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hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elena and this is [Music] morbid this is morbid it feels like morbid in the
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morning but it's like kind of not at all yeah I woke up late today by accident this was the day that late Riser yeah
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this was the day that I was going to get up at 6:30 and really move my body ATI yie and prick my finger and figure out
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my egg reserve and all that jazz and I didn't wow I had so many you had a lot of plans for this morning no I literally
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had so many plans for this morning and I my alarm went off and I said oh let me just lay here for like 2 minutes and
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that's always the kiss of death three hours later never say I'll just lay here for a couple more minutes cuz you're not
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going to lay there for a couple more minutes you're going to fall asleep yeah and then your alarm is shut off no I'm
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thinking about that fry song it's like if I lay here oh yeah if I just lay here is that Snow Patrol yep yeah it is I was
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like wait that's not the fry wrong I was like no that's not the fry similar Vibes
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though yeah similar like sad boy Vibes oh yeah you know sad boy sad boy Vibes is what the fre and Snow Patrol have
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what's going on in your life what's going on in my life I don't know um you know lots of stuff you have overalls on
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today that's I have overalls on they're cute thank you you look like I'm trying to like describe what your Vibe is right
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now I know it's cute I like it thank you you're welcome I'm making a scary face I'm wearing a sweatshirt that Drew got
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me for Christmas and all my uh Real Housewives of Beverly Hills girlies will understand it says name them name them
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name them that's what it says it her sweatshirt actually like vocalizes that when she comes in a room actually my
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girly Sutton St which by the way on have you have you watched any of the seasons
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with Sutton oh I have I saw a little bit of Sutton do you love years ago yeah I think Sutton's funny I love Sutton so
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last night she was on a date on the show my girly and she real she revealed that
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she listens to True Crime and I said if SU stct doesn't listen to morbid I'm going to cry for eternity I'm just going
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to cry you need to know I'm going to put on Snow Patrol I'm going to put on The Fray and I'm going to cry you're going
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to lie here just lie here and I'll forget the world um so now listeners it is your duty to get suton St to listen
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to us or to see if she does or to see if she already does maybe she does maybe she does who knows I don't know I don't
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know either who knows I'd like to know that would be pretty funny I love Sutton name him jealous of what you're ugly
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leather pants the best I haven't watched it in so long though this I know this I
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know this I know I got to though that I know you know what I have been watching qua uh Fall of the House of Usher on
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Netflix I heard that's good [ __ ] I just saw episode two and if anybody has been
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watching this show you know that I am in emotional turmoil now episode 2 you're already in emotional turmoil should I
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watch this two will [ __ ] you up I mean I the end of that episode and for everybody who's watched it you know the
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end of that episode reing my jaw was on the floor and I was literally just saying holy [ __ ] over and over it was
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one of the most horrifying things I've seen in a television show it was pretty wild wow wild episode what is the
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premise of this show it's a loose Loosely based on POS story The Fall of the House of Usher right right right I
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don't know if I ever read that and it has other it's like it's got po like the mask of
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the Red Death and stuff I love that story and I think that's what episode 2 is Loosely based on okay and some of the
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characters have the same names like in mask of the Red Death okay um Prince Prospero okay episode two focuses on the
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child named Prospero ah uh who they call like Perry what is like the time period
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uh it's it's like now current yeah but it's it's updated to that basically like when you start it you find out um
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like you f you're basically watching how certain people die oh [ __ ] in this family started a not a spoiler because
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it's like that's the story from po wrote it quite a long time ago um but it's very well done I mean it's Mike Flanigan
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oh okay I think Mike Flanigan kills it yeah um he did like midnight mass and um Haunting of Hill House and I still have
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to watch that did you watch that man ear and [ __ ] like that um I've only seen some of Haunting of Hill House but I
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loved it what I watched and need to finish it I heard it was like beautifully done midnight mass is
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literally one of my favorite shows Drew and I are looking for a new show right now but like you know when you you don't
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know what you're in the mood for but you also know you don't know what you're in
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the mood for but you know what you're in the mood not for yes that's how we feel
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and like everything that I'm like oh we could try that I'm like he's not in the mood for and then he's like oh what
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about this and I'm like no this is I saw someone describe Fall of the House of Usher as um uh horror succession and
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it's oh pretty accurate I loved succession pretty accurate oh and sorry quickly while we're here for my real
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house wibes glies again oh we're circling back wait we got to because the you need to watch SLC it's only four
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seasons right now you could catch up so quickly it's all on peacock I'm talking to you directly Meena me yes Elena I
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mean I'm talking to anybody that hasn't watched it it's so good and the finale last night I texted Ronnie and Ben or I
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think the finale was like two nights ago at this point I texted Ronnie and Ben I
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was like I'm losing my mind of watch what crappens and they were losing their minds they literally agreed and like
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collectively all Housewives fans agree this is the best season finale in Housewives history damn [ __ ] insane
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[ __ ] daontis is involved oh [ __ ] yeah and somebody's about to get a seas and
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assist for using their name and likeness oh no in my opinion it's my opinion wow so yeah Housewives Fall of
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the House of Usher you um Married at First Sight we talked about last week hitting all sides of the spe truly
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succession I think I talked about salt bur last week yeah you did oh God so have you watched that yet I have not I
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don't know if I will why you haven't spoken super highly of it no I that's that's you're not wrong
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about that you said it's incredibly long and you were like I it like is you weren't even sure how to describe I was
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like I don't know yeah no I'm I'm still not sure how to describe it and you won't be either but watch it I don't
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know I I would like you to I'll give it a shot it's low on my list but I'll give
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it a shot isn't that nice of her to to take my recommendation and say [ __ ] that
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well I you know what it is John and I have like the most limited amount of time at night yeah to watch these things
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so it's precious so it's like we're still not done with peaky blinders and we started that [ __ ] like years ago the
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thing about salurn is I don't know if you can like you can't go to bed after you watch saltburn yeah and we can only
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watch it at night right before we go to bed the only and youbody walk into living while
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you're watching this yeah see that seems like a lot of trouble for something that
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I'm not super excited to watch in the first place it's you know it's I don't know what it is but that see in that I'm
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like I don't know they said like the actors I watched an interview with them and they were like we wanted people to
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leave the theater and like drive home with whoever they came home and saw or came to the theater and saw it with and
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like not know what to say for like the entire drive home and I was like I felt that way for weeks
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but but I want to talk to somebody about it but like nobody I love has watched it
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yet except for Drew and we can't we're just like you just don't know how to even
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yeah I need Aiden to watch it he said he was going to text me when he did I I'll
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I'll eventually watch it for sure please it's just it's a commitment right now yeah I was going to pick it for scream
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but I I can't I can't have like a on mic discussion in detail about that movie like so it's a no there are three scenes
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in particular that Hannah burner described it perfectly on Tik Tok she said your face will just
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go like that so go find that on Tik Tok that's interesting yeah I'm interested so I guess we'll see MH cuz
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you and Dave watched it watch it you're like everyone watch it no serious it's horrifying and long and will ruin your
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life but go watch it yeah I think I think I'm going to say it I think it might be good I think it might be good
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what of what a rousing endorsement of a film it just so long and it might be good that's the thing I watched it a
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week ago and I'm still dissecting how I feel about it PR good that's the thing there's that like and I don't I don't
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feel no I don't know I was going to say I don't feel bad about it but I'm like do I you kind of do I feel there are
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certain scenes that I do feel a little bad about anybody who has watched it I hope
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you get exactly what I'm saying right now and I feel like you will oh yeah I'm sure cuz i' I've seen people reacting
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like I don't know how to react so yeah but but you need to we need to move on yeah well and you know what we'll move
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on to something um pretty horrifying So today we're going to talk about Preston castle and the murder of Anna Corbin
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okay so this is uh we're going to be talking about a boys reform school from like the 50s oh yeah today so I I think
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everybody knows where that rolls that's dark sided yeah we're going to get into some specific parts of this school but
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like there's I'm sure there's many more things I'm sure there's a on the grounds
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of pre and actually I first heard Preston Castle even mentioned it's in California um oh I didn't expect that
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yeah on um Girls Next Level podcast Bridget was talking about it cuz she's like a ghost hunter like Bridget's
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always been into that [ __ ] and she's like she goes to all kinds of places and she professionally ghost hunts all that
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cool stuff and she had mentioned Preston castle and I was like interesting oh [ __ ] and when I started looking into it
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I was like oh [ __ ] like there's some [ __ ] here oh [ __ ] shout out to Bridget
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and that girl's next level for even putting this into my Orbit her and Holly are so cool I love them both so much um
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now when it opened in 1894 M yeah it it opened up long ago mhm uh the Preston what was once called the
00:11:02
Preston School of Industry represented a change in how criminal offenders and Wards of the state were going to be
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treated in American society they wanted to shift more towards like the compassionate mission of Reform over
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punishment that was the idea but while the mission may have represented a more Progressive approach to reforming young
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offenders the daily life for the young what we deemed inmates was often been as brutal as it would have been in an adult
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prison Jesus so it didn't really like jive with the actual Mission and the school actually closed in
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2011 2011 yeah the [ __ ] it went on that long and it's been and it's been it's stood as a Historic Landmark and
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cultural institution that is actually open to the public um but a lot of people believe that behind the facade of
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cultural significance and historic importance Preston's dark history has caused the building to definitely be
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haunted by the spirits of many boys kids inmates what whatever you deem them who
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suffered and died at the school and the spirit of murdered head housekeeper Anna
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Corbin whose killer was never punished and whose death remains unsolved is seen a lot oo now there's also a graveyard
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like a cemetery on site where boys were buried when they died of like ill or anything else and there's like a lot of
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kids in there oh that's really sad and it's like it just makes you wonder cuz there was a lot of violence there was a
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lot of horrible misss how many deaths were marked as they were so sick yeah it's like they got sick and it's like
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did they uh I'm sure many of them did but now in the latter Deca Decades of the 19th century Progressive politicians
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and activists started advocating for dramatic changes to many social institutions in the United States among
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these changes were going to be things related to welfare and treatment of children specifically in places like the
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workforce and the penal system this ultimately led to children being considered and treated as their own
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distinct social class separate from adults and heavily protected which is how it should be yeah but at the time
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children were typically treated as though they were simply small adults at least when it came to the economy and
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really a lot of other social institutions like reformed schools and prisons essentially Jesus now at the
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midpoint of the 19th century the American prison system still operated on a pretty archaic European model of super
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harsh discipline discipline discipline and corporal punishment so it's just like intense it's what you are
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thinking when you think of that kind of stuff inmates would be kept in solitary confinement for absurd lengths of time
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like unnatural lengths of time they were whipped they were beaten for the slightest infraction and even sometimes
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not for an infraction just for the hell of it and they were treated with a lot of Cruelty by guards now throughout the
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17th and 18th centuries few Americans really question the system and its effect as a whole on Society at large
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like right is this going to be a problem when we're just beating the [ __ ] out of
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kids and like and adults for that matter like just like putting them in a c beating the [ __ ] out of them and then
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later releasing them to the public like is that probably does it feel like something in between that needs to
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happen however by the 19th century significant population booms led to a big increase in the population in US
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prisons because more people more crime it just happens and this created scenarios where there was a ton of
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overcrowding and that was leading to like a rampant spread of disease and death among the prison populations and
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now they were being looked at more more now among the factors that led to the overcrowding of US prisons was that the
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criminal justice system tended to treat all criminals the same right regardless of their age and the crime that they
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were being sentenced for which is wild this meant that a person charged with vagrancy could be sent to the same
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prison as someone sentenced for murder or that an adolescent criminal sentenced for a petty crime like theft would be in
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a prison alongside hardened criminals serving life sentences for violent crimes which is only going to lead to
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more violent crimes exactly now recognizing this for the objectively disastrous and ineffective system that
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it was Progressive Advocates started pressuring politicians to put some major reforms to the laws in place that would
00:15:45
create just what they wanted was just like a more nuanced justice system like we can't just do a blanket coverage for
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everything there needs to be a little Nuance here and they wanted to put an end to the deplorable environments in US
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prisons well that's good now although this was a complicated process that was going to
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unfold very slowly and is still unfolding today one of the ways prison reform was achieved was by separating
00:16:09
criminal offenders by age and gender now until the end of the 19th century adolescents weren't just sent to adult
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prisons they were effectively treated as adults in every step of the legal system
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so they were tried sentenced and punished as though they were adults which could on rare occasion
00:16:29
result in the execution of a child that's so [ __ ] now luckily among the more significant achievements of the
00:16:36
reform movement was the establishment of a juvenile justice system or what was then referred to as a children's Court
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which is like such a sad a children's Court yeah that's really sad first established in Chicago in 1889 the
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children's Court really embraced this Progressive ideology that was heavily favoring reform and Rehabilitation over
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corporal punishment and this was belie this was basically based on the belief that future
00:17:03
criminality could be prevented by providing a rigidly structured environment where negative and harmful
00:17:10
behaviors would be corrected it was presented to the public as a more compassionate and productive
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alternative to prisons these reformatories or what we called training schools at the time became the standard
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punishment for those under 18 years of age when they were convicted in sentence okay now
00:17:29
like their adult counterparts reform schools placed a big emphasis on Rehabilitation over punishment and they
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just tried to correct behaviors and correct the underlying issues for things by providing or what they said they were
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providing was education vacational training and taking the child out of an environment that seemed to be kind of
00:17:49
nurturing this criminal behavior from the outside looking inome great that's what we needed to do
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all along yeah like this is going to turn out awesome but while reformed schools may have been born of a
00:18:03
progressive ideology those same ideals and perspectives were not always shared by the staff and administration in the
00:18:11
reform schools problem because these people had to operate within the daily realities of the Justice the Juvenile
00:18:18
Justice System but as a result of this physical sexual psychological abuse very common
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and this is a reformed scho these are children the of well it's also like how are you working at a reform school as a
00:18:37
[ __ ] criminal doing criminal behaviors criminal Behavior that's the thing and this this environment would
00:18:44
frequently undermine any positive goals that were intended for the residents of these reformed schools and they would
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just further traumatize what at the time was an already vulnerable and marginalized population of kids yeah
00:18:57
which again is only going to lead to more violent crime exactly and in these kind of schools some of these kids that
00:19:03
were going in here were just Wards of the state yeah they weren't even even Comm a crime they just didn't have
00:19:09
anywhere else to go so now they're being treated like they which they shouldn't be treated that way anyways but it's
00:19:15
like now these kids didn't even do a crime they didn't even like do anything bad to get in here you know like it's
00:19:21
just like what the hell to to become a ward of the state already the horrors you probably must have had you have
00:19:26
endured yeah exactly and then you go into somewhere like this and it's probably exactly what you experienced or
00:19:32
10 times worse oh absolutely so sad now in the winter of 1889 California state Senator Edward Preston introduced uh
00:19:40
State Bill 402 which basically proposed the establishment of a juvenile reform school and it was going to Pro they
00:19:47
wanted to provide for the maintenance and management of that school now initially it was going to be housed on
00:19:53
the property of fulam prison where juvenile offenders were already being housed by the way in fome prison um but
00:20:01
an amendment was offered that proposed the school be located about 30 m away in Lone California better idea they figured
00:20:08
that to locate the school on the prison quote would be a taint upon those who went there you would F it's like yeah
00:20:14
you're trying to move away from the prison life you should probably move it off the prison ground maybe don't set up
00:20:20
camp right next to it just saying now the Preston School of industry was named for that Senator and it was intended to
00:20:27
not only house criminal offenders under the age of 18 but like I said before anyone who was deemed a ward of the
00:20:33
state and quote boys whose daily life and home environment are leading towards a useless and criminal career now the
00:20:40
school's general purpose was to quote make useful citizens of wayward Boys by providing training and instruction and
00:20:47
it was going to prepare them to be productive members of society this all sounds great oh yeah so flowery and when
00:20:53
the school was announced the Press was told that quote it is the aim not to have the re reform accomplished by
00:20:59
punitive means but by proving to the boys the value of Good Conduct and good reputation that's one way to put it so
00:21:07
they're being like no no no we don't want to punish we don't want to be crazy here we just want to show them what life
00:21:14
can be like and what what you can get out of being good citizens and it's like okay that sounds great but totally now
00:21:20
construction of the school began in 1890 and was completed in 1894 and it was that year that the C
00:21:26
curriculum plan for operations was developed and basically the school was going to consist of three departments
00:21:33
academic military and Industrial uh each boy was going to participate for 4 and a half hours per
00:21:39
day before moving on to the work portion of their day so four and a half hours of
00:21:44
like schools and then moving on to the work portion uh the work portion was basically agricultural work on the
00:21:53
school's Farm okay the military portion of their education was going to involve instruction and quote such branches of
00:21:59
military training as are ordinarily used in government service giving special emphasis to those parts which secure
00:22:06
secure to the cadet an erect and soldierly bearing a neat appearance and respect for
00:22:12
superiors okay the problem with that is that these are children yeah if it was just maybe a high school I guess I could
00:22:20
see that as almost like an Roc kind of thing yeah but like how old are the boys going through some of them were as young
00:22:26
as seven like seven-year-old in my opinion at the very least doesn't need to be involved in military training no I
00:22:32
don't in my opinion it that doesn't make sense to me either I think that that could get abusive very quickly ab and it
00:22:38
did of course it did yeah the the end result here is not great yeah now also the industrial branch of the school
00:22:45
vocus focused on vocational training and preparing students to enter the workforce which great which vocational
00:22:50
schools great love a vocational school you can enter training into a field right off the bat I think that's a great
00:22:58
option for some kids and it's like so that sounds great but again this wasn't best laid plans you know yep now like we
00:23:06
said the work portion of the day uh happened on the school's 300 acres of Farmland it's terrifying the students
00:23:13
helped to quote produce on the farm the larger part of fruit vegetables hay and grain which was used at the school so
00:23:19
they farmed their own food essentially which can be such a great learning experence such a great learning
00:23:23
experience and the farm served a dual purpose because it provided Hands On Learning Experience that could be
00:23:29
applied to the workforce leader and it also helped cut costs of operation by providing a lowcost solution for food
00:23:37
and other overhead so this was actually a larger plan that the school had to make the school kind of self-sustaining
00:23:44
okay which is also a great idea I'm pretty ahead of its time it included future plans for quot quote clothing and
00:23:50
shoes of the boys to be made at the institution wow and for eventual they were going to add like printing
00:23:57
carpentry Plumbing blacksmithing and that's the thing you're if you are teaching these kids all these different
00:24:03
trades and they get to choose and like really find their passion and like really work at something and see that
00:24:09
they can be good at something and see the success that comes out of that and the feeling of of Pride and all that and
00:24:16
finding a passion that's the idea it's like them learning to be proud of themselves and see that they can do be
00:24:22
good at something that's not stealing and not hurting someone and not doing you know vandalizing not things that are
00:24:30
going to get them in trouble it's like you can be good at this yeah now after meeting with the approval of the state
00:24:35
and the prison board that was going to be responsible for the oversight of the school the Preston School of Industry
00:24:41
opened in June 1894 and they transferred seven young men from the state prison at San Quenton
00:24:47
to the new reform school there were kids in San Quinton that's the most [ __ ] up
00:24:52
thing all of them were under the age of 18 and were serving sentences ra ranging
00:24:56
from 2 to 10 years for robbery burglary and gr Larsen but several of them had prior arrests or were known to have
00:25:04
engaged in violent Acts including murder oh before long the school was populated
00:25:10
with boys as young as seven and as old as 17 so seven-year-olds are in there with 17-year-olds who have may have
00:25:16
committed murder yeah and like I said some were just unfortunate Wards of the state right right it's so sad uh but to
00:25:24
the outside world the Preston School of industry was a prime examp Le of progressive polit policies and reform at
00:25:30
work like this looked great once Wayward boys taken off the streets out of adult
00:25:35
jails and given three meals a day and a solid education and a well-regulated environment what what more could you
00:25:41
want what could go wrong the school had a farm where they were learning industrial and agric agricultural
00:25:46
schools like looking at this from the outside you're like oh my God there's a farm they had tennis sry Farm is too big
00:25:52
too big one might say as soon as I heard 300 acres I was like that's a lot of [ __ ] [ __ ] that could go on well o had
00:25:57
tennis courts a rose garden and quote a 7,000 book library with a veranda overlooking the town wow the building
00:26:06
itself was a 46,000 sqt Monument of Romanesque Revival architecture that had 77 rooms 43 fireplaces it was super
00:26:17
ornate like ornate fixtures Outside Inside 257 windows that were all looking out on like the Northern California
00:26:26
landscape it seemed seems like the perfect place to actually do some good [ __ ] it does what a waste sounds like it
00:26:34
and as far as most were concerned if these boys had to be confined for something that they had done we better
00:26:40
to serve your time than Preston School especially when the alternative was San Quenton or fome prison little different
00:26:47
now inside the walls though life at the school was not easy and it was frequently dangerous boys entering the
00:26:54
school for the first time were stripped of their clothes and they had their hair
00:26:57
shaved from their heads and bodies to get rid of any lice that alone is so traumatizing and then they were dunked
00:27:02
in a bath of costic chemicals to rid any other bugs or parasites that they could
00:27:07
potentially bring in with them huh and for many of the boys that were entering Preston head and body lice were regular
00:27:14
occurrence as were open sores and cuts which would have made the delousing process excruciating yeah once they were
00:27:22
inside they were expected to follow the rules exactly as they were given to them
00:27:27
and those who didn't and even some who did because who the [ __ ] cares were subject to whippings beatings or
00:27:34
sometimes worse now some of the horrors experienced by residents at the school were inflicted by the hands of guards
00:27:41
and administrators that absolutely happened a lot I'm sure others were simply a product of the era
00:27:47
unfortunately for example residents that needed medical care or surgery in the first two decades of operation at the
00:27:54
school were operated on or treated on the floor what in the middle of the place what
00:28:00
because they just didn't have the professional facilities so they made this beautiful school and never put in a
00:28:06
medical facility or they didn't in the begin the first two decades it's like you can't just like bust them to a
00:28:10
nearby medical facility no you're just operating on them in the middle of everything right out in the open do you
00:28:16
know how [ __ ] clean an operating room is yeah I'm like you're ensuring that you give them a chemical bath when they
00:28:23
come in and then just like bloodborne pathogens everywhere you're just like what the [ __ ] my God now things only
00:28:29
worsened with the onset of the 1918 flu epidemic oh [ __ ] during which nearly half of the staff and onethird of the
00:28:36
boys got the illness wow and those who managed to avoid it somehow or the need for surgery in the middle of the [ __ ]
00:28:42
floor ended up being affected by any other illness like tuberculosis at the time a lot of them were suffering with
00:28:48
drug addiction and the effects of alcohol withdrawal and they were just suffering with not a lot of medical help
00:28:54
oh God now within the first four years of operation the school reported four deaths so one a
00:29:00
year uh one from spinal menitis one from pneumonia and septicemia and two from quote exploded
00:29:09
appendix whoa which I was like damn that's insane and I'm also like so they were in pain and Bing up to needed that
00:29:18
appendix out and they couldn't get it out cuz they didn't have this so an exploded appendix I
00:29:24
myself an exploded appendix but I know people who have and I can't fathom and obviously it
00:29:31
kills you if you don't get it in time right now while most residents were resigned to serving their time with as
00:29:36
little conflict as possible they just wanted to get out of there others were less inclined to do that uh Escape
00:29:43
attempts were common and while most ended with the Escape being caught either still on the grounds or just like
00:29:49
immediately outside of them right a few had more unfortunate endings in January 1913 for example 15-year-old John Miller
00:29:58
was shot and killed 15 oh my God during an escape attempt he was escaping and he
00:30:04
ended up striking a guard in the shoulder with a pickaxe holy [ __ ] like damn and Miller had made a previous
00:30:11
escaped attempt from another institution before arriving at Preston 6 months earlier and was generally considered to
00:30:18
be by the administration they considered him disruptive and disrespectful so to them it was like yeah it's like I wonder
00:30:26
what the escape attempt really was about yeah probably escaping the horrors that
00:30:30
were those walls he is one of those 18 boys that I mentioned buried in the cemetery at Preston really um and a lot
00:30:39
of them died of illness or disease quote unquote quot that allegedly but he is one of them and he was killed now though
00:30:47
they were overwhelmingly the targets of abuse the residents of Preston weren't the only ones who ex experienced violent
00:30:54
assaults at the school guards were often subject to physical and verbal assaults
00:30:58
at the school and at least three staff members were murdered between the school's opening in 1894 and the closure
00:31:05
of the main building in 1960 wow uh because although it end it um closed in 2011 for good y the main building was
00:31:14
closed in 1960 so it it didn't function like it did for that long okay um all three of these murders of staff are a
00:31:23
tragedy in the school's already dark history of course but only one of them garnered
00:31:27
any public attention really wow and there was a lot of controversy involved in this one um and this is really the
00:31:34
murder that contributed to Preston's really notorious reputation now and that is the murder of Anna Corbin I was
00:31:40
wondering now on the afternoon of February 23rd 1950 a little before 2 p.m. 17-year-old
00:31:47
Robert Hall was sent to get the head of housekeeping Anna Corbin from her office
00:31:52
so he reached her office and saw that the room was empty and when he looked around he noticed just a pool of blood
00:31:58
that was collecting in front of the padlocked door of the utility closet [ __ ] so he was worried obviously that
00:32:05
she was hurt or what the hell was happening in the closet well then to be a student to stumble across that scene
00:32:11
are you going to get accused of whatever just happened exactly so but he kicked down the door cuz he said he was worried
00:32:17
she was inside and hurt and he wanted to get to her and unfortunately he discovered 52-year-old Anna Corbin her
00:32:25
face was severe beaten and she had a rope tied tightly around her neck Jesus and there was a rug just casually draped
00:32:33
over her quote blood spattered body my God now according to the initial press reports quote she had been beaten in the
00:32:40
face and head so badly that it couldn't be determined whether she was bludgeoned
00:32:44
or stabbed what the [ __ ] now a little about Anna Anna was born in Emporia Kansas in
00:32:51
1898 and she spent her early life in the midwest where she was raised by her aunt
00:32:55
and uncle who adopted her in 1918 when she was only 20 years old she ended up marrying Robert Corbin and the following
00:33:02
year the couple welcomed their first child Harold and began making their way west they settled in Colorado for a
00:33:09
little time where they had a second child Avis and when then they eventually settled in Lone California where Anna
00:33:17
took the job as head housekeeper at the Preston School of industry and Robert took a job as a group supervisor at the
00:33:24
Preston School of Industry okay so Anna settled into life in California super easily because she was a cool cool lady
00:33:31
she joined the local Women's Club she participated in her Methodist church choir she was active in several other
00:33:38
local Civic and social groups she was like that kind of that kind of gal just doing it all everybody liked her she was
00:33:44
very well liked at Preston she was known as quote a strict disciplinarian but not
00:33:49
harsh or cruel okay so she liked she liked the rules but she was not harsh and she was not cruel she was wasn't
00:33:57
beaten these kids no and people liked her and I think that's why people respected her is because she wasn't
00:34:03
harsh and cruel but she was strict they respected that she wanted things to be the way they were but she wasn't going
00:34:08
to hurt you right and although this attitude she wasn't she was very well-liked but like obviously some of
00:34:14
the troublemakers she was not popular among them because they didn't want to listen to anything um but it and
00:34:21
honestly it had earned her some verbal and written threats from students over the years
00:34:27
didn't want to listen but again this was just they didn't want to listen to her not because she was cruel in any way um
00:34:33
but mostly those were only a handful most of these boys looked to her for support and they respected her for the
00:34:40
meticulous and thorough performance of a very frequently overlooked job as well cuz remember she's head of housekeeping
00:34:46
she keeps that place clean right which back then Jesus she's having to clean up after [ __ ] surgeries on the floor
00:34:52
she's contending with a lot and people respected her for it cuz they were like you do your damn job job and again for
00:34:58
boys to look to her for support like that tells you something she was very motherly I was just going to say it
00:35:03
sounds like she was almost like a mother figure and to even give you more of Anna
00:35:08
she had even taken courses in Psy psychology and sociology just to gain a better understanding of the boys at the
00:35:15
school and the circumstances that had led them to be there and that shows you her dedication to them went out of their
00:35:21
way and it's that's somebody who's not in there going I'm just going to collect my paycheck [ __ ] these kids see you
00:35:25
later she 's there because she's like yeah this is a job but I give a [ __ ] about these kids and I would like to see
00:35:32
them leave and be better members of society and I'd like to be a mother figure for them and have them come to me
00:35:38
because I have now gained a better understanding of why they are the way they are exactly that's like Anna's cool
00:35:46
like that's just really cool she respected what they were supposed to be doing there in did not need to do that
00:35:52
and the fact that she did a so badass and school and actually the school super tendent Robert Chandler told reporters
00:35:59
quote she was like a mother to the boys oh Anna's murder came as a shock to the staff and many of the residents at
00:36:06
Preston obviously according to the coroner JJ daer the cause of death was most likely blunt force trauma to the
00:36:13
skull although he couldn't be certain wow when asked about the rope that was tied tightly around her neck he told
00:36:19
reporters I doubt if strangulation was the cause of death I'm inclined to believe death was due to blows on the
00:36:24
head it appears miss Corbin was not knocked to the floor and the injuries to her head indicate she could have been
00:36:30
hit by a club or her head banged against the floor oh god there was no evidence of sexual assault and the office hadn't
00:36:37
been Disturbed at all indicating that robbery was definitely not the motive it was Anna to kill her to investigators
00:36:45
the murder was I guess what they deemed it as like kind of ordinary for this time period And I guess this uh
00:36:52
environment right meaning there wasn't anything that stood out to them as like a signature kind of thing besides the
00:36:58
Rope yeah but they also didn't think that made it any easier to solve it was like this is kind of like somebody was
00:37:06
unfortunately beaten to death in a job where like you know there's a lot of people around her that are crial so this
00:37:14
makes it harder for us to solve and there's really nothing that's like standing out as like oh I bet it's this
00:37:19
kid because of this thing it could be anybody now at the time there were 657 boys being housed at the school wow
00:37:27
most of them have committed criminal offenses obviously and as far as authorities were concerned any of them
00:37:32
could have been the killer now based on the state of the room detectives theorized Anna had been attacked and
00:37:39
then quote dragged through the supply room and into the adjoining store room because there was blood spatter and
00:37:45
significant blood Trails leading from one room to the next my God however an initial search of the scene didn't turn
00:37:51
up a murder weapon there were no bloody clothes and in the absence of any obvious Clues to point out who could
00:37:58
have done this investigators began the very long and tedious process of interviewing all
00:38:04
657 residents holy [ __ ] and scrutinizing their clothes their hands their fingernails for any blood or trace
00:38:12
evidence this particular murder really shook everyone up and according to a group of Anna's closest friends during a
00:38:19
recent outing with them she had told them about a disturbing incident with one of the boys that seemed a little
00:38:25
significant in the wake of her death uh-huh according to Anna she had been working alone in the administration
00:38:30
building with a boy assigned as her Helper and that boy turned her and said are you afraid to be with with me alone
00:38:36
in here and when she said no I'm not the boy proceeded to tell her how easy it would be for him to kill her and even
00:38:45
described how he would do it I'd be like so we're going to go ahead and move on to the next area now according to Anna's
00:38:51
friends they said it bore a remarkable similarity to the way she had been killed and disposed in the closet oh
00:38:58
investigators located this boy who had supposedly made this threat but at the time of the murder he was actually in
00:39:05
solitary confinement because he had tried to escape a week earlier okay so he was like I was in this room
00:39:10
terrifying that two people within that school had very similar ideas yeah just thoughts of that now according to those
00:39:17
who knew her Anna Corbin had no enemies and she had not been involved with any men since her husband had died 3 years
00:39:24
earlier so she was she hadn't gone dates she wasn't dating anyone grieving superintendent Chandler told reporters
00:39:30
it is inconceivable to even think one of the boys here could possibly have disliked her as much as to commit this
00:39:36
crime so even they're like this doesn't make any sense like she did nothing yet Chandler nonetheless acknowledged that
00:39:42
the killer was almost certainly one of the students and even suspected that two students might have been responsible for
00:39:48
the murder oh investigators shared Chandler's belief that the killer was definitely a student and after clearing
00:39:53
the staff and teachers they narrowed their focus um basically I think they were naring it
00:39:58
down to a a much smaller group of boys at this point it was basically boys that would have had access to the
00:40:05
administration building on that particular morning okay I mean that seems like a good lead to follow exactly
00:40:10
now authorities investigated Anna's murder while news of the death had reached the wider public and quickly be
00:40:17
became a political talking point for those who opposed the more Progressive policies of both the school and the
00:40:24
California Juvenile Justice System system basically people who don't want you know um criminals to be treated as
00:40:32
anything less than animals kind of and especially kids y like why not treat them like animals too yeah totally um in
00:40:38
a press conference held just days after the murder Amador County Supervisor Harold cor Coburn told reporters he
00:40:46
would quote press a demand for a grand jury investigation in the case and as far as he was concerned Anna's death was
00:40:52
as much the result of the LAX policies of the California Youth Authority as it was the individual who actually
00:40:58
did it doesn't sound like the policies were that locks I didn't it didn't sound like it to me but they were projecting
00:41:05
that idea out that's the thing to politicize it at the time a lot of Anna's family members shared that
00:41:11
sentiment which you can understand absolutely now other politicians however were strongly disagreeing um Amador
00:41:19
County district attorney guard Chism told reporters it will not at this time Aid in any way in the investigation to
00:41:25
think that way okay now most County Supervisors and others in positions of political power sided with the district
00:41:31
attorney basically saying that as an active participant in the investigation he knew best yeah but still Anna's
00:41:39
family and those critical um critical of the school itself continued building a campaign to hold the school and what
00:41:46
they believed to be its failed approach to Justice responsible because I get it like that's it's tough yeah it's like CU
00:41:54
if you look at you can see both Ides here I understand why her family wanted to hold that school responsible I
00:42:01
probably would have done the exact same thing that's my exact thought so it's like I get it but then you see the other
00:42:06
side of it where it's like yeah so it makes sense right Anna's nephew Herbert Morris said in a statement to the Press
00:42:12
I do not Harbor any animosity nor am I out to gain revenue for the brutal murder but the situation of laxity and
00:42:19
the operation of the Reformatory has existed a long time and maybe this will wake up officials expenses of the school
00:42:25
to the have doubled in the last few years while conditions have become increasingly
00:42:30
worse and that's a problem and I think that's what they're more concerned about kind of going with is like this isn't
00:42:37
the progressive School you were talking about before where like everybody's being treated like a human and stuff
00:42:43
like you guys are preaching this whole thing but the conditions there are deplorable right you're whipping these
00:42:49
kids beating these kids treating them like animals but then touting this Progressive approach to reform and it's
00:42:55
like you got to get your [ __ ] together or is it the other yeah you're making animals in there what do you expect
00:43:01
animals to do is basically what they're saying like you got to fix this yeah which I agree I agree now while their
00:43:07
grief and frustration over Anna's death was obviously very genuine it's worth noting that the anti- Preston political
00:43:14
rhetoric coming from certain politicians not Anna's family and P you know certain
00:43:19
segments of the public were typically framed in ideological terms terms and seemed more often focused on how
00:43:26
criminals should be treated yeah instead of focusing on the specific investigation into Anna's death right
00:43:32
they were using the family was trying to say we need to look into this my family
00:43:36
member's death and what the school has to do to make sure this doesn't happen again and politicians were using it as
00:43:43
their own little platform to as a whole talk about criminal reform like a a bird's eye view of it all yeah and get
00:43:50
their agenda across now whatever rhetorical battle was happening on the outside really had little effect on the
00:43:56
investigators they were like we still have a murder to solve yeah that's kind of our primary focus here good luck with
00:44:00
your campaign like bye uh but they narrowed the pool of suspects from 600 to 20 wow um and intensive interviews
00:44:08
were done polygraph tests were administered and they weren't really getting any closer to the truth uh guard
00:44:14
Chism told reporters in a press conference we haven't got a thing to hang our hats on oh no the district
00:44:20
attorney added that the evidence collected from the scene which included seven bloody fingerprints had proven to
00:44:25
be little use to getting a suspect that's a bummer among the 20 boys considered to be suspects was one who
00:44:32
admitted to the crime but later denied that and recanted it and another whose polygraph results showed deception
00:44:38
regarding his whereabouts during the murder but School administrators were quick to add that they didn't think
00:44:43
either boy was actually the killer they just didn't have anything with it and the polygraph like we know is tough hot
00:44:48
dog um so the break in the case came about a week later okay when doing a room by room search investigators
00:44:56
discovered a bloody Preston uniform hidden in the bedroom of 19-year-old Eugene Monroe he was a student who was
00:45:04
among those regularly assigned to work with Anne Anna excuse me Monroe had been sent to the school about 6 months
00:45:10
earlier after a conviction for burglary in Los Angeles and in addition to the bloody uniform he took a polygraph and
00:45:17
it showed repeated attempts at Deception so like when when paired along with it it makes your your eyebrow go up that's
00:45:25
the thing also during further interviews several of the other boys at Preston admitted to investigators that they had
00:45:31
known of Monroe's involvement in the murder but been afraid to come forward okay so we're heating up in the
00:45:36
investigation here so it turned out this was not the first time Eugene had been a
00:45:41
suspect in a murder case oh okay we're really ramping this up 3 years earlier in 1947 Monroe was the prime suspect in
00:45:49
the murder of 17-year-old vestel vestel sapenter who was an honor student and res of the housing project where Monroe
00:45:57
also lived like Anna Corbin sapenter was brutally beaten about the head and face
00:46:03
and had a rope tightly wrapped around her neck using the same square knot as the Rope found around Anna's neck so
00:46:11
that's ano right there she was found by her 14-year-old brother carile who was coming home from the playground oh my
00:46:18
God she was found partially nude in her own bedroom and they think she was attacked while she was just hanging up
00:46:24
like uh shap on her window Jesus Christ yeah um Monroe had delivered Furniture to the residents on the day of the
00:46:31
murder and according to Vesta younger youngest brother Carlile Eugene had returned to the apartment later that
00:46:38
afternoon but the boy didn't know why right in the case of vesta's murder the sheriff's department wasn't able to
00:46:44
corroborate the brother's story or find sufficient evidence to connect Monroe definitively to the crime but Lieutenant
00:46:52
RR copage told reporters he always believed Monroe was guilty of the murder and felt the investigators were right on
00:46:59
the right track with the Corbin case he said he was like I you better keep following that lead and he was actually
00:47:05
quoted as saying about the Vesta murder he said I'm am certain this boy did the job but we were just never able to prove
00:47:11
it he was the only one in the house at the time and had ample time to commit the ACT wow I wonder why they were never
00:47:17
able to prove it I think they just couldn't get physical evidence which that's so tough especially just have a
00:47:22
14-year-old saying that he saw him right and the other Witnesses the murder victim just the fact that nobody was
00:47:27
there yeah damn now Eugene Monroe was arrested on March 1st 1950 though he vehemently denied any involvement in
00:47:34
Anna Corbin's murder two days later district attorney guard Chisum filed former formal murder charges against him
00:47:42
and he was transferred from Preston to the county jail to await a preliminary of like hard falling all over my words
00:47:50
heing the following week now on March 10th 1950 Eugene Monroe appeared before Justice of the peach peach that's cute I
00:48:00
am the justice of this Peach I want to be a Justice of the peach how cute would that be like I love peaches so I'll be
00:48:08
the Justice of the peach PE are so cute they are and they smell good and then you'd kind of be a Justice of the booty
00:48:12
at the same time it's a nice little double dipping yeah uh but unfortunately he did not appear before a Justice of
00:48:20
the peach it was a appeared before a Justice of the Peace LP Gard uh this was for his preliminary hearing among those
00:48:29
who testified before the court was 17-year-old Preston student Jack Mercer who testified that not only had Monroe
00:48:35
told him two days before the killing that he attended intended to attack Anna but also that he witnessed the
00:48:43
murder Mercer said on the stand quote Mrs Corbin started to reach for the telephone but he knocked her back into a
00:48:50
chair Mercer claimed he wanted to help Anna but he was scared and instead did nothing
00:48:56
when Monroe's attorney Nathaniel Coley asked why the boy didn't report the crime to the police Mercer claimed
00:49:02
Monroe had told him quote if you tell anyone you will wish you were dead oh [ __ ] and in the environment he was in
00:49:09
snitches get stitches and I can understand why this child was terrified you see this man do this like
00:49:16
obviously you wish this kid would have said something and as an adult I'm like say something kid but I don't know what
00:49:23
that environment was like that kid was trying to save his own skin he was terrified of what would happen and again
00:49:29
he's not an adult with like rational thinking skills exactly and who know I sounds like it was really bad in there
00:49:36
so it's like I he was living in a state of fear constantly you're going you're thinking that's going to happen to me if
00:49:41
I say anything he's talking now right at least he eventually came through now in
00:49:46
his closing statement Coy asked that the charges against his client be dropped claiming that the evidence and hearsay
00:49:53
testimony were insufficient to hold Monroe he said quote in the haste to get a conviction we should not rush this man
00:49:59
to trial Justice of the Peace G genhart um overruled the motion and Monroe was bound for trial in the Superior Court
00:50:07
good his trial was set to begin April 24th but just weeks before the start date Jack Mercer threw a little
00:50:14
curveball cuz he recanted his entire statement about what he'd heard and seen [ __ ] did someone get to him yeah me
00:50:24
thinks yeah in a statement provided to the Press by his b by Monroe's lawyer Nathaniel Coley Mercer wrote quote the
00:50:30
testimony I gave in court was not true Monroe never told me that he was going to kill Mrs Corbin and I never saw him
00:50:37
hit her that sounds like somebody sounds like he had some friends that were working in the background for him
00:50:43
according to Coley Mercer only told investigators he'd seen Monroe kill Anna because they promised to release him
00:50:49
from Preston if he did so but he decided to tell the truth once he realized they
00:50:54
weren't going to live live up to that and also quote to clear his conscience before an expected visit from his
00:51:01
mother I don't know about any of this now arguing that Mercer's testimony at the preliminary hearing had been the
00:51:08
only real evidence that District Attorneys had against menroe Coy announced his intention to move that the
00:51:14
charges against his client be dropped oh [ __ ] despite Mercer recanting his statement district attorney Chisum was
00:51:20
undeterred he was like no we're going forward and Chisum told the press it is all right for Coy to make these
00:51:26
statements he represents the defendant I'm convinced Monroe is guilty and even without Mercer's statement we would have
00:51:31
a case I'm also convinced Mercer will tell the same story at the trial that he told at the preliminary hearing huh so
00:51:39
he's saying that's really cute that you have a statement from him when he sits on the stand I think he'll tell the same
00:51:43
story that he told and that's interesting that he was sounded at least very confident in that statement and in
00:51:49
his opening statement at the trial Chism laid out the case for the jury in detailed terms Eugene Monroe was the the
00:51:55
only one who had been alone with Anna that morning and he was the only one who had the opportunity to commit that
00:52:01
murder also when they searched when roose's room investigators found the Preston uniform covered in blood that
00:52:07
was a match for Anna's blood type okay and they had a statement from another boy that Eugene had tried to get him to
00:52:14
burn that uniform the [ __ ] finally there was Mercer's statement that he'd seen
00:52:19
Monroe kill Anna just days after the young man had told him that he intended to do so among the witnesses called by
00:52:25
the prosecution were a number of Preston staff and residents including a bunch of
00:52:29
boys who'd seen Monroe go to Anna's office that morning and when they saw him later that day he quote appeared to
00:52:36
be worried about something a girl the most important witness though was Jack Mercer what did he who did indeed
00:52:44
testify that he had seen Eugene Monroe kill Anna corbman which makes you wonder did he get offered some kind of
00:52:51
protection for you know staying true to his original statement it's like he's on
00:52:55
the stand he knows he's got to tell the truth sworn testimony oh my God isn't this wild and
00:53:03
his mom had visited him so I wonder if he was able to talk to her and she was like you have to tell the truth she was
00:53:07
like you got to sit up there and tell the truth right now Nathaniel CO's defense strategy was pretty simple the
00:53:13
police arrested the wrong person okay in his testimony Eugene described his movements that day on the day of the
00:53:19
murder claiming he'd seen Anna twice that morning but was never alone with her testifying for the defense State
00:53:25
criminologist David bird told the jury that they had interviewed at least 20 boys who they believed could have been
00:53:31
capable of the crime and when they examine the clothes of those boys quote there was more more blood on some of
00:53:36
those garments than on the garments of Monroe do you have them yeah I'm like can you prove that did the blood match
00:53:41
the blood type of the victim as for the blood of Monroe's clothes co co and Monroe said that he had cut his hand
00:53:48
that morning either in the shoe shop or the slaughterhouse but neither the instructor in the shoe shop or in the
00:53:55
slaughterhouse recalled him cutting his hand ever they were like you don't recall which it was and if it was that
00:54:01
bad to have that much blood on your uniform cut you're using two different things in both of those thing like did
00:54:07
you cut it with a saw or did you cut it did you cut it with this like and to cut
00:54:12
it that intensely you don't remember where there's blood all over your uniform right and the instructors are
00:54:16
like no that didn't happen and also are you the same blood type as she is I'd interested to hear now after a brief
00:54:22
deliberation the jury reported to the judge that they were unable to reach a verdict and were hopelessly deadlocked I
00:54:29
can understand why it would be tough to reach a verdict in this case to a degree
00:54:33
because this is a child yeah and I'm sure that Wasing on them and when you find out more about Eugene you're going
00:54:39
to go absolutely he got away with this right but back then not knowing what we know now and what you will know soon is
00:54:48
like I can understand that but sitting on that jury I don't I think they got a good amount of evidence but you know I
00:54:55
could see why there would still be a doubt especially when there was 20 other boys yeah well in eight jury jurors were
00:55:01
in favor of a conviction and four were in favor of an acquittal and after the jury confirmed quote they would come up
00:55:08
with the same vote if they voted for years Yik judge Ralph McGee declared a mistrial and excused the jury what are
00:55:14
you about to tell me now guard Chisum said that's fine we're going to retry him like he was like [ __ ] that I love
00:55:20
how determined this man is he was like let's go Eugene Monroe's second trial began in Amador County on June 11th 1950
00:55:27
same judge same prosecutor same defense um different jury different jury among the hurdles with the previous case was
00:55:35
the lack of motive for Anis Mo uh murder that was the problem that they were really facing in that one and the jury
00:55:42
was like I don't know what the motive is what was the motive with the unsolved murder of the girl that he may have been
00:55:48
connected to it's true but that's the thing it's like if you don't have a motive and it's a little shaky that will
00:55:54
really count a lot more it's like if you have a motive and the rest is shaky you
00:55:59
can you can kind of talk up the motive a little more no motive and some shaky evidence is like I don't feel good about
00:56:06
that so the second time around Chisum was determined to get a motive in Hope of securing this conviction in his
00:56:13
testimony at the second trial Jack Mercer our our guy Jack over there definitely got claimed Monroe had quote
00:56:22
beat and GED Anna to death in her office because she had caught Monroe and himself in what he referred to as a
00:56:30
degenerate act oh no although this information had been known to the prosecution and the defense in the first
00:56:37
trial the jury never learned of the motive because Mercer was told by judge McGee that quote he need not answer
00:56:44
anything humiliating or degrading which and then you wonder if that's why he recanted his original statement because
00:56:51
he knew it was going to get further this time though Jack was willing to give a detailed chronological account of the
00:56:58
events leading up to the murder okay and this is like upsetting because it's it's
00:57:04
just like it's it's sad and it's literally like this is what life was like oh God for these kids okay now
00:57:10
according to Mercer the day before the murder he was propositioned for sex by Monroe and Jack declined but Eugene
00:57:18
responded all right I'll make it rough on you oh indicating that if he wasn't willingly going to he would retaliate
00:57:25
with violence Jack was scared and he didn't want any trouble so he said he finally agreed and the two engaged in in
00:57:34
that in the empty Sunday school room but this was also like not consensual for Jack no obviously like he was agreeing
00:57:41
out of fear he just didn't want any trouble so he was raped that's not consensual exactly so Eugene raped him
00:57:47
um and that's where they were discovered by Anna according to Jack now shocked Anna left the room and made her way down
00:57:55
the hall to get a male staff member but she was pursued by Monroe who reached her just as she got her office door to
00:58:02
her office door and quote according to Jack quote he hit her several times on the face and head and he told the jury
00:58:09
then Eugene tied a rope around her neck and dragged her into the closet which is
00:58:13
when Mercer fled in fear in fear oh God now Chisum was certain that once they learned of the motive for the murder the
00:58:20
jury would have no trouble finding Monroe guilty but after days of deliberation the jury inir formed judge
00:58:27
McGee they were deadlocked this time 11 in favor of conviction and one hold out you wanted oh who is that hold me and
00:58:40
again a mistrial was declared undeterred though Chisum tried Eugene Monroe for a third time this
00:58:50
[ __ ] now unfortunately by then the facts of the case became a little muddled Mercer's testimony was getting
00:58:59
more like intense and Confused the jury in the third trial was also unable to arrive at a unanimous decision and in
00:59:06
October 1950 a third mistrial was declared and is he going to go for a fourth he said he figured a fourth was
00:59:12
just going to have the same outcome so Chisum declined to pursue it any further the day after the third mistrial was
00:59:19
declared the day after the third mistrial was declared the California Youth Authority announced they would
00:59:25
parole Eugene Monroe I'm I'm sorry what within 60 days think that's going to end he was
00:59:34
just on trial for murder what the [ __ ] and he was a main suspect in a murder before he even got here what compelled
00:59:41
you to parole him and both of those women were murdered in the exact same fashion with a the same knot in the same
00:59:49
GED uh I think it was like um a square piece of rope okay yeah a square knot you're correct and why why do you think
00:59:58
they do you think they paroled him so that he didn't cause any more trouble at the Preston school so that they didn't
01:00:02
get any more bad press in his statement to pre to the Press director of California Youth Authority Carl Holton
01:00:09
said before the murder charge was placed on on Monroe he had an excellent record
01:00:14
at Preston undoubtedly he would have been paroled at this time if the charge had not been
01:00:19
placed but it was and and that's a big [ __ ] charge um so he was free from prison and he left the state in 1950 for
01:00:29
Tulsa Oklahoma where the following year he was arrested and convicted for the rape and murder of 22-year-old pregnant
01:00:36
woman Dorothy Waldrop oh my God Dorothy was a former dance teacher and the wife of Robert Waldrop a taxi driver like
01:00:45
Vesta and Anna Corbin Waldrop was found with a GED uh hemp rope knotted around her neck
01:00:53
she had been literally taken out of her home and killed and disposed on a hill near near her apartment her husband had
01:01:01
come home from work at like 1:00 a.m. and found her missing in the door open now a book stories of the forgotten by
01:01:08
Jamie Rubio tells an even more in-depth Story of All of Eugene's life and deeds it's a very interesting read that person
01:01:15
also has a Blog entitled dreaming casually poetry where they talk a lot about this okay and they talk to some of
01:01:21
the family members and it's very interesting we l shocked now but when asked by the press for a comment Monroe
01:01:27
said it just seems like I am always in trouble even though I never did it oh yeah seems like you always are around
01:01:33
people get murdered and gred with rope that's the thing like three women were murdered and almost the exact same way
01:01:42
and you just happen to be a suspect in all of those murders I'm sorry where there's smoke and then there's smoke and
01:01:48
then there's smoke there's a blazing [ __ ] fire he 100% killed all these women and was he convicted for this
01:01:54
murder now now despite no he was but oh god um despite what he told the Press when
01:02:01
investigators found monro's fingerprints in waldrop's apartment he confessed to the murder were they ever able to go
01:02:08
back then and get the fingerprints this there were seven I don't think they were
01:02:12
able to are you [ __ ] kidding me me crazy that would have been like The Smoking Gun exactly he actually
01:02:18
confessed to the murder of Dorothy Waldrop and was sentenced to life in prison by a Tulsa jury but then never
01:02:24
confessed to the other two murders he was paroled in August 1981 for why yep he murdered a pre he raped excuse me and
01:02:34
murdered kidnapped raped and murdered a pregnant woman and he was paroled how this man who literally was paroled the
01:02:43
first time at 19 like a 19-year-old yeah paroled after being heavily suspected of
01:02:50
a murder twice two different murders and immediately upon exiting murders a pregnant woman in the same fashion and
01:03:01
you think it's smart to parole him like this [ __ ] very well made was like could have been a serial killer
01:03:07
yeah obviously we can't say for sure because he wasn't convicted but sounds to me like he was a serial killer and so
01:03:12
he was convicted of Dorothy's murder but led out of jail cuz why the [ __ ] not he
01:03:16
murdered a pregnant woman after kidnapping her out of her home but like yeah let's just let him back out and do
01:03:20
you don't know what terms he was paroled on no he was pared in August 19 81 and lived for a time in Tulsa which is where
01:03:27
he killed Dorothy by the way uh before returning to Los Angeles and he died there on October 3rd 2007 2007 holy [ __ ]
01:03:36
until 20 never being convicted of either Vesta or Anna's deaths and both of those
01:03:42
cases are unsolved technically quote unquote yeah you have to wonder like they should go back and look at that
01:03:50
time period that he was out of prison as well and see he W he didn't know seral killer these are strangers to him Vesta
01:03:58
and Dorothy complete Dorothy complete strangered to him what the [ __ ] like and
01:04:04
he just walked into these houses like Vesta supposedly he was delivering furniture or something like that but
01:04:10
still complete stranger came back later like afterwards and Dorothy complete stranger he just walked into her house
01:04:16
and kidnapped her and he took the blind like um he took the the pole cords from of her
01:04:24
blind like Venetian blinds and used that to Gat her as well I would be so interested to hear in the time after he
01:04:31
got pared in the time of his death if there was any more yeah I to me I'm like he killed again like that's what that's
01:04:37
how I feel I don't know isn't that wild the fact that he was pared twice and the
01:04:43
fact that that school the California Youth Authority was like he was good understand what the problem is like he
01:04:50
was he's fine he was good until he right after he goes out someone like do you guys feel stupid now yeah now holy [ __ ]
01:05:00
wow so that blew my mind I was just going to say that's mind-blowing and the main campus of the Preston School of
01:05:06
industry was closed in the spring of 1960 10 years later and the residents relocated to other facilities on the
01:05:12
grounds and the school itself was shut down for good completely in June 2011 between 1960 and the closing
01:05:20
ceremony in 2011 a lot of the main building fell into dis repair and became popular with vandals and looters but the
01:05:28
building itself gained the protection of the National Historic regist register excuse me um in recent years because of
01:05:35
its architectural significance because remember it's a beautiful building yeah um so it can't be demolished uh since
01:05:42
1997 the main campus has been leased by the Preston Castle Foundation which is a
01:05:48
nonprofit organization whose mission is to preserve the buildings and promote the history and the heritage of of the
01:05:54
site the group spent the latter half of the 9s and early 2000s renovating the interior in order to make the building
01:06:00
safe right um and for the last decade or so they have tried to raise funds by among other things opening the campus to
01:06:07
the public for ghost tours now the organization regularly welcomes tour groups and even allows groups to pay an
01:06:13
additional fee in order to spend a night in the supposedly haunted castle guests
01:06:18
routinely report seeing orbs Spirits like full body apparitions wander the Halls a lot of a lot of like disembodied
01:06:27
voices and things caught um and many have claimed to see who they believe to be Anna Corbin herself oh wow now the
01:06:36
Preston Foundation board members Carl noock um was initially skeptical he told reporters if there are any ghosts here
01:06:44
they've never talked to me and that changed one evening when Carl and a friend were exploring the castle on
01:06:50
their own and both men said they clearly heard a dis bodied voice call Carl by name I love that they were like hey
01:06:58
skeptic yeah they were just like heyo and Carl was like all right damn so he came back and was like I stand corrected
01:07:04
now ghost tour guide Donnie pige was similarly skeptical at first they said until an incident happened to him in
01:07:11
2010 involving a strong gust of wind and an eerie feeling that scared him off for
01:07:16
6 weeks before he would even return wow now while the ghost tours and overnight stays are they're they're like supposed
01:07:24
to all be in good fun going with the more light-hearted stories from the past and using historic reenactors you know
01:07:31
things to scare people like it's supposed to be this light-hearted thing yeah tour guides do tell and share the
01:07:36
tragic history of the school and its residents according to the Sacramento B Donnie pagee quote Delights in telling
01:07:44
about the crude conditions early on in the infirmary and the cruelty and violence many of the boys experienced at
01:07:50
the hands of the guards um they said contrary to what they said at the time time um this is what Donnie told the
01:07:57
Sacramento be he said contrary to what they said at the time the boys were beaten severely punished and whipped and
01:08:02
thrown into solitary confinement so he's saying like they were projecting this whole image of progressive reform they
01:08:09
were just as bad um despite the playful tone and the theatricality of the events
01:08:15
held at Preston castle by telling and retelling the stories that are Preston's history the foundation manages to
01:08:21
provide a small consolation to those who like Anna Corbin died or suffered within
01:08:27
its walls because they keep their memories alive in the present which is at least a positive for that sure so
01:08:33
that is the story of the Preston School of industry and the murder of Anna Corbin Dorothy Waldrop and Vesta
01:08:39
sapenter that was a whirlwind and somebody truly needs to look into the time period that that [ __ ] was
01:08:45
out of jail I want to look into it let's go please do because I am not convinced
01:08:49
that he just was like let me just live my quiet life yeah violent dude yeah and there's no way those aren't no connected
01:08:59
no way like sorry no damn well pretty horrifying thank you for listening and we hope you keep it weird but that's a
01:09:09
way that you go to a boy school cuz that's scary I don't I don't want anybody to end up there yeah I hate it
01:09:15
all yeah reformed schools are [ __ ] scary don't send your kids there no just love them just love them just love them
01:09:22
just love your kids by [Music]