bit of detail. and I would recommend it if you want to learn more about that part of the story in particular, but in truth, there was very little doubt about how this was going to play out. The jury found Charles Severance guilty of all three murders, and in November of 2015, he was given three life sentences plus 48 years. One of the things that really freaks me out about this case is the huge gulf of time between the first murder and the other two. Ten years!

I mean, we know that serial killers have cooling off. periods between murders, but 10 years is a hell of a cool off. And to me, it feels like he wasn't cooling off at all during that time. I think he was just seething, stoking his rage against the system until it burst into flames. Narcissism is a hell of a drug, and our boy Charles was mainline in it for a decade straight. He wasn't mad at the government on behalf of we the people. He was furious for what the family court had done to him specifically. These were, at the heart, revenge Revenge for a wrong that was never really wrong in the first place. And done in the most cowardly way possible.

Ambush of a series of victims who didn't even know he existed. What an absolute waste. What a fucking idiot. Now, before we go, don't forget about our two amazing live shows coming up. First, we've got Summer Camp, September 10th through 13th, an amazing four-day festival in Equinunk, Pennsylvania, hosted by Dan and Lindsay Cummins of Time Suck and Scared to Death. If you're not familiar with those two, oh my God, they are so funny and great and their shows are both amazing.

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 12, 27. If you want to come on vacation with us and some of the biggest true crime and paranormal podcasts in the world, like case file, true crime garage, last podcast on the left and scared to death, here's what you got to do. Tickets are on sale now and they're going fast. So if you want to go, make sure you get over to crimewave at sea.com slash campfire and book your cabin ASAP. You'll get $100 off, plus a private meet and greet with us.

The great thing is you can pay all at once if you want to, but you can also set up a payment plan and just pay it off over time. So get on it, Jall. That's crimewave at sea.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. Thank you so much to Neil, Kira, Jennifer, Kim, and Mimi. 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, just posted on patrons-only thing. It was really, really fun. And when you join the $5 and up categories, you can 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 join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire. 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 Repin, I sit down with actors, creators, and change makers to hear their full story. the risks they took, the moments, everything almost fell apart, and the lessons they live by. These are real conversations, no headlines, and no soundbites. Just stories that show the human behind the success and gives you insights you can actually use in your own life.

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Yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly Happy, Say, Confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers. From Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino for over 10 years and over 700 episodes. Happy, Say I Confused has broken movie and TV news every single week. That's because I ask all the questions I want to know, and more importantly, you want to know. Casting What Ifs, backstage stories, acting pet peeves, and much more.

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