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hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is [Music] morbid this is more mid I forget what I
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was going to say I had something to say at the beginning of this one I was actually going to sing it and it was
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like a song about recording but then I forgot it you know what happens yeah sorry it's windy out and maybe it we're
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not outside but maybe the wind just blew it right out of your brain I didn't know
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where you were going I know I'm looking wind out and you know we're not outside I was like where are we going like she
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right over there like oh we lost her oh There She Goes the wind took her but then I was like ah wind blowing mind
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even though we're not outside no but it was thundering earlier I know only very quickly it just gave a little Rumble
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Rumble yeah I didn't check the uh the radar so I don't know I don't think anything's coming in don't say that well
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I'd like to say that tonight because I'd like to have a fire I want I want Thunder don't you want to drink Mo
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Thunder oh rainfor cter to start in 31 minutes oh okay so maybe we'll get in a thunderstorm everybody it's a little
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scatter a little scatter not a lot so we can still do our fire and little I got stuff to make um mocktail padas I love
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that so fancy F SWA and swwa exactly I love that so much I love it well today we're going to be doing um part one of a
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Tata a t a tup because there's just a lot of information you know there's a lot of stuff going on in this all right
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all right but when I tell you just um it really hits you over the it just like boom get you right from the get-go it's
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like hillbilly moment hits you over the head with a pineapp B there you go it's a it's everybody remembers that right
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from the show Hill Billy moment and it yeah and she'd be like I'm going to hit you with
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a pineapple yeah it was hilarious I love that show I want Amanda bines to do well
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she's doing pretty well she I hope she thrives I really do I think she passed her nail test and she's I think she's
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going to open up her own space I just like I'm starting to see cuz like she has like Tik Tok and and she comes
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across my feed and every once in a while I'm like I feel like I can see like a little bit of the light come back when
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she talks about stuff like that that she's like excited about and I'm like she's one of those people that you're
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just like you know you're rooting for I'm rooting for yeah it's like Lindsay Lohan she looks [ __ ] incredible
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lately she looks amazing in in a lightness way too like a light is coming like a light is like back at her that
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was there and then like turned off for a little while and now it's back and she's
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here now yeah we're getting a Freaky Friday pot too I love it with Jam Lee Curtis it's all it's all happening again
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I'm like let's go back to that time let's do this I know it let's have Amanda bines thriving let's have lindzy
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Lohan right back at it again go back to the early as but make it non-toxic exactly let them Thrive and just be who
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they is I agree let's do so let's all root for them you know why not nobody's rooting for anyone anymore let's root
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for people let's do I love rooting for people I'm rooting for you what's in for you thanks so today we're going to be
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talking about Peter Manuel who is known as the Beast of birkenshaw that sounds terrifying yes uh he's terrifying and he
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is one of Scotland's worst serial killers oh [ __ ] um yeah and he's he's one of Scotland's he's known as one of
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Scotland's like very first like known worst serial killers too okay um so we're going to begin this happened
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way back we're going to start in like the 50s here 19 or 18 1950s thank you for making me clarify cu no problem
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could have been either with me I was going to say with you you never know you never know so on the evening of December
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30th 1955 17-year-old Anne neand and her sister Alice so an and Alice oh cute I love the literation right they went to a
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dance at the Glen Le Social Club in East killbride which was a neighborhood in East lenar Shear I looked up how to
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pronounce that um I love the idea of a dance at a social club in the ' 50s yeah sign me right the fu doesn't that just
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feel yes so wholesome I give me a poodle skirt or you know or else or else yeah or you know like or bust poodle skirts
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are bust dances at Social Clubs in the 50s are bust and this and as we go like obviously this is going to turn out very
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tragic just so you know ahead of time um but the it's morbid but there like the leadup to this you're just like oh sh
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like an was just like having a quintessential 50s gal experience you know what I mean like young gal just
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like going out to a social club to dance meeting a young Soldier on leave kind of
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thing like it's one of those okay so while she was there um nean and nean met Andrew mnin who was a young Soldier on
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leave uh he was um and they they hit it off immediately they just really got along and after spending the whole night
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at the dance together the two of them made a date to see each other again a few days later on January 2nd now their
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plan was that they were going to meet together at the KA rig Farm bus terminal and so the problem here so they were all
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excited they leave blah everything's fine the problem here though was that Andrew Merin had been drinking heavily
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that night oh he was very drunk and later he said he claimed that he actually had no recollection of making
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this date with an wow um he said like it's not that I wouldn't have I just didn't remember that I had done it which
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it's like oh that's that just makes sense yeah it's just like oh man so an however was
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unaware that Andrew had no recollection of making this date so Anne went to the bus stop a little after 6:00 p.m. the
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day they had plan to meet up and waited for him to show up uh he hadn't shown up
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by 6:30 p.m. so she wed walked down the road a little bit and she went and visited some family friends The Simpsons
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she was like whatever I'll just go hang out with them yeah let me do something so they chatted The Simpsons cut you
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know chatted with Anne for about 15 20 minutes and then she caught the 6:45 p.m. bus back to East Kilbride she was
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very frustrated that Andrew had stood her up she assumed had stood her up yeah and you know she was a little annoyed
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rightfully so and actually later when um when the bus driver was questioned by police the bus driver said that she
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remember seeing an on the bus and she specifically remembered that she seemed very irritated and put out so she was
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just like [ __ ] this guy yeah now Ann got off the bus at the Willow Cafe which was
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a popular hangout for teenagers and killbride like they would all just kind of like hang out have a cup of coffee
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kind of thing nice and when the bus driver passed the stop about a half hour later she said she could have sworn she
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saw Anne in the crowd outside the cafe she just recognized her but that was the last time anyone would ever be able to
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report seeing an K and neand Alive oh now at the time an was 17 years old she was out of high school she was working a
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full-time job like she was really she had a whole life um so she did live at home with her parents but her parents
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were trying to be like kind of respectful of her autonomy at this point cuz she was a good kid like she was
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responsible she had it together had fulltime job they believed you know they could give her a little bit of I don't
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need to be on top you I don't need to know where you are at every given moment I'm trying to let you be like an
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independent woman here yeah that must be so hard exactly oh I can't imagine but that's why when Anne didn't return home
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that night they thought maybe she just stayed with a friend maybe she was and she would be back the following day yeah
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she relable yeah but she didn't come back the next day and this is when they got worried and they reported her
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missing to the police now then after noon as the local police were taking the report from Anne's parents GE um George
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gribben Who was a laborer from East Kilbride he was just having a Leisure moment he was just taking a nice little
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walk around the Calderwood golf course which seems like it would be a lovely place to just take a quiet walk on a
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morning you know like it's quiet no one's there yet you're not going to run into many people yeah and he said he was
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just you know just having a nice casual day and and this is the beginning of his
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day oh no and he approaches like um some trees that are near the fifth T and it was just like a collection of trees and
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George said he looked over and he saw what he immediately identified as a person laying face down at the base of
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one of the trees and he said at first he was like oh my god did someone like trip
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and fall or did someone like like pass out drink too much and come and pass out in front of a tree so he moves in closer
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to kind of inspect things a little bit and that's when he realized that it was definitely a person lying on the ground
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but he said it was very clear that something bad had happened here it was a young woman he could clearly tell and he
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said immediately he knew that she had been dragged into the wooded area by her ankles oh God he said her skirt was
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pulled above her knees and her coat she was still wearing was disarranged really
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rumpled like clearly all of it had shifted while she was being drapped yeah he said he couldn't identify the girl
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but he said part of the reason that he couldn't identify the girl was how badly she had been beaten in the face and head
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oh um he said there was no doubt in his mind that she was dead he didn't even need to check for a pulse no way imag
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ever finding somebody like that I always think of the people who find these crime
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scenes and find so scary these murder victims and it's like like what how do you get past that
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no I I don't think you do I think that's got to be something that just like with
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you yeah yeah like I this is you're and that's why I just made sure you knew like he was starting his day he's just
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starting his day with a nice walk walk to kind of clear his head start the day off right yeah that's and this is what
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you never think you're going to be walking in a golf course and come across a beaten to death 17-year-old girl
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dumped in front of a tree it's just tragic so he immediately ran back to the work site and told the other contractors
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what he had found um but assuming that you know he was playing a prank they were like maybe he's just trying to like
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start us all off like you know in a crazy way this morning you know a wild way to start your wild and cooky over
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here so they were just like shut up George and they just went back to work oh sounds to me like George might be a
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little bit of a prankster yeah considering they didn't even come to look but he was frustrated so George ran
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to the nearest house he was like [ __ ] you guys if you won't listen to me so he
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ran to the near house and he called the police from that house okay good so good
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for George I was like when did the police come into play yeah by the time he made it back to where the body was
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laying some of the other laborers had decided to come check out what he had said and they had gathered around the
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body just as the first officers were arriving oh man so the area had to be cordoned off obviously and investigators
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started assessing the entire scene um it became pretty obvious to them like right
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away what had happened because Footprints were leading from the golf course to where the body was laying oh
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and it indicated that an had actually been chased by whoever had killed her oh I [ __ ] hate that so Chas and then she
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was dragged into the woods where where she had been sexually assaulted oh no her shoes other personal items were just
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scattered all around her uh one shoe was actually embedded in the wall of a nearby ditch what like she had kicked
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somehow and it had stuck into the wall oh my God and the other shoe was laying about 70 ft from her so it obviously
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came off while she was dragged or in the struggle or when she was running that's
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so this is like a horror movie it literally is a horror movie like he's a this person is a horrible person
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but a few feet away at the base of a tree the pathologist Andrew Allison identified what he believed to be where
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the assault had started sure uh he said the ground was absolutely saturated with
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blood and Allison described that there were also human debris found there fragments of bone hair and
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tissue what yes so I'll tell you how she how he killed her and it's awful so given the state that the body was found
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in her clothes had been torn disarranged the investigating officers naturally immediately assumed that ant
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had been sexually assaulted it was confirmed later during her autopsy because that was later that day um but
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her attacker had also stolen her underwear before leaving that's such a [ __ ] creepy thing to do yeah her
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cause of death death was uh noted as repeated blows to the head with a blunt object they said it was so vicious and
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so many hits to her skull that quote The Vault of her head had been destroyed that means the skull cap that means the
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thing containing your brain oh had been absolutely destroyed that's a lot and that's where the fragments of bone and
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hair and tissue were happening he had literally caved her head in oh my God he's a vicious
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when they say the Beast of birkenshaw they are not kidding he's a [ __ ] monster he's a and we're going to get to
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it don't worry but somebody should have stopped him a long time before this happened I hate
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when that happens he had every single indication that he was going to escalate to something yeah it's really
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frustrating there were also cuts and scrapes on an's hands that the pathologist thought could have been from
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the barbed wire on the golf course fence like she might have climbed over to get
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to try to get away oh God now police officers fanned out across the neighborhood and they canvas door too
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but there was really only one neighbor who reported hearing any kind of commotion 36 hours earlier no one else
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really saw or heard anything suspicious and unfortunately those who knew an were
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really not a lot of help either according to her sister Alice and it's not because they intended to not be a
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lot of help what were they going to say like they didn't you don't have anything
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she did it's not like and was doing things that they could have been like well she was hanging around this Creek
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yeah she wasn't doing anything wrong she was just living her life so an or her sister Alice said an was a pretty girl
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with lots of boyfriends she went dancing about once a week but Anne did not tell
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me the name of the boy she was going to meet and I didn't inquire oh no because again they didn't really have a reason
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to they weren't worried about her right and it's because she was a good responsible G yeah Jean Simpsons who was
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um one of the people who she was visiting one of the family friends um she and it was the night she died that
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she visited her she also said when she came into the house she was very excited and nervous she didn't talk much but I
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can remember her saying she had been in the house over New Year and that she had
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missed the 17 15 bus but otherwise neither Jean Simpson nor her husband knew where an was headed after she left
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their house that night right cuz she just kind of was like all right I'm off I'm gonna head out see later yeah and
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all we know is she stopped at the Willow Cafe now within 24 hours investigators had
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found Andrew Merin the young soldier who she was supposed to meet that night and
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mnin said yeah I was like super drunk the night that we met I didn't remember making plans with her he felt bad that
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he had unintentionally stood her up right well I'm sure now he feels knowing what happened he worse but he offered up
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an Albi and so he was quickly ruled out because they can confirm The Alibi right
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um many of the other boys and men who hung out at the Willow Cafe were also questioned um a lot of locals were
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questioned especially locals with any history of sexual offenses but they all had aliis and they were all crossed off
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the list it was they could not find a lead anywhere then on January 4th a patrol
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officer stopped by a work site near the crime scene and he stopped there because
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he wanted to question a gang of day laborers working for the gas board um so he asked them all like have you know do
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you remember that day do you remember seeing anything do you remember hearing anything do you know anybody who has
00:17:02
been acting strange they all denied knowing anything about the murder of an nean um but one man Peter
00:17:09
Manuel appeared to have fresh scratches on his face interesting that were very noticeable and Manuel claimed that he
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got the scratches when he was in a fight in Glasgow on New Year's Eve but the officer was like huh they look fresher
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than that I don't know about that and he was just like M I don't know those look
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like pretty deep pretty like brutal scratches and to this officer they just thought that seems like somebody who was
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fighting for their life yeah so later this officer couldn't put this away so he went to the home of Peter Manuel and
00:17:46
Peter Manuel lived with his father and he talked to both of them and Peter Manuel's father confirmed his Alibi for
00:17:54
the night of the murder but the officer said I don't buy it I justo by it something just rang feeling yeah and he
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was like I'm not letting it go so he went back and he was able to secure a warrant to go back to that house cuz he
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said those scratches they something is matching here and that alibi doesn't make sense and the only person that can
00:18:16
confirm it is his own father who he lives with we have a bit of a bias going on here yeah something's a little off
00:18:22
here and he said something about this guy just doesn't sit right with me so they returned to the house on January
00:18:28
12th with warrant and with this warrant they were able to remove a bunch of items a bunch of clothing from the house
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and they also brought Peter to the local Precinct to question him and by that time a foreman at the work site that
00:18:41
Peter Manuel had been the previous week they found what they described as a sonoff pickaxe H handle buried beneath
00:18:50
one of the temporary buildings on the site the [ __ ] and they turned it over to
00:18:54
police cuz they said maybe this is a potential weapon yeah now detectives question Peter for more than 4 hours but
00:19:00
he stuck to his story and his father further said nope I'm verifying his Alibi which I'm like do you feel good
00:19:08
about that yeah um also despite their best efforts to connect Peter to an nean they just couldn't connected there
00:19:15
wasn't a connection that they could find and they couldn't put him at the crime scene like definitively so they had to
00:19:22
let him go they didn't have anything to hold them with they were like that close
00:19:26
now without any evidence or new le and now with this whole thing drying up the nean case just went cold and the
00:19:33
detectives shifted their attention to other stuff going on now investigators in lanarch Shear continued investigate
00:19:42
even though it was like going cold they didn't like shove it you know were doing
00:19:46
their best they continued investigating anan's murder but they weren't getting anything and they really little progress
00:19:53
was being made and to make matters worse in September of that year another horrific crime was committed that ended
00:20:00
up kind of distracting them from the Nan's case on September 9th 1956 William wat packed up his fishing gear and his
00:20:08
dog and left for a nice solo fishing trip in the highlands and when he left he was leaving his wife Maran who I
00:20:16
believe was 40 at the time and their 16-year-old daughter Vivien at home in Burns sign uh lanarch share uh so
00:20:24
because her husband was going to be gone Maran watt invited her sister Margaret to stay with her and Vivian while
00:20:31
William was away on the morning of September 17th 1956 the Watts housekeeper Helen kisan
00:20:39
she came to work a little before 9:00 a.m. and she went open the back door and it was locked which was strange because
00:20:45
she had worked for this the Watts Watts family for a many years so she knew them
00:20:51
very well and they had a very fixed Arrangement that was if viven's Mom was um still asleep when she left left for
00:20:58
school in the morning Vivian would leave the back door unlocked for Helen the housekeeper that makes sense and she's
00:21:04
like so she never didn't do that and like and then she was like oh no what are they sick like did something happen
00:21:10
so Helen walked around the house the outside of the house looking in knocking on the windows and she went along to the
00:21:16
side of the house and she found that a glass panel on the front door had been smashed in oh that's terrifying so
00:21:23
immediately she's like [ __ ] like what is this so she Flags down a passing mailman
00:21:29
named Peter Collier who immediately helped and he put his hand through the glass and unlocked the door damn um
00:21:38
which I was like Peter to the rescue this is good Peter good Peter so once inside he Peter went to the first Peter
00:21:46
colier he went to the first yeah PC not pm he went to the first bedroom he found
00:21:52
and he came across a horrific site oh no he found the bodies of Marian and Margaret the sisters the mom and the
00:21:58
aunt on the again an alliteration Maran and Mar yeah you're right um they were very
00:22:04
obviously Dead uh he said in the bed were two bodies and the bed clothes were covered with blood oh man um they were
00:22:11
laying side by side in the bed it looked like they were sleeping like on their sides oh man and each had a very large
00:22:18
gunshot to their head what the [ __ ] yeah so Peter Co are immediately called the
00:22:23
police from the house phone and while he was waiting for them to come they kind of told him like you know don't don't
00:22:28
leave but they were also like if you see anything else like you know tell us yeah
00:22:32
so he continued looking around he knew some by Helen telling him that there was a daughter that should be in the house
00:22:40
so she was like you need to find her so he continued looking and he found viven in her bed with a similar wound to that
00:22:48
of her mother and Aunt she was still breathing what she was shot in the head and you'll find out she had various
00:22:55
other injuries to her and her story is very it's chilling oh God so she was still alive she was still breathing but
00:23:04
before Emergency Services came she passed away Oh I thought you were going to say she Liv no yeah um from their
00:23:11
initial evaluation of the whole scene detectives thought that the killer probably broke into the house in the
00:23:16
middle of the night by Smashing through that window and unlocking the front door
00:23:20
like reaching it that's [ __ ] so scary and the fact that the dad just happened to be away you have to wonder like was
00:23:28
the killer watching the house I think he was watching oh I hate that and that's even more horrifying it's so scary to
00:23:34
think back and like to think that family was just going about their business and
00:23:38
somebody was watching and waiting prowling I hate that it's it's so chilling it's like a horror movie mhm
00:23:44
now they believed once inside the killer moved quietly to the first bedroom they
00:23:49
found they found Marian and Margaret sharing the bed both women had been shot to the right side of their heads as
00:23:55
though they were asleep when the whole thing happened but Margaret had also been shot in the face just below the
00:24:01
right eye oh wow I wonder if she like woke up if she had been the second person killed yeah they they they're not
00:24:06
sure cuz there were powder burns on the skin of both women as well so that would
00:24:11
indicate that the barrel of the gun was pretty close to their head or against their skin and later the coroner
00:24:17
confirmed that both head wounds would have been immediately fatal so it's likely that nether woman knew what was
00:24:26
happening or felt what was happening or woke up yeah maybe he just shot twice but the investigators also noted that
00:24:32
the the nightclothes of both women were definitely like rumbled and rearranged likely after death though um there were
00:24:40
no signs of sexual assault here but maran's dress had been hiked up to expose her lower half and Margaret's
00:24:47
pajama bottoms had been pulled down so he's doing this as a shame like let me humiliate their dead bodies the [ __ ]
00:24:55
which like you have to be so [ __ ] far [ __ ] to be like messing with dead bodies that you have just killed killed
00:25:05
yeah so from the looks of what happened they believe that the gunshots must have
00:25:10
woken viven right um she was obviously asleep in the other room but she was still in bed with the covers pulled up
00:25:17
to her chin when they found her oh but the room was in disarray they said there was obvious signs of a struggle here
00:25:25
there were clothes other items strewn around the room the furniture was knocked over like a fight had happened
00:25:31
and the killer had stubbed out his cigarettes on the carpet what yeah so just the fact that he hung out and
00:25:38
smoked for a while yeah and stubbed them out on the carpet viven had also been shot in the head at close range but she
00:25:45
had additional injuries including bruising to her face and her pubic area oh god um her arm had also been wrenched
00:25:52
very violently behind her back her brwn underwear had been torn away from her body but she had not been sexually
00:25:59
assaulted that they could find huh in the source um by McLoud that will'll link in the show notes um they say there
00:26:06
was a possibility that she had been tormented and tortured by her attacker before being shot yeah so they believe
00:26:12
she was like tortured and that he was like stubbing out the cigarettes as he was doing this it seems like there was
00:26:18
like a sexual element to that torture if her pubic area was bruised it feels like
00:26:23
there was always a sexual element in it somewhere or another yeah unfortunately like she wasn't sexually assaulted by a
00:26:29
criminal definition but she pretty much was was now the Press came to the scene almost before the investigators did oh
00:26:36
good they were immediately on it um and this got sensationalistic coverage I mean yeah yeah Vivian's friend and Nick
00:26:44
store neighbor Deanna um wasted no time telling the Press how they had been together the previous evening and she
00:26:50
had just narrowly avoided being the fourth victim and she said as I was leaving her
00:26:55
at the front door she jokingly suggested that that I spent the night with her her
00:26:59
mother and Aunt were still up at the time and it's like yeah that's really scary yeah that is scary so for the most
00:27:05
part the neighbors really spoke highly of this entire family they called them very nice people very friendly um one
00:27:12
neighbor told a reporter I'd spoken to the girl once or twice she was very attractive okay and kind yeah and a good
00:27:20
person yeah now while detectives were combing over the scene at the Watt House a neighbor approached them to report
00:27:26
that a a feud door's dead down at another house it seemed like they had also been broken into while the
00:27:32
occupants were away though but they said they saw something happen you imagine coming back to your house to see that
00:27:38
and then to know what happens a few doors down and it looked like the Intruder had gotten into the house by
00:27:46
Smashing the glass panel on the front door oh my God I'm not going to look at my glass panels the same a patrol
00:27:53
officer was sent to check this out and found a scene that was eerily similar to the WT house except no one had died but
00:28:01
did they do the whole cigarette on the carpet I knew someone had broken in they had trashed the house this time they had
00:28:08
dumped canned soup and canned spaghetti all over the floor oh [ __ ] like [ __ ] that who does that and they attract
00:28:17
mud all throughout the house like seemingly on purpose I'm so pissed right now imagine coming home to this I would
00:28:23
be through the roof and then there were a bunch of cigarettes step dumped out in
00:28:28
the carpets it's like a thing and it's like does he know these people that he's attacking and doing this to cuz that's
00:28:35
such a big disrespect it almost feels personal he has no respect for anyone we see he's been an [ __ ] since he was
00:28:42
little fantastic but also one of the beds looked like it had been slept in recently but the homeowners had been
00:28:49
away oh yeah I would I'd be like well we're sell in the house yeah I'd burn the house down I think I'd be like bye
00:28:55
can't look at this ever again oh God but investig initially assumed that the motive for the break-in was robbery but
00:29:01
once the owners had been contacted and came back they confirmed that the only items that were missing were two gold
00:29:07
rings and they weren't worth a lot of money and they said the more expensive items are right out in the open and this
00:29:15
person obviously spent considerable time in this house possibly even slept they didn't take them so so they were just
00:29:21
doing this to be a [ __ ] creep yeah so what they thought was did the Killer of the watt family stay in this house while
00:29:31
these people were gone to watch the watt family oh may wait for the right moment
00:29:37
to strike oh that's on another [ __ ] L ey shot like they could see the watt family
00:29:45
house and they would be able to see their comings and goings what the [ __ ] that's disturbing yes an to like even
00:29:54
just like the the the Breakin it's like how do you ever gain a sense of privacy back oh I always wonder that about it
00:30:01
must be so hard to just how do you go to sleep night how vulnerable you must feel
00:30:05
like you hear about stories like this and you're like oh I'm like afraid to go to sleep tonight you live something like
00:30:10
that and then you just have to like yeah you got to get you got to get through this right you got to get through this
00:30:17
you got to make it got to make it got to make it through like that's how do you like you it would take therapy I feel
00:30:24
definitely like it would take therapy to be able to like work through that definitely I don't know how I would work
00:30:28
through that God now this case received a ton of widespread coverage and it set off like a pretty sizable Panic among
00:30:36
young women and girls in lanarch share especially freaking out um so there was intense pressure to make progress in
00:30:43
this case which is not always great yeah it can work in our favor a little bit but sometimes you get that West Memphis
00:30:49
3 style how confident are you in this case 11 Yik Noe so don't want that so investigators turned to the most likely
00:31:01
suspect in most murder cases and started looking at the dad the husband William wat so they looked at his Alibi they
00:31:08
looked at his background like I was literally on a body of water and he's like of course I was on a solo fishing
00:31:13
trip oh and that looks so sketchy it does so neighbors and uh around and you know like residents in lanar Shear spoke
00:31:21
very highly of this family like I said but they couldn't say something nice about the remaining member of the watt
00:31:30
family while Mar and Vivian were considered very nice people and again I don't think this is William watt's fault
00:31:36
William watt was criticized for being absent on a fishing trip on the Lord's day that was where his downfall went
00:31:46
what an [ __ ] huh and it's like guys fact that people are sanctimonious even when somebody's entire [ __ ] family is
00:31:53
brutally murdered and their home is broken into yeah and in fact and they were criticizing him because he was on
00:31:59
this solo fishing trip so they he had to be tracked down by the Press at the lodge that he was staying at to be
00:32:05
informed that his entire family had been murdered in his house oh by the Press that's how he found out that's horrific
00:32:11
and in the weeks after this William watt would temporarily become the prime suspect because multiple Witnesses
00:32:17
picked him out of a lineup as well and he he's like I live here yeah like what so he was held at barin prison but after
00:32:24
several weeks he was released because the case against him was so questionable and there was nothing there they had
00:32:32
nothing that showed that he would murder his entire family like it just and they
00:32:36
were looking at this other house down the street and they were like so you're telling me that William watt the father
00:32:42
and husband booped down a couple of doors that's the other thing stayed at this house but like that doesn't even
00:32:49
make sense like it's like cuz he wasn't gone for that much time to be even doing
00:32:54
that so it's like how do you explain that was he a smoker that's the thing and it's like how do you explain that
00:32:59
there was this like Lookout clearly like somebody staked out here and obviously he wouldn't have needed to do that he
00:33:05
wouldn't need to so it's like that doesn't make a lot of sense so none of it made sense like they knew they had to
00:33:11
I understand why they went to him first because absolutely 90% of the time that's usually statistics talk um but
00:33:18
according to Hector McLoud to some he was a pathetic victim of outrageous Misfortune to others he was a scheming
00:33:24
villain who was fortunate not to be convicted of murder okay now as in the case of the nean of an
00:33:30
Nan's murder when it came to Alternative suspects Peter Manuel's name was at the
00:33:36
top of the detectives list hey imagine that yeah Manuel had a long criminal history of sexual assault among other
00:33:42
things and many still believed that he was absolutely the guy that was responsible for an Nan's murder right so
00:33:49
he seemed a strong suspect here too because he got away with it but when they questioned Peter about his
00:33:55
whereabouts he presented another strong Alibi which his father said yes absolutely Daddyo we need to talk yep
00:34:03
and they searched his home and they couldn't find anything related to the watt family murders so they said okay I
00:34:09
don't know what to do now Peter Manuel's connection to the watt case could have just ended then and there he had an
00:34:16
alibi they searched his home he nothing nothing no connection they got to let it
00:34:20
go mhm and they did they said all right but then but he just couldn't help involve himself he could have been Scot
00:34:28
free but he couldn't let it go while William watt was still being held at barini on suspicion of murder Manuel
00:34:36
Peter Manuel also became incarcerated at the time for another robbery and they were literally serving time next to each
00:34:44
other wait what so Peter Manuel was serving time next to William watt whose family spoiler alert brutally murder
00:34:54
Peter Emanuel is responsible for murdering holy [ __ ] yeah and so uh apparently Peter Manuel
00:35:02
at that time wrote a letter to William Watts's lawyer saying that he knew that William watt was
00:35:09
innocent and he said I know the man who did it according to Peter a day before the murders he said he'd been asked to
00:35:16
participate in the robbery at the watt home but he declined the invitation oh what a good said no thank you a day
00:35:23
after the murders the same man he said had come back to see him and he said having been afflicted by the horrors
00:35:29
he'd committed against the watt women he asked Manuel to get rid of the gun he'd
00:35:34
used oh okay and Peter Manuel said this was the same man who'd stolen the two rings from the home near the Watts uh
00:35:42
house sorry which it's like you seem to have a whole lot of information huh that's the thing he seemed to know a lot
00:35:48
about these two crimes and a lot about these two crime scenes sure did and although it was he was skeptical about
00:35:54
what Peter Manuel had told him the lawyer uh William wat's lawyer felt it was who knows stranger [ __ ] has happened
00:36:02
so he reported it to the authorities nice in time it became clear that Peter Manuel was angling for an early release
00:36:08
on this robbery conviction and was trying to use this supposed information as a bargaining chip being like it was
00:36:15
me but I know so much about it and it was true that he seemed to know a lot about the murders including several
00:36:21
little details that hadn't really been reported heavily in the Press but they said it was possible though that he had
00:36:28
learned them from maybe some of the papers they weren't heavily reported on these details but he said they were like
00:36:33
it's not impossible that he didn't see it somewhere okay and because after all in addition to his criminal history
00:36:40
Peter Manuel was known to police in lanarch Shear as an actual like a fantastic liar oh man so they were
00:36:48
understandably very skeptical about the report of some unnamed man being the real killer of the watt family yeah but
00:36:55
still if what he said was true they didn't want to be remiss and not just like do their due diligence and follow
00:37:01
it up which I'm glad they did Poli work here yeah so several officers began investigating his claims and they
00:37:07
started with a fullscale raid on Peter's home that he shared with his father damn
00:37:12
his dad's probably like can you get your [ __ ] together and it's also like I bet
00:37:16
you didn't see that coming I think he thought it was going to lead them further away yeah but not so much it
00:37:23
brought them closer oh know he was definitely trying to get that early release by being like look over there
00:37:28
it's some guy go find him but they were like no I think it's you actually and in
00:37:33
addition to William Watts's lawyer Peter seemed to speak openly with anyone about
00:37:38
several crimes including Anne Nan's murder where he wasn't saying he did it he speculated very heavily on the
00:37:45
Killer's identity ah in an interview Peter told reporters I wish to State emphatically that I did not kill any of
00:37:52
these unfortunate people he also publicly demanded that lanarch share police go on record to state that
00:37:59
investigators recent actions quote had no bearing on any murder case whatsoever he wanted them to literally go on record
00:38:06
and say yeah I know we're doing a full-on raid on Peter Manuel's home but it has nothing to do with murder not at
00:38:13
all nothing it's like that would be a lie Peter now although some members of the police force suspected Peter Manuel
00:38:21
of definitely being involved in the neeland and Watt cases it appears that at least at the time he was n considered
00:38:28
the most serious suspect really to them they said so McLoud wrote to them he was
00:38:33
just a Troublesome liar with an annoying tendency to claim he was involved in major crimes because he had done this
00:38:39
before right it was kind of hiso yeah and he he would claim he was involved in an outside way he never did the crime he
00:38:45
was he just got rid of something for somebody somebody wanted me to be involved but I said no no I would never
00:38:51
yeah so it's likely that for that reason that when William watt was finally released and ruled out as a suspect no
00:38:57
one really decided to take a closer look at Peter Manuel and after watt's release
00:39:03
from custody Peter Manuel kept writing these letters to law enforcement from prison making increasingly fantastic
00:39:11
claims about knowing some information about the recent murders but he wouldn't say what and he was very cryptic and
00:39:18
very and it what got more and more Fantastical what he was claiming he's intense yeah and the more fantastic
00:39:24
these claims became the less serious anyone was taking him and it's very like hey hey look at me Behavior like
00:39:31
everybody's like why would he do that no one would do that if they actually did it well yeah so in November
00:39:38
1957 Peter Manuel was released from barin and was back on the streets oh God now when an neans was murdered Peter
00:39:49
Manuel's name immediately came to the minds of several of the detectives working on the case yeah but like we
00:39:55
said it appeared he had that strong Alibi there was really nothing connecting him to it and when the watt
00:40:00
murders occurred his name was again up on that possible suspect list but again no evidence to really tie him to it but
00:40:09
these suspicions were growing stronger and stronger after he had written that first letter to William mz's lawyer
00:40:15
claiming knowledge and the thing is it's like when you look at that series of events
00:40:21
that Journey that we just took where you are your name comes up as a suspect in Mur because you have a history of being
00:40:28
[ __ ] up of being involved in sexual assaults and robberies and violent things that we will talk about you came
00:40:35
up you were cleared you came up again you were cleared again and then you insert yourself into Multiple homicide
00:40:46
cases when you were cleared that it's so interesting though that's so risky but it's like um I feel like as soon as they
00:40:53
started looking away from him it probably pissed him off wait a second cuz he likes the attention it sounds
00:40:58
like he likes the attention but doesn't want to like go in with both feet but as
00:41:03
soon as they start looking away he's like wait a second wa but me like he it's like he wants credit for it without
00:41:09
the punishment the punishment yeah he doesn't want the punishment he wants the credit for doing it and but it's just so
00:41:15
wild and it makes you say who the [ __ ] is Peter Manuel who is this and why the
00:41:19
[ __ ] is he going out of his way to be associated with two horrific crimes what
00:41:25
the [ __ ] tell me so pet Manuel was born in Manhattan actually on March 13th 1927 he was born to Samuel and Bridget
00:41:34
Manuel Scottish immigrants who'd come to the US to build a better life for their
00:41:38
family I love that at the time they already had one child named James who they had to leave behind in Scotland and
00:41:45
this was very uh common for this time they planed to send for him once they became established that would I've said
00:41:52
this in many other cases before that would happen yeah they would come over try to build that better life and send
00:41:57
for the child later um unfortunately the market crash of 1929 and the depression
00:42:03
that followed really dashed any hope of that American dream or economic Prosperity yeah so by 1932 the family
00:42:11
had to move back to Scotland and they settled in motherwell which is a village in
00:42:16
lanarkshire according to his brother James Peter struggled to adjust to his new life in Scotland he had spent the
00:42:22
first 5 years of his life as an only child also oh yeah then he just has a brother now he has a brother and he was
00:42:28
put into school with older more advanced children and he got teased a lot for not
00:42:33
really for being like very different and being unfamiliar with Scottish culture and like just being different
00:42:39
essentially culture shock so Peter's criminal career started very early really age 10 wow age 10 he broke into a
00:42:47
local Chapel in Coventry where the family was living at the time and he stole the church collection box what a
00:42:53
little [ __ ] which is [ __ ] up for anybody to do but a 10-year-old damn yeah the [ __ ] now around this time he had
00:42:59
also been acting out in school he was getting into trouble on a near regular basis like you said there were warnings
00:43:04
on yeah and on one occasion his teacher actually found an unspeakably filthy is how she described it drawing that one of
00:43:12
the students had left on her desk and they traced it right back to Peter oh no so that's you got to look at that yeah
00:43:19
that's freaky especially with like how he's going to treat women later uhhuh now when she confronted him about it she
00:43:26
said he showed no sign of remorse and that was a character trait that would go throughout his life people would must
00:43:33
immediately recognize that he showed zero remorse for for his actions right never the break-ins and Petty thefts
00:43:40
kept on going they started and kept on going into his teen years and he would get more and more Brazen with each one
00:43:47
that he committed because he's getting away with it and when he would get caught again not one shred of remorse
00:43:53
and he was really smart he did well in school but he didn't really apply that whole thing to his criminal career
00:43:59
because he was caught a lot he was caught a lot he was punished a lot eventually the authorities grew really
00:44:05
impatient and they were like you know what we got to stop doing probation and ver verbal reprimands with this kid so
00:44:11
they started giving him juen detention sentences yeah they're like he's not learning so so during one of those
00:44:17
sentences he was evaluated by a psychiatrist and they made the following observations the school report of the
00:44:24
probationer is anything but satisfactory I bet out of school he is said to be always in trouble at school he is said
00:44:30
to be cunning and puts on an air of innocence and is very deep he is deceitful difficult to believe and
00:44:37
appears to be the ring leader on most occasions he has led younger boys into trouble and he consorts with those
00:44:43
suspected of theft I'm not at all surprised that the boy has appeared again at court there is no doubt
00:44:49
whatever that the magistrates adopted a correct attitude and committed him to an
00:44:53
approved school so they were like he belongs here yeah although most of his off fenes up to
00:44:59
this point were nonviolent during this period they still included details at this moment that had implications that
00:45:06
things could escalate okay when he was 14 Peter ran away from that school and broke into a nearby house and he stole
00:45:13
the homeowner's purse M the woman returned home unexpectedly and found that he was carrying an axe like a large
00:45:21
axe oh okay he ran out but he was there with a weapon that's so [ __ ] scary and a year later Peter ran into a school
00:45:31
or ran away from school again and broke into a home with the intention of robbing it but when he discovered that
00:45:37
the female homeowner Always a Woman mhm the female homeowner was asleep in bed he beat her in the head with a hammer
00:45:45
and how old was he 14 or excuse me at this point 15 he beat her in the head with a hammer she lived yeah the attack
00:45:53
caused a concussion and hemorrhaging and resulted in hospital and when he was arrested he pleaded
00:45:59
guilty to the charge and they said but would not or could not explain why he attacked her he just did it [ __ ] and he
00:46:06
showed again no REM and again she's just sleeping in bed so it's not even like she was going to catch him yeah he just
00:46:11
beat her in the head with a hammer oh my God that should have been it uh yeah but
00:46:16
just a few months after the hammer attack Peter escaped from the school again and went to the home of a school
00:46:21
staff member Jesus the staff member wasn't at home but his wife was oh no and Peter beat her in the head with a
00:46:29
large piece of wood when she was incapacitated he dragged the woman to a wooded area
00:46:36
behind the house ripped off her clothes TR and intended to rape her oh yeah but stopped at the last minute for unknown
00:46:46
reasons just stopped what the [ __ ] she suffered a broken nose and a broken shoulder bone and was deeply traumatized
00:46:56
obvious she was literally dragged out of her home but now he is at there's one where
00:47:01
he brings the axe but he doesn't use it the second one is he beats a woman in the head with a hammer while she's
00:47:09
asleep the third one he beats a woman so she's incapacitated and then he UPS he's
00:47:15
upping at one every time yeah this time he drags her out to a wooded area and he
00:47:20
attempts to rape her and stops at the last second and this kid is literally like 14 15 16 and no one's sitting here
00:47:29
going the next thing he's going to do is murder rap or murder someone yeah now it
00:47:34
was during this time that another odd behavior came emerged in Peter which could also be significant later in his
00:47:40
life at some point in his mid- teens the break-ins which like we said were motivated by robbery increased the
00:47:47
violence against people now he has apted again where he started causing massive amounts of damage and destruction to
00:47:56
this homes themselves okay like we talked about how that one house was found with canned soup and spaghetti
00:48:03
everywhere mud everywhere stubbing the cigarettes out that started early really he would frequently rip up clothing and
00:48:10
furniture dump food on the floors vandalize the walls stub cigarettes out on the carpets this started in his teens
00:48:17
the [ __ ] is he so angry about I don't know and according to one newspaper report at the time the damage left was
00:48:24
of such enormity that words could not adequately describe it wow now Peter's violent Behavior continued to escalate
00:48:33
as he grew older and in 1946 he was arrested when he hid in the walls of a home he was robbing while waiting for
00:48:41
the police to leave oh they couldn't find him he was in the [ __ ] walls how did he get in
00:48:48
the walls no idea but he was caught trying to escape the scene later the there's too many stories where people
00:48:56
are the walls dislike it greatly everyone sto having walls I think I don't know what do you what else do you
00:49:02
do but while he was out on bail for that he committed three sexual assaults Jesus
00:49:08
on bail yep on bail and he was quickly rearrested and sentenced finally to 8 years in prison yeah what the [ __ ] but
00:49:16
it was during this time that Caper had gained a reputation among law enforcement and other criminals for
00:49:21
being a very big narcissist and a compulsive pathologic a cuckoo nut Man by most accounts he
00:49:29
would lie about literally everything and anything including one frequently told story that he would use where he said
00:49:36
his father had been electroc or executed in the electric chair no he's I'm vouching for your ass but he also
00:49:44
continued his habit of blaming others for his behavior and the consequences of those behaviors in this case for example
00:49:51
he blamed his incarceration on William Muny who was the detective Constable who arrested him at the scene of the robbery
00:49:57
and he was like no I just caught you you did it like I did not make you do this I'm literally a detective Constable so
00:50:04
[ __ ] off Peter's time in prison was also not he was not a model prisoner lots of
00:50:09
rules infractions violations violent outbursts involving other inmates and he would receive all the inevitable
00:50:16
punishments that followed but nothing worked and eventual eventually his continued outbursts and his
00:50:21
unwillingness to be even slightly easy to deal with got him sent to the prison psychiatrist who included the following
00:50:28
in his assessment of Peter his record from the age of 12 makes it clear he is an aggressive
00:50:34
psychopath oh he has all the benefits of the juvenile court treatment and Borel treatment and it is doubtful whether
00:50:41
even at the beginning of his sentence any constructive work could have been done with him there is nothing I can
00:50:47
suggest now so this psychiatrist said he is an aggressive psychopath and I cannot
00:50:55
do anything for him you cannot do anything for him and I don't think anyone ever could do anything for him
00:51:00
and they were like let's let him out huh but the GU and the guards and the staff
00:51:05
at the prison shared the psychiatrist's opinion they were like yeah no he's he's
00:51:10
bad MH and one officer summed Peter up as one of the worst types we have at peterhead his police and prison record
00:51:17
proves that it is utterly impossible to manage this man other than when he is locked up on his own so you know there
00:51:25
are special cases where that just [ __ ] happens yeah and let me remind you he was just labeled a very dangerous
00:51:32
aggressive psychopath with absolutely no hope of recovery but there was nothing that
00:51:39
authorities could do to keep him locked up after his sentence and Peter was released from hm prison Peter's head in
00:51:46
October of 1952 damn everybody must have been just shaking their heads like we're
00:51:51
really letting this one go and that's where I'm going to end for part one you [ __ ]
00:51:57
because Peter manual continues oh no he does not change he does not shift he continues in a very horrific way which
00:52:05
we will get into in part two but don't you worry he will get caught in part two okay good we love to hear that but we
00:52:11
are going to take a break for that one so I can do a little extra research on this one all right well in the meantime
00:52:18
we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it we but not s that you break into somebody's house and disrespect
00:52:24
their entire home by throwing SpaghettiOs everywhere and putting out your lit cigarettes douchebag [ __ ]
00:52:31
don't keep it that weird you're a piece of [ __ ] Peter man spaghetti on the carpet I would [ __ ] lose it
00:52:42
[Music] oh [Music]