00:00:06
Hey weirdos. I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is More Bidar. [Music] There it is. You know, one time we were
00:00:31
like, "We're going to stop singing." And then we said, "We never will." Yeah. It's just We never have. We never will.
00:00:36
It's who we are. Yeah. I wouldn't want you to change. Thank you so much. You're welcome. I never will. Although, I have
00:00:41
changed a lot. I realized recently how [ __ ] old I am. Yeah. I mean, we're all in that space now. You hit 29. I
00:00:46
don't know what anyone's talking about anymore than these young kids saying words. It's It's a little blissful,
00:00:52
though. It kind of is cuz you're just like, I don't know what that is. I don't want to. Yeah. I don't want to. Um, it's
00:00:57
such a difference though from when we started this, but I was 21 when we started this. That's crazy. Which is I
00:01:02
was like just about to turn 22, but yeah, that feels like a whole other person now. Entirely different people.
00:01:08
What an evolution listening to this. Must be. Yeah, people have said that before. Like people I get comments a lot
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that are like, I feel like I've watched you grow up. I'm like, yeah, pretty much. Me, too. I'm like, I feel like you
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all have as well. Um, but yeah, it's crazy. I stayed up really late last night and I'm feeling it today. Yeah.
00:01:25
You know, that's part of being old. That's what I mean. Yeah. I used to stay up until like 2:00 in the morning and
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then come record and be like, "Yeah, woohoo. Let's go." Now I'm like, "Hey weirdos, I have a headache and I didn't
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even drink anything." And my sleep thing says I didn't get optimal sleep on my my
00:01:39
Aura My Aura Ring sleep score is 68 today. Yeah, we're we're not sponsored by Aura Ring. But if you sponsor us, cuz
00:01:46
we both have one. Ash convinced me to get one cuz I've been trying to like fix my sleep habits cuz I'm a good sleeper
00:01:54
when I sleep. Me too. But I'm not I don't have good habits about like going to bed at a normal hour and you know the
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same time. And it's actually so beneficial to your body and like your hormone balance to go to sleep and wake
00:02:08
up around the same time even on your days off which on my days off I'm I'm out. I'm sleeping in. I'm staying up
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till like 2 o'clock in the morning to watch TV, but then I'm sleeping in. Oh, yeah. No, and that's so bad. But then I
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feel And then it's hard to like when you get back into the week, it's like recal.
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Yeah. Yeah. And I just need to like I've been wanting to like make sure cuz actually my kids came home and they have
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health class in their curriculum obviously. And so um shout out to their health teacher cuz they [ __ ] love
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their health teacher. They do. We're not going to name them, but shout out to that person is great. Uh, so but they
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came home one day and they were like, "Mama, guess what I learned today?" And I was like, "Oh, boy. What?" And they
00:02:49
were like, "Sitting is the new smoking." And I was like, "Whoa, I've been telling
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you that." I know. And that hit. That hit. They said it. I was like, "Oh, they're like teaching that." Like that's
00:03:00
a real thing now. And we sit so much. We're [ __ ] podcasters cuz we're recording sitting here. like taking
00:03:07
sitting down or we're researching sitting down or like I'm writing sitting down like I'm I was like, "Oh, I got to
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change this shit." So, I think the again, not an ad. No, the aura ring I think is helping um like uh just make me
00:03:23
understand where my my times of sediment living are sitting in the middle of my day so that I can kind of change it up
00:03:31
and be like, you know what, take a walk around the neighborhood. Yeah, I just like it better than like some other
00:03:36
things I've tried in the past, too. Cuz it this really does feel like an ad, but
00:03:39
it's not. It stays charged like so much longer. Like, you know, we just It's not
00:03:44
an ad. We just like it a lot. This is an organic just like we dig it. No, it's also like not it's like it's an
00:03:50
investment, but it's not crazy expensive for what you get out of it. I think it's
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definitely But again, not an ad. So, if you want to buy one, do it. If you don't, no skin off of my nose. Yeah. But
00:04:02
anyway, it's just organic. Um, I'm trying to think of anything else fun that that has occurred. We're planning a
00:04:07
fairy birthday party for Ma. Oh, yes. It's my mom's 79th birthday. And 79 or 78? 79. [ __ ] Yeah. You're sure. I'm
00:04:18
positive. Are you sure you know how old your mom is? God damn. I mean, I don't know how
00:04:22
old my mom is. She was 30 79. Damn. And uh, we decided we're going to throw her a to She loves fairies. She's like a
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woodland creature. like she would live in a fantasy to the fairies. Um she's always believed in fairies. She's always
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told me about fairies. She used to take us out to talk to the fairies. We made fairy gardens. All the good stuff. So I
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was like, she's so cool. We got to do a fairy theme. So I'm going full fairy theme for this and I'm excited about it.
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I'm making an enchanted fairy cake which I will share with you um when I make it.
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I'm going to be up to my ears in cake this weekend. Yeah. It's also my nephew's third birthday and I'm making
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his blippy cake. Oh, fun. So I got a fairy cake and a blippy cake going on. Fairy cake and blippy cake. And I just
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did a recital cake, too, which I made a Barbie cake. That was fun. Your cake and
00:05:06
that was amazing. I've been caking in these streets. True. But yeah, that's that's what's up with us. Aura rings and
00:05:13
fairy parties. There was another thing I was about to talk about, but I forgot. Say, oh, um, this is just a quick little
00:05:20
recommendation. I think it's coming out in September. Um, but I'm reading Richard Chismar's new book that's coming
00:05:27
out in September. Um, and it's called Widow's Point, The Complete Haunting. It sounds really good. This I mean, I'm
00:05:35
going to I'll post it and everything like that, but guys, pre-order this book when you can because I'm telling you,
00:05:42
this book is so [ __ ] good. It literally first time since reading Salem's Lot when I was like literally 12
00:05:48
that I could not sleep one night. I couldn't fall asleep. Oh, damn. If you felt that way, I'm going to be scared
00:05:54
shitless. I felt like super It was It's so spooky. I love It's like the perfect vibes for like, you know, summer vibes
00:06:02
and like, you know, it's got it's just got the right ghost story. Creeped out. Yeah. I'm telling you, it's
00:06:09
called Widow's Point. It'll be out in September. Uh, look for it. Again, this is also not an ad. It's just these are
00:06:16
just organic things that are real. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's that's one of my little This is what I'm doing right now.
00:06:23
I love that. Yeah. And I guess we should get back into this story. Yeah, I already told you everything I'm doing
00:06:29
right now. I told you all the things. Okay. Yeah, I'm old. I don't have that much going on anymore. None of us do.
00:06:35
All right. Wait, but this is part two. And actually, I have something to say. I have something to say. I have something
00:06:40
to say. We recorded the part one at like the end of the week and usually like sometimes we'll record them like closer
00:06:46
together. I have been thinking about this case and wanting to know what happened. I actually love to hear that.
00:06:51
Yeah. No, for real. Yeah. This is an interesting one. really sad but really interesting. You left on such a
00:06:57
cliffhanger. Yeah, we when we last spoke, we were talking about Glenn Taylor Helzer, just talking about who he
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was, his life before all of this. Um, we discussed the disappearance of Ivan and
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Annette Steinman, and we talked about the murders of Jennifer and James and Marin County. Yes. Um, and we were just
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kind of backtracking to talk about uh we were referring to Taylor just for to make it easy, but Glenn Taylor Hower.
00:07:24
Mhm. Um, so we talked about his marriage. We talked about how he was like super into the Mormon church. He
00:07:31
had a very radicalized grandfather that he lived with for a while that he was feeling a lot of anxiety about not
00:07:37
living up to the standards. Uh, a lot going on. He also happened to um work at uh Morgan Stanley as a financial adviser
00:07:48
and that was something that was mentioned in the beginning as well. It came full circle at the end. It did. So,
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um, you know, that was just my little quick little summary of the first part, but go listen to the first part if you
00:07:58
haven't listened to it, cuz otherwise you're going to be a little lost here. Um, so in conquered now, after this, uh,
00:08:05
after the murders in Marane County, investigators continued to struggle to find any evidence that could indicate
00:08:12
what the hell happened to Ivan and Annette Steinman. Yeah, at this point, they're just like lost. A few days after
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their disappearance, police in Oakland, California, located their minivan. Uh, it had been abandoned in a pretty bad
00:08:24
part of the city, but there was no signs of Ivan and Annette, which not good. Just desperate to make progress, a
00:08:32
spokesperson for the Conquered Police Department went on a local news program, or a few of them really, and made a plea
00:08:38
to the public. They were just asking for anyone to come forward if they knew anything that could help find Ivan and
00:08:43
Annette. They were desperate at this point. Vicky Ston, who was a manager of CalFed, was watching TV, happened to be
00:08:51
watching TV the night that they made these pleased the photo of Ivan and Annette
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immediately. In fact, just a few days before that, Vicki had a strange encounter with a
00:09:03
customer at work that involved the Steinman's. Oh. So, she called the conquered police and she reported
00:09:08
everything she knew. Now, on the afternoon of August 1st, Vicki was working in her office when one of the
00:09:14
tellers asked if she maybe had a minute to just speak with a customer. Vicki said she did, but she was not really
00:09:20
expecting what was going to happen. According to Vicki, the customer was what she described as a larger blonde
00:09:27
woman in a wheelchair dressed in a bright lime green pants suit, large cowboy hat, and black driving gloves,
00:09:34
which is sounds like a [ __ ] sleigh. Interesting. The woman introduced herself as Jackie and
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immediately launched into a very strange, very convoluted story about two of Vickiy's customers, Ivan and Annette
00:09:48
Steinman. According to Jackie, the Steinman's granddaughter, Selena Bishop, was in desperate need of Do you Does
00:09:55
that sound familiar? Oh, yeah. Selena Bishop was in desperate need of medical attention in San Diego, and the elderly
00:10:01
couple had agreed to pay for the surgery, but they needed to put the money into Selena's account. Mhm. At
00:10:08
that point, Jackie presented two checks drawn on the Steinman's account. One in the amount of $67,000 and another in the
00:10:15
amount of $33,000. Both had been signed allegedly by Ivan Steinman. That's weird. To Vicki, who
00:10:24
had worked at various banks for more than a decade, uh, this was bizarre. red flag.
00:10:30
The Steinmans had been customers of the bank for years, like forever, and had always done their own banking. Yeah. So,
00:10:37
it was pretty strange that they would just send a stranger to deposit the money into an account of a person she'd
00:10:43
never heard of. And a stranger in a lime green pants suit, no less, and cowboy hat. And like, yeah, it's like and black
00:10:49
driving. Like, it's a little cray cray. This is a lot to take in. And like again, putting the money into an account
00:10:55
of a person that Vicki had never heard of before. Yeah. like Selena is not their granddaughter at all. So Vicki
00:11:02
explained to Jackie that the situation was unusual. And said she would need to call the Steinman's to get their
00:11:08
approval. However, when the they called the number on the account, no one answered. Mhm. Weird. Jackie said, "Oh,
00:11:15
they just moved." And handed Vicki a different phone number. So Vicki placed the call to the new number and a man
00:11:22
answered, but it did not sound like Ivan Steinman. It sounded like the voice of a
00:11:26
young man, right? Both Jackie and the man on the phone repeated that it was very important that the money get into
00:11:32
the account and cleared as soon as possible as time was of the essence. I'm like, guys, you got to be a little less
00:11:38
sus. And also to like prey on people like this is so [ __ ] up and disgusting. To make Vicki feel like
00:11:44
she's this this poor girl this Vicki was sympathetic obviously and was feeling some type of way about this, but
00:11:51
she has a job to do. Yeah. She explained to Jackie that she needed to speak with
00:11:55
the account manager at Morgan Stanley, but like this is too weird and this was probably way above her at this point. So
00:12:00
that call proved equally unsuccessful since Vicki didn't have the couple's social security numbers and nobody else
00:12:07
could give them. Mhm. She explained as much to Jackie who said she would get the numbers and be back as soon as
00:12:12
possible. Okay. As she wheeled herself out of the office and then out of the building, it occurred to Vicki that
00:12:17
Jackie had left through the front door. The bank had no ramp at the front door, and customers using wheelchairs always
00:12:24
entered via an elevator from the second floor parking lot. Leaving through the front door, Jackie would have had to
00:12:31
navigate 16 stone steps down to the street, which would have been um impossible. Pretty difficult, dangerous
00:12:40
for someone to do in a wheelchair. What the [ __ ] Impossible is probably the better word for it. Also, good on Vicki
00:12:46
though for having like such a strange situation take place. Like obviously that would be pretty confusing and you'd
00:12:52
just be sitting there like the wherewithal to be eagle-eyed about the whole thing and observe cuz somebody
00:12:57
else frankly like I might have missed that cuz you might have just been like what the like not paid attention. Yeah,
00:13:02
good on her. Yeah, Vicky Ston's story connected the Steinman's case now to the murders in Marane County because Selena
00:13:10
is Jennifer's daughter. This is a strange case, bro. And now those two cases are also connected to the missing
00:13:17
person's case of Selena Bishop because we don't know where she is. Right. Right. Right. But it was only the
00:13:21
beginning of a much stranger story somehow. I had a feeling back in Marane County, sheriff's officers had received
00:13:27
a warrant for Justin Heler's gun. Justin is Glenn Taylor's brother. Yes. Which they suspected had been used in the
00:13:34
murders of Jennifer and James a few days earlier cuz he had recently bought a 9mm. 9 mm. When they arrived at the
00:13:41
small house on Saddlewood Court, detectives were first met at the door by Justin, who let them enter. Once inside,
00:13:47
they also met Justin's brother, Glenn Taylor Heler, and Justin's girlfriend, Don Godman. Now, Justin was presented
00:13:55
with the warrant, but he claimed he no longer had the gun. No matter what, they were going to search the house, so they
00:14:01
did, and they found a number of surprising and very alarming things. Oh, good. In addition to a large amount of
00:14:07
ecstasy found in the home, they also discovered rope, leg irons, legs. A taser. Yeah. A taser, and several
00:14:15
documents that appeared to belong to Ivan Steinman. Oh, [ __ ] Based on the discovery of the drugs alone,
00:14:21
investigators placed the homeowners, Justin and Taylor, under arrest. But before they could get the handcuffs on
00:14:27
Taylor, he broke away and ran wearing only his underwear. No. Mhm. So, the team of investigators spread out across
00:14:36
the neighborhood trying to search for him, but he didn't appear to be anywhere. In the meantime, Taylor found
00:14:41
himself in the backyard of a neighbor who spotted him in the yard. Thinking the young man was, you know, just one of
00:14:47
her son's friends, she opened the door and was like, "Do you need help, friend? Like, what's going on?" As soon as he
00:14:52
was inside the house, he grabbed a large kitchen knife and took the woman hostage. Oh, [ __ ] Talk about people.
00:14:59
Never help people. after never help. Like just lock your door and go about your business and call someone. Uh after
00:15:06
cutting his hair in their kitchen and stealing some of her son's clothing, Taylor left the house and began to run
00:15:13
again without her now. Without her now. Okay. What the [ __ ] He hadn't made it more than a few hundred feet when he ran
00:15:20
straight into two sheriff's deputies who were able to take him into custody without incident. Dude, so went through
00:15:26
all that just to run straight into two sheriff's deputies. What a dumbass. So that afternoon, an announcement was made
00:15:32
about the rest of the Helzers and Dawn. Um, but detectives were careful not to reveal too much information to the
00:15:38
press, as they often are, including whether Taylor was Selena Bishop's boyfriend, cuz remember back that's who
00:15:45
we're connecting him to. Previously known as Jordan. Remember, we found out he was being referred to as Jordan.
00:15:53
Found out once they figured out who he was and they looked into it, it is Glenn Taylor. It is. Okay. Um, that all
00:15:59
changed later that afternoon though when a horrible discovery was made in Sacramento County. Oh no, was it Selena?
00:16:06
On the afternoon of August 8th, the manager of Willow Burm Marina, Bolton Lindon, was riding his jet ski on the
00:16:12
Sacramento River Delta, when he spotted three large duffel bags floating in the water. Lyndon dragged the bags back to
00:16:19
shore cuz he was thinking they're, you know, I don't know what's in these. They're duffel bags, but maybe something
00:16:25
inside will tell me who these belong to. Yeah. So, we opened them up. Inside the
00:16:29
first bag, Lyndon discovered a human head and what he described as quote, "A lot of body parts." Oh, Christ. Lyndon
00:16:37
ran to the nearest phone immediately and reported it to the authorities who arrived at the scene very quickly. Um,
00:16:44
Lyndon's wife, Rachel, said, "It was creepy when they lifted up the canvas bag. You could see blood mixed with the
00:16:49
water. We knew right away this was trouble." Oh, wow. And he was just out on his jet ski. Yeah. Just having a nice
00:16:54
time. Yeah. Investigators assembled a large dive team and by the end of the day they had recovered nine duffel bags.
00:17:02
What the [ __ ] All containing human remains wrapped individually in plastic. Oh, so is this everybody? So the duffel
00:17:09
bags themselves had been slit along the sides probably to allow water inside and
00:17:14
sink the bags. Yeah. Uh, in the statement to the press, Sacramento County Sheriff Sergeant Dennis Arnol
00:17:20
said, "This is an area that lends itself to the disposing of evidence of bodies.
00:17:25
It's remote. It's dark. And if you want to dump something here, you're not likely to get caught." Maybe word that
00:17:31
differently. Maybe don't tell everybody that. Yeah, maybe don't make that public. Unless you're going to make that
00:17:35
uh now a heavily guarded area for real. Um, according to Arnull, it was most likely that the bags had been dropped
00:17:42
off the side of the Highway 12 bridge about a mile and a half away, and they floated to where they were discovered.
00:17:48
Mhm. It didn't take long to identify two of the bodies as those of Ivan and Annette Steinman. Oh, that's awful. But
00:17:55
the third body was more challenging to identify. It appeared that a portion of skin had been removed from the shoulder
00:18:01
of the third victim, which was where Selena Bishop was known to have had a tattoo. Yep. But detectives didn't want
00:18:08
to jump to conclusions of of course. Still, the discovery of the bodies broke the case open, and investigators were
00:18:14
finally willing to disclose some more facts about the case to the press, including that the man previously
00:18:20
referred to as Jordan was in fact Glenn Taylor. Mhm. Finally, when the mug shots
00:18:26
were shown to Vicky Ston from Caled, she confirmed that the woman who introduced
00:18:30
herself as Jackie was Don Godman. Yeah. Not wheelchair bound. Nope. From the moment they were arrested, Taylor
00:18:37
refused to speak to police about anything. But when the discoveries of the bodies were made and the
00:18:42
identification of Selena Bishop's remains were was made a short time later. Don and Justin, now facing very
00:18:48
serious charges suddenly began cooperating. Imagine that. Based on their account of events, the entire
00:18:55
scheme sounded like a fairly straightforward extortion and murder case. While still working at Morgan
00:19:00
Stanley years earlier, Taylor had been the Steinman's account manager. Wow, what a piece of [ __ ] And knew they had
00:19:07
a decent amount of money saved in their account. On the night of July 31st, Taylor and Justin visited the Steinman's
00:19:14
at their house where they were spotted by the couple's neighbor who thought they were Mormon missionaries. That
00:19:19
night, they kidnapped the couple and brought them back to Justin and Taylor's home, where with the help of Dawn, they
00:19:25
tortured them for days. Oh. in order to get them to sign the checks that Don eventually tried to deposit into the
00:19:32
account in Selena's name at Caled. What the [ __ ] Once they got what they wanted
00:19:37
from the Steinman's, they murdered the couple. According to the coroner's report, Annette's cause of death was a
00:19:43
large knife wound across her throat. Oh, and Ivan died from blunt force trauma. And these people just lived like a
00:19:50
beautiful life together, had children, were enjoying their retirement. And Ivan had died from blunt force
00:19:58
trauma, apparently after Taylor had repeatedly beat the man's head against the floor.
00:20:04
This is an elderly couple. This is horrific. Now, according to Justin and Dawn, Selena Bishop had nothing to do
00:20:11
with the kidnapping, murder, or extortion plot. Taylor had met Selena a few months earlier and recognizing that
00:20:17
she was somewhat naive and eager to please. He lured her into the scheme by pretending to have a romantic interest
00:20:23
in her. So [ __ ] up. Selena's function in the plot was basically limited to opening the bank account in her name.
00:20:29
Yeah. But she was under a totally different like what she thought was actually happening here was had nothing
00:20:36
to do with this. Yeah. She thought she was just helping him as like because his ex-wife, like he didn't want his ex-wife
00:20:41
to get like his new [ __ ] money or whatever. Yeah. Now, again, she intended it was just going to be to hide that
00:20:48
money from his ex-wife, but once her function in the plot had been served, Selena was killed with a single blow to
00:20:53
the head from a hammer. Holy [ __ ] these guys are brutal. They're brutal. When it
00:20:59
came to the deaths of Selena's mother, Jennifer, and her boyfriend, Jim, their connection was even more tenuous, and
00:21:05
their deaths some like somehow even an escalated version of tragic. Taylor had gone out of his way to avoid meeting
00:21:12
Selena's friends and family, specifically because he knew there was a chance they could link him back to her
00:21:18
once he committed the murders. Right. He had been mostly successful in this, but
00:21:23
then Jennifer was determined to meet him and had managed to do so about a month before the murders and a few times
00:21:29
remember she stopped by, right? Knowing that she could easily trace him back to her daughter, Taylor and Justin went to
00:21:36
Selena's apartment in the early morning hours of August 3rd. There they shot and
00:21:40
killed Jennifer in order to prevent her from identifying him later. Wow. Jim Gamble was murdered simply because he
00:21:47
was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's horrific. Based on the statements from John Don and Justin, it
00:21:53
was as investigators basically assumed, an extortion and murder plot. Like very like cut and dry. The problem though was
00:22:00
that while the evidence collected at Taylor and Justin's home, including significant blood evidence, by the way,
00:22:05
matched their statements, detectives still didn't have the physical evidence inconclusively linking the three
00:22:11
suspects to the victims. Mhm. Fortunately, that all changed when detectives in Maring County received a
00:22:18
call from a woman named Deborah Mlanahan. As it turned out, Mlanahan had exactly
00:22:23
what investigators were looking for and so much more. Tell me everything. Like Don, Deborah met Justin and Taylor
00:22:30
several years earlier when they were all attending the LDS church in Danville. Although she had been raised in the
00:22:37
Mormon church, Deborah considered herself to be more of like a free spirit and associated as much more of like she
00:22:44
decided like the being a Wiccan and like the new age movement. Hell yeah. She was
00:22:48
more into that than she was the church. Retweet. Not long after meeting, Deborah
00:22:52
began a brief affair with Taylor, which soon came to involve Dawn and Justin from time to time. Mhm. When she heard
00:22:58
about the murders and, you know, read that investigators were asking for the public's help in finding more
00:23:03
information, Deborah came forward with what proved to be key pieces that brought the case to focus. According to
00:23:09
Deborah, about a week earlier, Taylor and Justin had visited her apartment and asked if she could store a small safe
00:23:16
there for a few weeks. No. Always no. No. Period. Knowing that Taylor occasionally dealt drugs, she assumed he
00:23:24
was keeping his product inside and didn't want it to be found. You know what they say about assumptions. Yeah.
00:23:29
In light of the murder charges, however, she thought it would be best to hand the
00:23:32
safe over to author authorities, which is very smart. She later said, "I didn't feel good about having that safe in my
00:23:38
house. It took some time, but eventually detectives were able to get it open. And
00:23:42
inside they found the Steinman's photo identification and financial records and the 9 mm handgun used to kill Jennifer
00:23:51
and Jim Gamble. Stop it. Can you imagine realizing that you had all of that in your possession? You had a murder weapon
00:23:57
in your possession and had no idea. That's why you don't help people. No, don't help people. That is a the perfect
00:24:02
example of why you don't help people. The evidence was exactly what the investigators needed to secure an easy
00:24:09
conviction and hope they might even be able to get the accused to accept a plea deal. But it turned out that Deborah had
00:24:15
a lot more to say about Taylor Helzer than anyone expected. Deborah Mlanahan confirmed that the
00:24:21
Steinman's had probably been killed for their money, but the money was just a means to a much more elaborate and
00:24:27
bizarre end. Although Taylor, Justin, and Don didn't trust Deborah enough to tell her all of their plans, they did
00:24:33
impart some details on her. Oh. According to Deborah, the group, who referred to themselves in their
00:24:38
movements as the children of Thunder. Stop it. Believed that Taylor was a prophet who communicated directly with
00:24:45
God. God's never going to tell you to murder people. No, he's not. I mean, at least in my opinion, he's not feel like
00:24:52
I feel like that's not your God being an awesome God. That would No, exactly. That would that's like your god supposed
00:24:57
to be an awesome god. The actual there's a whole song. Yeah. And there there's that's the opposite. The only reason I
00:25:03
know that's a song is because I listened to sub sexy unique podcast and they put
00:25:07
a bonus episode out the other day. That's our pod is an awesome pod and they sang the song. I love it. But no,
00:25:15
that's not No, your god is not going to tell you to kill people. No, that's just
00:25:19
not going to happen. No. So they believed though that Taylor had been instructed by God to travel back to
00:25:24
Brazil where he would convert others to his cause and train an army of Brazilian
00:25:29
orphans to become assassins working on the group's behalf. That's some drugfueled thought. That's
00:25:37
also that's some drugfueled thought. These things are always so [ __ ] complicated. Yeah. Nothing in life needs
00:25:43
to be this complicated. No. Just go about your business. Stop worrying about other people. Stop doing [ __ ] to
00:25:50
other people. What are we doing? Don't train Brazilian children to become Brazilian orphans. Orphans. Yeah. What
00:25:56
the [ __ ] What the [ __ ] What the [ __ ] is correct? The ultimate purpose of the
00:26:00
children of thunder was for Taylor to lead them in overthrowing the Mormon church and what they referred to as the
00:26:08
days of thunder or the second coming of Christ. Guys, the Mormon church is [ __ ] huge. It's you're not
00:26:14
overthrown. It's omnipotent. All you have to do, here's a great way to not deal with the Mor Mormon church. Don't
00:26:20
deal with the Mormon church. Yeah, just leave. That's the end of it. I know it's
00:26:24
I know it's hard to leave the Mormon church. I'm not like I'm not making light of that, but but it's much harder
00:26:28
to uh come up with an entire murder plot and go and go to prison for murder charges. And again, we're not saying
00:26:35
it's easy to get out of any religion. I myself have not been in a religion that I had to tear myself out of or deal with
00:26:41
like the consequences of that. So, just know that right now. Yeah, there's no reason to say it cuz we know it. I'm not
00:26:48
Nobody's saying that. No, no, no. It's awful. I can't imagine. But if you're coming up with is it is it harder to do
00:26:56
that or to travel to Brazil and train an army of Brazilian orphans to overthrow a
00:27:02
church? Yeah, I would say the latter. Or is it on the same level? I don't know. But either way, it's hard. I would say
00:27:07
the latter. No pun intended. No pun intended. And that's it's no matter what. This is very over complicated. And
00:27:14
it's and this is very not okay. It's also just very like this guy was like staying up all night doing drugs, doing
00:27:22
ecstasy, like doing crazy [ __ ] I'm like this is not good thinking. This is not
00:27:27
like solid. This is not clear thinking. This is not any of that. And it's like it's so scary this kind of stuff cuz
00:27:34
it's like where do you get to that point? Like that's it's also just I can't imagine like my parents being
00:27:42
killed for that purpose and finding that out after they lived their whole lives and were just enjoying retirement. Poor
00:27:48
Selena just thinks she meets this nice guy wants to help him of this guy to use his former job as like an financial
00:27:58
advisor to do this cuz I'm like first of all you're a piece of [ __ ] and two you're so [ __ ] easily traceable
00:28:05
right? Of course they're gonna connect it back to you. But that's why it's so you gotta be [ __ ] dumb. That's why
00:28:10
it's so obvious that it's not clear thinking. Like he thought he was this mastermind. I'm like, "No, you're a
00:28:14
[ __ ] idiot." No, they can easily trace that back to you. You had access to that. Thankfully, you're dumb. Right
00:28:18
away, someone's going to trace it back to you. Wow. It's ridiculous. I was wondering where the Children of Thunder
00:28:23
came into. Here it is. Wow. Uh, so the group functioned basically like, you know, your run-of-the-mill cult. Uh, the
00:28:31
Children of Thunder was like, you know, most cults that you hear about in the sense that it's built around one single
00:28:39
very charismatic uh very bullshitty leader, you know, always. Uh, in their case, Taylor developed a list of beliefs
00:28:46
that, you know, they were all supposed to adhere to, and again, very cult-like behavior. Um, which he referred to as
00:28:52
the 12 principles of magic. Okay, I'm not sure where magic comes into this whole thing, but here we are.
00:29:00
Um, I can paraphrase them here. And Dave uh helped me very much paraphrasing these because wow. Um, one, he meaning
00:29:09
God is already perfect, so he could do no wrong. Okay. Uh, two, there was no such thing as right or wrong. Wrong. No
00:29:18
wrong. We're contradicting ourselves already. Uh, three, he was all powerful and the creator of everything in his
00:29:24
life. So then he created the Mormon church and you don't have to overthrow it. Yeah. Four, life was always right. I
00:29:30
thought there was no wrong concept of right or wrong, but okay. Life was always right and they should embrace all
00:29:35
the results of it. This whole thing is contradictory. All the results of life they created for
00:29:41
themselves. But I thought God created it. Six, we believe nothing and perceive the world without fear. Then why are you
00:29:47
making rules if you don't believe anything? Seven, our perceptions are always right. Okay. Okay. I thought
00:29:53
there was no concept of right and wrong. Uh, eight. Unconditional fearless love was the most profound in the universe.
00:29:59
Overthrowing a church doesn't sound like unconditional love. No. And killing people doesn't really make me think
00:30:04
you're a loving person. Uh, nine. Spirit knew everything. 10. One gives total control by losing control. Oh, that's
00:30:12
just cults. Uh, 11. What goes around comes around. I believe that karma. I'm also like, so you're going to kill three
00:30:18
people? Excuse me. That's coming around, my friend. Yeah. 12. There was a higher
00:30:23
person than Taylor, Jesus Christ, the son of the father. Isn't that just the Bible? Pretty sure.
00:30:30
I don't know. I don't know. So, there's that. Uh, those are wild ass principles that literally contradict themselves
00:30:37
from the second they right from the jump. Like, hello. Uh, like starting line just there's no right or wrong. I'm
00:30:44
right. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. According to Deborah Mlanahan, uh, in the weeks before the murders, Taylor and
00:30:50
Justin had tried to find the money to fund their movement from family members and associates and had wildly been
00:30:56
unsuccessful. Uh, when they failed at that, Taylor began devising a new plan where he would just extort the money
00:31:03
from his former Morgan Stanley clients, Ivan and Annette Steinman. And from there, the scheme continued to spiral
00:31:09
out of control until it came to include killing Selena Bishop, Jennifer Valerin,
00:31:14
and Jim Gamble. Okay. All to fund the children of thunder and their belief that they could somehow bring the second
00:31:21
coming and overthrow the Mormon church. Okay. Now, now that they had, you know, the full story, investigators took
00:31:29
everything to the district attorney who started drafting up plea agreements. And
00:31:33
the district attorney said, "What the [ __ ] is all this? What have you brought me?" Uh, but before they could put any
00:31:38
deal on the table, Don and Justin decided to stop cooperating with the investigation. Okay, cool. So then you
00:31:43
don't get a deal. In terms of Don Godman, detectives decided she had been too heavil he heavily manipulated by
00:31:49
Taylor and would require psychological deprogramming before her testimony could be of any value. Oh wow. Yeah, this runs
00:31:56
deep. Taylor and Justin, on the other hand, decided they would rather take their chances with trial. Good luck,
00:32:02
boys. Good. With all the delays and motions put forth by Justin and Taylor's lawyers, nearly 5 years passed before
00:32:09
anyone saw the inside of a courtroom. Five years? That's a long time. We've seen delays, but 5 years is wild. In
00:32:17
that time, the bizarre claims of cuz then it started coming like it took on a life of its own. The terms like the the
00:32:25
phrases wiccan sex cults. Oh yeah. Rituals all fueled the local tabloids in that 5 years. Like just went nuts. Who's
00:32:34
going to ever get sick of that? Exactly. At the same time, Don Godman had changed
00:32:38
her mind and accepted a plea deal from the district attorney. What' she get? In exchange for a guilty plea and agreeing
00:32:44
to testify against Taylor and Justin, she would receive a sentence of 38 years in prison. Okay. I'm I'm glad she still
00:32:50
gets a lot of time. 25 years for the murders and 13 for the extortion and the additional crimes. Good. In a pre-trial
00:32:57
hearing leading up to Justin's trial, Dawn told the story of the murders and their plan to extort the Steinman's in
00:33:03
graphic detail. Um she said, "He looked at me and he said, "Spirit says you get to know this isn't a dream." and then he
00:33:11
cut her throat. Oh. Talking about a net. Yeah. Don said u that's what Don told investigators. Um she also confirmed
00:33:19
that the extortion and murders were all part of Taylor's plan to raise $1 million to form a self-help group called
00:33:25
Transform America. The goal of which was to quote hasten Christ's return to Earth. No thank you. We just want to we
00:33:34
want to speed them up. No thank you. Now, maybe sensing which way the winds were
00:33:40
blowing just before the trial was about to begin. Taylor Helzer changed his plea
00:33:44
from not guilty to guilty on all counts. Probably smart. Um, yeah, and he was going to be sentenced to death. Uh,
00:33:51
Justin, on the other hand, maintained a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, and the case went to trial in
00:33:56
the spring of 2004. Over the course of the six weeks, the prosecution called more than a hundred
00:34:02
witnesses and presented a mountain of evidence linking Justin Helzer to the murders of all five people. Not as a
00:34:09
passive member of the group, but as a very active participant in their deaths as well. Uh in his opening statement to
00:34:15
the jury, Deputy District Attorney Hal Jwitt presented what he called a tale of religious fanaticism, replete with uh
00:34:23
declarations of war on Satan and dreams of a utopian paradise. Huh? Imagine that
00:34:29
being part of the opening statement. I would be locked. I would be sat like let's go. Um and that would be that's
00:34:36
what he presented as their motive. Uh but in the end, JW argued it was Taylor's quest for money and power over
00:34:42
others that had really led to their deaths. And he couldn't have achieved that without Justin's help. Uh on June
00:34:49
15th, 2004, the jury deliberated. After just two days, they returned five guilty verdicts
00:34:56
for each charge of first-degree murder faced by Justin. Also, each charge included special circumstances on
00:35:03
multiple counts of murder, kidnapping, robbery, burglary, and extortion. The jury also determined that Justin was
00:35:10
sane when he committed the murders. Oh, and he received the death penalty as well. So, him and his brother uh on the
00:35:16
charge of possessing methamphetamine with intent to sell, he was found not guilty. Okay. Okay, so there's that for
00:35:22
him. Justin and Taylor were sent to San Quentin to serve their sentences where in 2010, Justin attempted to end his
00:35:29
life by stabbing two ballpoint pens into his eyes. He thought that was going to end his
00:35:35
life. Yeah. Like that's just going to really [ __ ] [ __ ] up your eyes. It was unsuccessful. Um did result in blindness
00:35:42
in both eyes and brain trauma though. Oh, so I guess you know I guess that one tenant was true. What goes around comes
00:35:50
around, I suppose. Giving Edipus. Now, in 2013, Justin Helzer made a second attempt to end his life by hanging. And
00:35:59
that time, he was successful. In a statement to the press, Justin's former defense lawyer, Daniel Cook, told a
00:36:05
reporter he was quote, "Sorry, but not surprised to learn that Justin's profound and apparently progressive
00:36:10
mental illness had manifested itself one last time." Yeah. Now, in 2024, Taylor's
00:36:18
case came up for automatic review by the Supreme Court of the State of California, in which he argued that he
00:36:23
should have been allowed to withdraw his guilty plea and should receive a trial based on his claim that officers had
00:36:28
violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they seized items from his home. And if they hadn't had that evidence, he
00:36:34
wouldn't have pleaded guilty. Okay. After considering his argument, the justices wrote, quote, "We reject
00:36:39
defendants claims and conclude blanket suppression of the evidence is not warranted." The court further concluded
00:36:45
that probable cause existed. The warrant was not a general warrant and the search
00:36:49
did not exceed the scope of the warrant. Fantastic. Ultimately, the court upheld
00:36:53
the lower court's ruling and the death sentence imposed by the jury. Well, there you have it. And that is it. He's
00:37:00
still He's on death row. Yep. He's on death row. His brother is dead. Yeah. And um Don is still serving out
00:37:08
her sentence. All I can think about is ball pen ballpoint pens in my eyes. Yeah, that's a lot. That's gnarly. So,
00:37:14
that is uh Glenn Taylor Helzer and the Children of Thunder. That's a wild story that I had never heard even a single
00:37:21
detail about previously. Wild. Yeah. I actually didn't know about this either. That's crazy. Yeah. And really sad. I
00:37:28
feel so so sorry. Completely innocent people. That's the thing. Like completely innocent. Had nothing to do
00:37:34
with any of this. Innocent people and like people who are so tenuously connected to this guy. This [ __ ]
00:37:40
crazy [ __ ] He just he used which like thank goodness there was a connection with like the Morgan Stanley
00:37:46
stuff like this idiot was a was a financial adviser and then decided to go after his clients like hello they're
00:37:52
just boom connection right there. Yeah that's wild. Thank goodness he was dumb as [ __ ] for that and he was seen too the
00:37:59
shout out to neighbors doing neighborly [ __ ] right that's why you want a good neighborhood. A lot of good Samaritans
00:38:03
though who like did their part here. Vicki coming forward. Um um Deborah at the end being like, "Whoa, what the [ __ ]
00:38:10
was this?" That's a That's a crazy And Selena being totally duped by this guy. I know. That's really heartbreaking.
00:38:18
It's awful. Yeah. And now And Jennifer had to die because she cared about her daughter and
00:38:24
who she was seeing, right? Like that's And Jim just James just being there. There. Yeah. Like that. All of it is so
00:38:31
[ __ ] avoid. And like what an [ __ ] this [ __ ] Yeah. He's awful. The Hellzers are and Don. Like, [ __ ] all of
00:38:38
them. Yeah. Sometimes I do believe in the death penalty. And this is one of those instances. Yeah. He's the worst.
00:38:43
Wow. So, well, we hope you keep listening, though. And we hope you keep it weird. But not as weird as this
00:38:51
man's, cuz what the [ __ ] Yeah. Truly. Dang. Dang. [Music] [Music] [Music]