True Crime Campfire - When Nerds Attack: The Vampire Killers of Brisbane

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

In the original Bram Stoker novel, vampire Count Dracula uses mysterious mind-control powers to feed his insatiable need for blood. He doesn’t always hunt alone—he prefers to use hapless humans as tools to get what he wants. For such an old story, it sure does match up with the kind of manipulation we tend to see in the real-life cases we cover. And in Brisbane, Australia in 1989, life would imitate art in an almost literal way, as an obsessed young woman drew three others into her murderous web. Sources:Daily Telegraph: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/crime-week-dark-secrets-of-australias-lesbian-vampire-murderer/news-story/83ed596770511fa459c4a7feab36ce1cMoving Targets: Women, Murder and Representation, 1993, chapter "Biting the Hand That Breeds: The Trials of Tracey Wigginton" by Deb VerhoevenMurderpedia, various articles: https://murderpedia.org/female.W/w/wigginton-tracey.htmBBC's "Great Crimes and Trials," episode "The Lesbian Vampire Killers"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://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/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. In the original Brand Stoker novel, Vampire Count Dracula uses mysterious mind control powers to feed his insatiable need for blood. He doesn't always hunt alone. He prefers to use hapless humans as tools to get what he wants. For such an old story, it sure does match up with the kind of manipulation we tend to see in the real-life cases we cover.

And in Brisbane, Australia, in 1989, life would imitate art in an almost literal way. As an obsessed young woman drew three others into a murderous web. This is when nerds attack, the vampire killers of Brisbane. So campers, for this one, we're in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, October 20th, 1989. It was a Friday night, and the kangaroo point area was hopping. At the Caledonian club, 47-year-old Edward Baldock wrapped up his game of darts, said good night to his buds, and headed out to the street to flagged down a taxi. He was pretty drunk, and Edward was a responsible guy, not the type to put other people's safety at risk to make things easier on himself. He wasn't about to try and drive.

And at about 11.45 p.m., Edward looked up to find a green car slowing down beside him. He ducked down to peer in through the passenger side window. The car was full of young women. Four of them, all in their 20s, all smiling at him. He smiled back. One of the women, dark-haired and dark-eyed with a short pixie haircut called out to him. A short conversation and then Edward Baldock, drowsy from the drinks and more than grateful for a ride, slid into the back seat. A moment later, there was a flash of red tail lights and the green car disappeared down the dark street. It didn't take long for Edward's wife to start worrying about him. Sure, he liked to go out with his mates for a few drinks and some darts now and then, but Edward was a family man, a granddad already at 47. He wasn't the type

to stay out all night and leave his wife to worry and wonder. She didn't have to wonder long. Just hours later, in the gray dawn, a man out for an early morning row on the Brisbane River stumbled upon the bloody body of Edward Baldock on the shore, and it was a sight he'd carry with him for the rest of his days. The body was naked, except for a pair of socks, and his throat had been cut so deeply it had almost decapitated him. His head was held on by the spine. The rest of his neck was destroyed. Not only that, there were puncture wounds all over his back and shoulders, stab wounds on his chest, and worst of all, what looked like evidence that someone had forced their fingers into some of the puncture wounds, like they were just playing with the body.

Absolutely ghoulish. All in all, there were 27 stab wounds, plus that horrific slash to the throat. And there were some intriguing pieces of evidence nearby. Mr. Baldock's clothes had been neatly folded, and sat on the ground near his body, with his shoes lined up beside them. The headquarters of the local sailing club was right next to the area where the body had been found, and police found that somebody had stuck Baldock's wallet, with the cash still inside, under the front door of the building. Just trying to hide it, I guess. Money's still there. Seemed to rule out robbery as a motive, so what was it then? Well, turns out nobody had to wait very long for the answer,

because when the investigators took a closer look at the victim's neatly arranged shoes, they found a treasure inside, a Commonwealth bank card in the name of Miss T. Wiginton. Interestingly, the bank card was exactly the same type and color as the victim's card, which they found in his wallet. A quick check with the bank revealed Miss T as 24-year-old sheet metal worker Tracy Averill Wiginton. Okay. I'm going to try not to offend our friends down under in this episode. I'm trying really hard. No offensive accents are happening, okay? But But that is the most Australia name I've ever heard. It is.

The only thing that would make it more Aussie is if Tracy was a kangaroo. Oh, man, it's true. It is very Austro. It's aggressively Australian, you might say. So this was a strange lead. I mean, all the investigators had immediately assumed the killer was a man, but they headed over to Tracy's apartment to question her. She opened the door looking a little bit the worse for where.

There were circles under her dark brown eyes, but she talked with them willingly. She said, yes, she'd been down by the river the day before, but she certainly didn't know anything about a murder. And the detectives figured she was probably telling the truth. I mean, a crime like this, for God's sake, you don't picture a 24-year-old woman. They didn't yet know by the end of the day they'd be arresting Tracy Wiginton for murder, along with three of her friends, and diving headfirst into the weirdest murder investigation of their careers. But, you know, we got to put a pin in that for a few minutes first, so we can get a little background. Tracy Wiginton didn't exactly grow up in a sitcom family. Her childhood was

pretty much a horror show. She was raised mostly by her grandparents, George and Avril, who legally adopted her at one point. They were a wealthy family, but it wasn't what you'd call a nurturing environment. Tracy says her grandmother used to beat her with a cord for an iron, while screaming, men are dirty bastards. Jesus Jones. What one thing had to do with the other, I'm not sure, but Tracy also says her grandfather sexually abused her for several years. So it might have something to do with that. Some disturbing layers there.

But it might have just been because Grandad George was reportedly quite the ladiesman, and he cheated on Avril like it was his job. So she might not have known anything about the sexual abuse. She could have just been taking out her frustration at being cheated. on. Apparently, Grandma Averill had nothing but love and affection for her pet chihuahuas, though. I'm sure that was real nice for little Tracy, watching her adoptive mom feed steak to the doggies and baby talk them while she's getting whipped with a cord. And her half-sister Michelle apparently got it even worse. Grandma Averill even had a male friend of hers join in on beating Michelle, usually on the

souls of her feet, which must have just been excruciating. Ugh. Despite this, Tracy got a first-class education, for a while, at least. She learned how to play the organ, took ballroom dancing, but eventually the school expelled her for, quote, molesting other girls. My guess is, this meant they caught on that Tracy was beginning to realize she was a lesbian. Her grandparents' response to this was to send her to a convent school, which must have been a treat. That didn't last long, though, because the grandparents both died in 1981 when Tracy was just 15, when she was six. When she was she got involved with an older man, a friend's husband, and ended up pregnant. She had an abortion

when the guy didn't want anything to do with the baby and broke off the relationship. Tracy's grandparents had left her about $75,000 in their will, which 80s money is a lot of scratch, especially for a teenage girl. The money was turned over to her when she turned 18. Unsurprisingly, she blew through it in record time buying a motorcycle and living large. Tracy went back to live with her biomomom at first, but they clash when her mom became aware that Tracy liked girls. With her grandparents gone, Tracy had signed up for a course in hospitality, like hotels and restaurants and stuff, and started experimenting with being more open about her sexual identity. She cut off her hair and started calling herself Bobby. This was apparently

too much for her mom, sadly, and Tracy moved out again. She clearly had some affection for her daughter, though. Years later, she told her reporter, she's a beautiful, loving, good-natured girl. and described her as a wacky kid who always used to have us in stitches. And not everybody remembered it like that, though. One of Tracy's former classmates at the Catholic school said the other kids tried to stay out of Tracy's way. I'd always stay clear of her, she said. She had that strange evil look. A stare, says Detective Sergeant Glenn Burton, that could slice right through you.

When she looked at you, he said, it was almost as if you didn't exist. After she fell out with her mom, Tracy moved in with a friend of the family. A lady who adored her thought of her as brilliant and artistic. She definitely had charisma. Thunder rolls in the distance. We all know what that means, right? Yeah, yeah. Once Tracy got older and went out on her own,

she met a woman named Sunshine and fell for her hard. So hard that she started wearing a collar with a little lock on it. Sunshine had the only key. She and Sunshine even got married at one point. Not legally, it was just a kind of commitment ceremony performed, believe it or not, by the Hari-Krishna's and Cairns. Just an odd little detail. And for a while, it seemed like they were going to settle down together, have a family.

Tracy went prowling for a sperm donor, not in a turkey-based kind of way, in the old-fashioned way. And she did get pregnant, but the pregnancy didn't turn out to be viable and she miscarried. And at some point, her relationship with sunshine fell by the wayside. Tracy tried out various jobs. She did sex work really briefly and worked in a sheet metal factory, then got to got a job as a bouncer at a nightclub where she'd show up to work all in black with her studded leather bracelets and her dog collar with a lock on it. And my guess is this is where she fell in with the Swampies. Yeah, you heard me. Swampies. This was a subculture specific

to Brisbane in the 80s. They were kind of goth, kind of witchy, y'all know the type. Into wearing black, clomping around in Doc Martins, getting panagram tattoos, doing each other's tarot cards, talking about Anne Rice, not getting up till noon, you know, that kind of stuff. they liked acid house music like rave music okay i have to say something like with all due respect again i am trying to be i am trying to be nice here their first mistake was the name yeah oh yeah swampy sounds like the world's worst diaper brand like their marketing guy needs to be fired it is awful isn't it but you know they were harmless

nerds for the most part smart kids who didn't really fit in in high school I'd have probably been right there with them if I'd lived in Brisbane in 1989, so no shade, but also, you know, nerds. Anyway, so up to this point, Tracy had actually kept up her Catholicism, going to Mass on Sundays and all that. But now she started getting into, quote, witchcraft, or what she referred to as witchcraft anyway. It doesn't seem to bear much resemblance to actual witchcraft, which admittedly I don't know a ton about, but I'm pretty sure it does not involve the kind of shit you're about to learn about Ms. Tracy. But she told people she was in a deep correspondence with a quote, White Witch in Adelaide.

Now, White Witch sounds nice and life-affirming, but that was not how Tracy liked to roll. She seems to have gotten witchcraft all mixed up with Satan worship, which is just weird to me. All the witches I've met have been super crunchy, nature-loving, flower crown wearing types, not

into the cheesy, like, 80s movie devil worship scene at all. Tracy was into horror movies, the bloodier the better, and she'd wear out the VHS tapes, rewind in and replaying the nerliest parts. And look, I I love horror movies, okay? But Tracy was like that dude who shows up at 3 a.m.

at, like, the gas station video store and asks for faces of death, you know? And the cashier's like, we don't have it. Yeah. Just because they don't want him to have it. Like, that was Tracy. It was, like, upsetting how into it she got. And she liked drawing in blood, her own, and blood she got from the butcher shop. pictures of half-human, half-animal creatures rendered in rest-red.

She got an eye of horace tattooed on one of her hands and a black rose. People noticed she was becoming more and more withdrawn, and when she did talk, sometimes what she said was disturbing. Tracy and her mom had started talking again, but Tracy told friends she wanted to make her mom pay for her shitty childhood. How she'd do that, she didn't say, but it sounded ominous, creepy. And sometimes Tracy would call herself, Fred. It wasn't a nickname. Tracy said Fred was a sort of alternate personality who carried around

animal bones and candles in a black bag. Okay. I have to stop that. Just, oh my God, stop blaming a fake alternate personality for your shitty weird behavior. Oh, they love to do it. It's always, they're always named the stupidest thing too, like Bob or Fred or Fred. And it's like, It's strange. It's like their imagination stops at the name. They're like, hmm. Yeah, that's where the, that's where the creativity ends.

It's just like, hmm, Fred. Fred the vampire slash devil worshipping. I don't know what the fuck Fred was supposed to be. Anyway, that's Fred. Now, I'm not sure when she started up with the vampire stuff, but it seems like the further Tracy got into her 20s, the more preoccupied she got with death. Like, just a wee example to illustrate

what I'm talking about here. When the cops searched her apartment after Edward Baldock's murder, they found a stolen headstone from a cemetery. That's just not a thing most people would do. Not even your average goth kit is going to swipe somebody's headstone. You know, because it's fucking disrespectful. She had pictures of graves all over her walls, too, which I guess is the kind of thing you'd expect to see in an average goth's apartment.

But my point is, Tracy was starting to take it to a whole new level. Her butcher started seeing a lot of her. She'd come in on the regular asking for blood, pigs' blood or goats. And then in 1989, Tracy's friend Kim Jervis introduced her to a woman named Lisa Pichensky. And before we get into that, I just want to say this, okay? If TCC has just one legacy, I hope it's that we've taught y'all this. When somebody tells you, I'm a vampire and means it, the proper response is to laugh hysterically scream nerd and move on with your life. Oh my God.

Please, for the love of God. You know, if we had a nickel for every single time, this has happened in a episode we've covered. We'd have several nickels. So many nickels. So many people are just like, seems legit to me. Do you need some blood? How fascinating. Tell me more.

No. No. No. Tracy already had a girlfriend, but. Tracy thought she was probably cheating on her. She'd been simmering about that for a while, and she and Lisa were drawn together like a couple of grumpy goth magnates from the second they met. According to one source, one of them was taking a hit off an asthma inhaler, which is apparently

a thing some people do for funsies and offered it to the other one. Oh, so romantic. Love at first, Puff. Apparently. I mean, I don't know if y'all have ever been on albuterol for asthma. It's not a fun experience. You're jittery, your heart's racing. Yeah, it's like, but like less, like less intense, so it's like just like a simmering under your skin, it's terrible.

It's not a fun time. So like a lot of people who end up sucked into the murderous shenanigans of a fake vampire, Lisa Pachinsky was kind of a troubled person. At least a lot of sources describe her as having a, quote, history of emotional instability. Yeah, she'd been in and out of hospitals for self-harm and depression and she'd suffered a couple of drug overdoses. But even Lisa herself seemed surprised at the instant powerful effect Tracy had on her. She later told a psychiatrist, she had a strong attraction. I don't know what. It's normally very unusual for anyone to push me around. She dominated me more than anyone has in my life. We've seen this before campers. And when I say instant effect, I mean instant. Remember in the

Dyson-Hoshenkoff case where it blew everybody's mind how fast he warmed his way into Linda Henning's head? Like, we're talking four weeks from high, my name is Dyson, to thanks for my ex-wife for me. Well, this one happened even faster than that. Because within about two weeks of meeting Tracy Wiginton, Lisa Pichinsky would be helping her stab Amanda death. But to be fair, it was a pretty eventful couple of weeks. Tracy laid it on thick, drawing her new minions into a whole elaborate mythology with

herself as the center. She'd already had time to develop it with her friend Kim Jervis, and in the past couple months, she'd collected one other minion, too. Kim's new girlfriend, Tracy Waugh. Oh, wonderful. Another Tracy is what we need. We'll just call her Waugh, so you all don't get confused. And we apologize

to any nice Tracys for the work our podcast is done to make y'all look like unhinged crazies. Your fruit basket will be arriving into 10 to 12 business days. What Kim Jervis saw in Tracy is tough to say. At her trial, Kim's lawyers told the jury

all about Kim's collection of dolls and Garfield stuff and how she'd once wanted to be a nun. Said she was a young lady of good character who just got sucked in. Maybe, or maybe she wasn't as sweetie sweet as her mom and dad thought she was. The way Kim tells it,

she broke a crucifix necklace one time and immediately realized that she was the chosen one. Chosen for what? She didn't say, but I feel like I'm hearing that Exorcist theme music off in the distance, don't you? Yeah. Maybe she was chosen for being a dork-ass loser. Yeah.

As for Wa, my guess is that she initially got drawn in because she was Kim's girlfriend, and then Tracy worked her weird Svengali magic on her. Apparently, she was known as a shy kid in school, but whatever these ladies' motivations were, they all fell for Tracy's schick, hookline, and sinker. I'm a vampire, Tracy told them. A real one. I have to stay out of the sunlight. And I can't eat solid food. I have to have blood. When I don't get it, it weakens my powers. What powers, you ask? Oh, man, a whole catalog. Waugh later told the police, Tracy has a mind power.

She has a hold on you. She's like a magnet. You can't stop yourself from doing what she tells you. So we've got mind bullets, first and foremost. What else? Well, this might not be a power per se, but Tracy said she had to avoid mirrors because of the whole vampire thing, I guess.

Can't have the normies catching you non-reflectin. And this next one was, really impressive. According to Waugh, Tracy was the bride of the devil himself, and that came with some pretty sweet perks. Tracy could make herself disappear at will, leaving only her staring, cat-like eyes. Not only that, but she could make other people disappear the same way, especially if they were trying to stop her from acquiring blood. And of course, she could cast spells on people. That goes without saying. Tracy had all three of them in the palm of her hand with all this ridiculous shite. cannot say this enough. I do not know who needs to hear this right this very second, but your

friend is not a fucking vampire. No, absolutely not. And at some point, she told her a merry little band of minions that she needed them to support her in her quest for blood. It was really becoming a problem. She just was not getting enough. The pig's blood wasn't cutting it anymore. The three friends were her witch's circle, Tracy told them, and she needed their help if she was going to survive. And everybody had her own role to play. Kim, the friend Tracy had known the longest, would be her destroyer. Kim had a special power of her own, Tracy assured her, the power of brute strength. She could rip the arms off anybody who tried to get in the way of Tracy's feeding schedule.

New love interest Lisa had the worst job, though, or the best one, I guess, if you're a member of the Witches Circle. Lisa was Tracy's newest blood donor. Tracy showed her how to cinch a band around her arm to make the veins pop out for easy access. then they'd make a slit in Lisa's arm and Tracy would go to town. Ugh, y'all are going to get hepatitis, I'm just telling you, and that's only one of my many concerns. Anyway, despite having a dedicated group of friends slash cult members at her back-and-call, Tracy seemed to be unraveling pretty good around this time. She was angry a lot at her girlfriend's cheating mostly, which is pretty funny considering she was cheating with Lisa herself. She later told police she felt like she was an emotional volcano, about to erupt.

It didn't help when Lisa told her she had a bad heart, and as much as she wanted to serve as Tracy's human slurpy machine, she probably couldn't give her any more blood than she was already giving. According to her Witch's Circle, Tracy wanted more. Obsessed about it, talked about it constantly. I need blood, I need blood, I need blood. One afternoon, one of the girls walked in and found Tracy sharpening knives with a look of laser focus on her face. She seemed to be thinking a lot about killing. She stepped up her horror movie watching, playing and replaying the most violent parts,

like a scene where a guy got shot with a shotgun and his head exploded into pieces. Tracy watched it again and again. It was almost like she was psyching herself up for something. We don't know exactly how she brought it up, the idea of killing to satisfy her need for blood, but we do know that it couldn't have taken her long to convince the minions because the murder happened like a week later. Their leader needed blood, and the witch's circle was more than willing to help her get it. And on Friday, October 20th, they piled into the car.

Tracy made sure to bring the pair of knives she'd carefully sharpened a few days before, and she picked out a soundtrack for their hunting expedition. Bat dance by Prince. Just, bitch, how dare you drag his royal badness into this mess? How dare? Every single thing this woman does is annoying. Like, she could just scratch her nose and I'd be in the corner glaring at her for the audacity. Yeah, she's, yeah. They began their night at a lesbian bar and a she-she

part of Brisbane, one of their favorite places to hang out. One of the bartenders later remembered that they were all in an extra good mood that night, drinking champagne instead of their usual beer. Once they were good and buzz, the four women left the club and piled into Tracy's green car with Lisa at the wheel. And so the hunt began. It was a busy Friday night, so they passed by plenty of potential victims. But nobody seemed right to Tracy. until they reached the kangaroo point neighborhood and saw a ginger-haired man walking kind of unsteadily down the sidewalk. He was clearly pretty drunk.

At one point, he was swinging around a lamp post, just tipsy and having a little fun. That detail hurts my heart more than any other in this case, I think. As they drove up on the man, kind-hearted father of five, Edward Balduck, Tracy suddenly announced, he's the one. Stop the car. Exactly what happened next, we don't know. Tracy claimed she told Tracy Waugh to proposition Baldock, offer sex for money.

But that doesn't seem to fit with Edward's reputation or the fact that he and his wife had a very loving, committed relationship. Could it be true? Sure. People slip up, even people who love their spouses a lot, especially when they're drunk. True. But this story could also be a way for Tracy Wiginton to try and dirty up her victim in the eyes of the public. Maybe she thought it would make her own actions seem a little less disgusting. I don't know. I mean, it really doesn't matter. He wouldn't be a bad person for deciding to hire a sex worker, but I think it's just as likely that Edward Baldock was just looking for a ride home. Whatever his motivation for doing it,

Edward climbed into the backseat of the car and promptly fell asleep. The air in the car was thicker than fog. All four women knew what was about to happen. I didn't have to say anything, Tracy said later. They all knew what was up. Tracy glanced over at Lisa. Drive, she said. She directed her to Orley Park on the banks of the Brisbane River.

On one side was the local rowing club. On the other, the sailing club. It was a place where people usually went to have fun. Not tonight. Lisa parked the car, turned off the headlights. They shook Edward awake. Again, it's important to understand that he really was very drunk that night. After a night of fun with his friends, and I'm sure that made him a lot easier to control.

It was four against one. He didn't stand a chance. Lisa was the one who led Edward Balduck out of the car and down to the banks of the river. A few moments later, Tracy followed, carrying one of her freshly sharpened knives. According to the women, by the time Tracy got down to where Lisa and Edward had stopped, Edward had taken off his clothes and shoes and set them on the riverbank, and he and Lisa were talking quietly. Back to the issue of whether Edward thought he was about to have sex with one of the women. Now, this could support that story, or it could be that the women undressed him themselves to make it easier for Tracy to do what she came there to do. Edward was facing away from Tracy, and he didn't see her coming up behind him until the last second, right as she was sliding the knife out of her pocket.

confused, Edward said, What are you doing? Tracy didn't answer. She stabbed him in the back instead. Shocked, Edward tried to grab the knife out of Tracy's hand, but she was too quick for him. She stabbed him again, this time in the neck, and then in one horrible movement,

she grabbed hold of his hair, pulled his head back, and stabbed him in the throat. Lisa Pichensky later said that what came next reminded her of the feeding frenzy of a great white shark. When Tracy's knife wouldn't do the job as efficiently as she wanted it to, she ran back to the car for Kim Jervis. Sky's too strong for me, she told her, I need help. Kim's girlfriend, Tracy Waugh, was still sitting in the car.

The situation had suddenly gotten way too real for her, and she tried to keep Kim from going with Tracy, but Kim shook her off. She handed Tracy the butterfly knife she always kept in her pocket for protection and followed her back to the riverbank. And as she resumed the attack, Lisa and Kim held Edward down. I hope, so much, that the alcohol made him less aware of what was happening to him. It didn't last long. Once Tracy realized that Edward was down, she'd later tell police he'd made a gargling sound as he bled to death.

She sat back on the bank and lit a cigarette while she watched her victim die. She felt nothing, she'd later tell the detectives. But years after that, in an interview with the courier mail newspaper from prison, she told a different story. I was in a blind fury, she said. As she was stabbing Edward Baldock, she claimed, she felt like she was taking revenge for all the abuse she'd gone through as a child.

People have no idea what my dreams are like at nighttime. It's never over. I don't think about it constantly, but whenever I'm alone or having a quiet moment, I think about it, and then I cry. Murder is a terrifying experience, she told a reporter. It's extremely scary to have that much power. It's playing God with life and death.

Nobody should have that sort of power, but we all do. Well, you poor thing. Which story is true, the one where she sat and calmly smoked a cigarette, sociopathic to the core as she watched Edward die, or the one where she was in an out-of-control rage against the grandparents who abused her, only Tracy knows for sure.

Doesn't change the outcome for Edward. Right? Like, whether or not it was a thrill kill or a proxy kill, it doesn't matter. She killed a man that had done nothing to her. Like, go to therapy and go fuck yourself, bitch. Absolutely. Tracy wasn't finished with him yet.

She'd done this for a reason, after all. Blood. And now, once her minions had gone back to the car, she helped herself. Then she washed off the knives in the river and went back to the car. As she climbed in, Waw, who had stayed in the car for the whole thing, caught the smell of blood on her breath. Lisa looked over at Tracy. You look like you've just had a three-course meal, she said. Ugh, God, that's gross.

Yeah, what fucking losers? I wonder if she practiced that in the mirror before they went out. You know it. But Tracy didn't have long to bask in the afterglow. A few minutes after she got back home, she had a sickening realization. She lost her bank card somewhere. What if it was at the murder scene? Frantically, she and the minions sped back to the riverbank and combed the place looking for the card. The one place they didn't look, unfortunately, for Tracy, was the toe of Edward Baldock's shoe.

Edward, always a guy who valued neatness and took good care of his stuff, had seen the card on the ground and probably thinking it was his since they were identical, except for the name, shoved it in the toe of his shoe. If he hadn't, it's very likely this case would never have been solved in a million years. As it was, this case was one of the easiest solves the investigators had ever had. Like we told you earlier, within hours of the discovery of Edward Baldock's body, they were knocking on the door of Miss T.A. Wiginton. Despite her initial denials, Tracy quickly realized that when you leave your bank card at your murder scene with your entire ass name on it, your goose is pretty much cooked. I guess she figured there wasn't much point in denying it any further, and she confessed. She didn't mention anything about blood drinking, but she did tell the detectives that she'd sacrificed goats as a kid. And before the end of the day, the other three were in custody, too.

the witch's circle, as Tracy called them. But it wasn't until the trial that the case really got on the media's radar. That was when the three minions' defense hit the airways, that these were three vulnerable women who'd been brainwashed by an evil, devil-worshipping lesbian vampire who claimed to have magic powers. I'm sure the media showed no interest in that. Yeah, it was pretty much a frenzy. And some of the headlines have to be seen to be believed.

they sounded like the kind of shit you'd expect to see in the weekly world news right next to Bigfoot and Bat Boy. Yeah, which sucks really because A, they really harped on the lesbian thing and seemed to really enjoy implying a direct connection between lesbian and perverse slash murderous and B, because it drew attention away from the fact that an innocent man, a kind-hearted dude with a wife who loved him, and five kids and grandkids had been brutally robbed of his life and his dignity. Yeah, a lot of the 80s-era sources on this case say stuff like, she was sexually abused, so she developed a deep hatred of men. It seems suspiciously close to that old all lesbians are man-hater stereotype, which is like why they're lesbians according to those kinds of people. And that's just not how that works. Like, read a book.

God. Tracy had pled guilty to Baldock's murder and was sentenced to life in prison with the minimum term of 13 years. So she didn't go to trial herself, but the other three took their chances with the jury, with mixed results. Lisa Pachinsky, whose defense pretty much argued

that she'd been brainwashed by Tracy and was too emotionally unstable to understand the consequences of her actions, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. She ended up serving 17 years before being paroled in 2008. Kim Jervis was convicted, too, of manslaughter. She was sentenced to 18 years in prison,

and ended up serving 12. I guess the jury wasn't impressed by her collection of Garfields. As for Tracy Waugh, Kim's girlfriend, and the one who stayed in the car during the murderer, she actually ended up fully acquitted. Her defense attorneys clearly knew what they were doing. Waugh showed up in court with her parents on either side of her, looking like Anna Green Gables,

hair in a cute little ponytail, little white dress on, no makeup. They played up her youth and her girl next door looks, and it worked. Yeah, the jury seemed convinced by Waugh's argument that she was afraid of Tracy, that she figured if Tracy couldn't find another victim, she might murder her. That was the only reason she went along in the first place, her defense argued, and she made sure not to participate in the actual stabbing. Interestingly enough, Tracy denied all the blood-drinking stuff. Her defense attorney claimed she had dissociative identity disorder,

known back then as multiple personality disorder, and that one of her alter personalities had committed the murder. But it didn't stop her from pleading guilty. She said she knew she'd killed Edward Baldock and regretted it. Her mom told a reporter that Tracy had been squeamish about the sight of blood as a kid. Of course, this went against what Tracy herself had told the cops in her confession about sacrificing goats and whatnot. Tracy's an interesting study. She's like a hologram, her image shifting and changing depending on who you ask.

Her mom says she's loving and kind and regretful about the murder. She told a reporter that her daughter was very popular in jail. And it's true that she earned herself a degree in there. in philosophy and anthropology, but a former fellow inmate told a very different story. She was not like the other girls, she said. She'd sit there for hours rolling marbles and grating her teeth. She's evil.

She's a strange person in a world of her own. And in 2006, she got in trouble for assaulting another inmate, then going after a guard. It took her four tries to get parole. All in all, she served 22 years, released in 2012 at age 46. But the story doesn't quite end. there. Tracy's gotten into some mischief since her release. In 2019, she posted what one article

described as a series of chilling images, vampires, demons, skulls and bones, stuff like that, with the caption, Now Panic, because I'm back, fuckers. And worse than that, she posted it under the name Oberon Fairchild, which just nerd alert. That's almost as cringy as slice or thunderclap, for God's sakes. Like, I don't know exactly where the line falls between cringy and acceptable like nom de plumes, but I know Oberon Fairchild is absolutely far on the cringy side. I know it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, yeah, some nom de plumes are like Evelyn Waugh, Louis Carroll, George Orwell, those are all normal. But Oberon? Yeah, it's, it's very hurtful and upsetting. Another time,

she publicly claimed that Edward Baldock's family had forgiven her, which according to the family in question was absolute bullshit. You mean she's a liar? No. I know. I'm shocked and disappointed. You know, we always want to hope that people can be redeemed, see the error of their ways, and learn to be better. Tracy said she regretted killing Mr. Baldock, but can we believe that when as recently as a few years ago, she's posted panic fuckers, I'm back? One of the detectives involved in the case thinks she's enjoyed the fame that went along with being a notorious killer. In one interview, she said to the reporter, it's hard to be famous, isn't it? A legend in my own mind. Yeah, Tracy, hilarious.

I'm sure your victim's family is highly amused. Can I please shove her into a locker now? Some people have shown sympathy for Tracy because of her abuse of childhood, and it does sound like it was pretty rough, but look, from where I sit, we can't go there. Plenty of people suffer abuse, and there's already a stigma associated with that where people can feel like their damaged goods.

It doesn't help to perpetuate the idea that everybody who's mistreated as a child is going to grow up to do monstrous things. It's not true, number one, and it's really damaging to the survivors of abuse. Whatever happens to us, we have to be responsible for our choices, and Tracy's choices were nothing short of horrific. No matter what happened to her when she was a kid, it wouldn't Edward Baldock's fault,

and he shouldn't have lost his life for it. For my money, Tracy was a narcissistic, selfish husk of a person who got off on having these three fawning little toadies who all thought she was the bride of Satan. She was a grown woman, she shouldn't own better, and it's gross that she's out and about, Our hearts go out to Edward's family for having to put up with her attention-grabbing bullshit on Facebook. Ech.

All right. Now, before we wrap up this week's episode, Camper, we got something we got to talk to you all about. Okay? Have you seen this dog bow who went viral a few weeks ago for, like, hopping up the stairs like a big giant rabbit? His mom's name is Penny Firebird on TikTok, and he needs to be a household name. He's an American bully breed. He's all white. He's a hoot and a half. We're not going to pretend he's a stranger to us because he's not. He belongs

to our good friend Sylvia, and his story is the kind they make sweet little videos about on the dodo. She got him right after the pandemic first hit. She was living in New York, going through lockdown-induced loneliness like everybody was, and she decided to foster a dog. Yeah. And he came to her a total mess. His previous owner had died, and he'd been through some rough stuff since, and he was just sad. You can see it in the early picks of him. Sad eyes, worried little face. They had some real ups and downs for the first year or so they were together. Most people would have given up on him, but Sylvia didn't. She could see the sweet heart in there, and after a while he finally started to realize he was safe with her. And then she moved out to the

country near me, and Bo is a different dog today. Living his best life, going on Snifari around the neighborhood, learning how to play ball, and he's on TikTok, like I said, as Penny Firebird, and Instagram as Sassmaster Bo. And he's steadily. getting more and more famous, which is absolutely correct. And Sylvia makes these hysterical videos where he's like a dandified country lawyer, like a hard-bitten detective, and they're just the best. He deserves to be famous. So go check him out, y'all, and you will see me in some of his videos because I am his beloved auntie.

And I don't want to brag, but I have gotten to smooch him on the face, and he is the best boy. He is the best boy. Check him out. Bo. He's a good boy. All righty. 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. We also want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Diane, Carnal Flower, awesome name, Sophie, Carrie, Cynthia, and Maddie. 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 even two plus an extra episode a month.

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