00:00:00
This is exactly right. An average annual single line payment of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile customers compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited Wireless plan as of January 2026.
00:00:35
For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. Hello and welcome to Rewind with Karen and Georgia.
00:00:56
Yes, every Wednesday we recap our old episodes with all new commentary, updates, and insights, and you are welcome.
00:01:03
Today we're recapping episode 69, you pervert, which we named Never a Mannequin.
00:01:09
Legendary. What a classic. Just iconic. Yeah. Are you allowed to call your own titles iconic?
00:01:14
This episode came out May 18th, 2017. Let's listen to the intro of episode 69. Hello, welcome to My Favorite Murder.
00:01:26
That's Karen. That's Georgia. Hi. I'm in my element right now. I'm double fisting petting cats.
00:01:34
And it's my dream. That's how Georgia parties. Yeah. We just got back from the last weekend of our first tour.
00:01:44
That's right. Thank you, Washington, D.C. Thank you, Baltimore. Thank you, Philly.
00:01:48
Dude. Ford slash Glenside, Pennsylvania. We had the best weekend. We met so many great people.
00:01:54
so many incredible people they sent us home with so many lovely presents my my suitcase was
00:02:00
crammed and uh we just gave steven many many the presents that you gave us to give him
00:02:06
yeah after we picked what we wanted out of his growth yes there's lots of stuff that we didn't
00:02:10
tell him about that we're just keeping he'll never know little mustache things you get to have
00:02:15
um but we did want to mention it was very exciting because this time it felt like and
00:02:21
maybe it was the area that we were in. Oh yeah. Washington. Yeah. Uh, we met, uh, we met a
00:02:27
forensic analyst. We met a criminal defense attorney who listened to the show, not just
00:02:31
on the street. Right. Yes. They came to the show. They bought VIP tickets. They had a high,
00:02:35
hi, how are you? Take a picture with us. And it was very exciting to be meeting actual people.
00:02:41
What was that? I don't know. My microphone. Oh my God. George's microphone's leaving. Um,
00:02:47
They were people who are in the business of stopping crime who listened to this podcast,
00:02:54
which we were very, very honored by. And thank you all for what you do and for listening.
00:03:00
But the most exciting part, I'll talk slowly so that while Stephen fits George's microphone,
00:03:07
she can still participate. Don't tell all the story without me. Stephen, hurry! He did it.
00:03:12
Wow, that was fast. the most exciting for, well, I'll say for me, I think for you too.
00:03:17
Oh, I started crying, crying. When we were in Baltimore, the Rams had, thank you everybody. The Rams said that was a really
00:03:24
cool, like rock and roll venue. Totally. So hilarious. So weird. Like you could smell the sticky beer from decades past.
00:03:31
Yeah. The Pixies were playing the night after us, which we were freaking out about.
00:03:34
We kept saying we were trying to, we wanted to leave something for Kim Deal somewhere in the
00:03:39
dressing room. But anyway, these two guys walk up in the meet and greet and flip out an ID,
00:03:47
their federal ID. And it turned out two FBI agents were at the show. And he knew to flip his ID open
00:03:54
because we'd lose our shit. So he walks towards us like in the coppice cop manner. I think he was
00:04:00
like six foot six. Listen, both of them were. Both of them were incredibly handsome. They were
00:04:05
two hot FBI agents with big smiles on their faces doing a bit for us. And they looked,
00:04:11
they looked like FBI agents, young ones that, but were cool. Yes. Not that, you know what I mean?
00:04:18
Yes. Well, no, they were great. And they were super funny because they immediately were doing
00:04:22
a bit about the girl that did a hometown. And Georgia, this was my favorite part is I was
00:04:28
immediately just like, I had no idea what to say. And I was completely starstruck where I'm like,
00:04:34
I looked at this guy's ID. And I was like, this is fake. Yells across me and goes, move your finger,
00:04:41
your finger's covering your face. And it was, it was just the way he flipped open
00:04:45
his like wallet looking ID, FBI agent ID. His finger was over his own face, which is like a trick people use
00:04:52
when they're trying to trick you into like getting into your car. Totally, I've always.
00:04:56
He started laughing because she moved his finger and of course it was him. I did not believe him.
00:05:01
And I was like, that's a fucking age old, everyone knows that trick. And then it turns out it was not a trick. They were two real deal FBI agents who worked for,
00:05:11
they worked for the anti-terrorism squad. I don't know if that's a thing. I doubt it's a squad.
00:05:20
Gang, right? The anti-terrorism gang. And then the reason the other guy was with him was because
00:05:25
the first guy who covered his face was supposed to go with his girlfriend or fiance. She got
00:05:33
deployed to Afghanistan. Yes. I think she was the forensic pathologist. Maybe. Yeah. She definitely
00:05:40
worked in the biz as well, but she was also in the military because she got deployed to,
00:05:47
was it Afghanistan? Totally Afghanistan. And we were just like, you're, you're, the three of you are rock stars You living a life very different from ours And also we talk about what you do all the time as if we experts I mean now you here as like audience members but you actually the experts
00:06:05
It was the coolest experience. I asked so many of the experts who were like, I do this.
00:06:09
I asked most of them, are you mad at us? Yeah. And it turns out none of them are mad at us.
00:06:13
Oh, and then the cop, no wait, was that Austin? The cop with the eyeball killer?
00:06:21
That was, oh yeah, it was. That was at Moon Tower, right? It was Moon Tower. No, I think it was DC with the pregnant chick.
00:06:31
No, that was... No, no. Are you sure? I think it was DC because the cop, they were having a cop convention.
00:06:40
Remember? You're exactly right. And that's why he was there. So there was the guy with the eyeball killer
00:06:46
that we did a couple, a few, a long time ago. Yeah. I don't know how many episodes we've recorded.
00:06:50
I'm like, this is number 10, right? he wanted to meet us. He like tweeted that he was in town for a cop convention. And I was like,
00:07:00
oh God, are you mad at us? Or mad at me because I have no idea what I said about you in the episode.
00:07:05
But his daughter-in-law came in pregnant and was like, no, he thinks you're great. Here's a signed
00:07:12
copy of his book. But I'm sorry, all of that is right, except it wasn't the pregnant girl that
00:07:18
was separate. There were three pregnant girls. There were three girls. The eyeball killers,
00:07:25
wasn't it his stepdaughter? Yeah. Something like that. And they were, it was her and her two friends.
00:07:29
Yeah. I mean, it doesn't matter. Whatever. It doesn't matter at all, except for that
00:07:33
we have these great experiences with people for 45 seconds. And then another experience
00:07:37
happens right after. It's very hard to keep them all track, but we like them all.
00:07:42
The bummer was he was there and he waiting outside, but we had no ability. Like it was
00:07:48
the end and we didn't have the ability to get him inside. I feel like someday soon we're going to
00:07:52
post the Philly episode. It was the last episode and it was sweet as fuck. I thought some girl
00:08:00
that I should be able to name recorded the stay sexy, don't get murder part that the crowd yells
00:08:06
with us. And I put it on Instagram and it's just so sweet. It's like sweet as in like sweet. It's
00:08:12
just like this great moment. Oh, cool. I love when we do that at the end. It's so much fun.
00:08:17
It's very fun. And all three shows were great. And all three audiences were like,
00:08:21
one was better than the next. They were just like, they were all so great and fun and excited. And
00:08:28
thank you all so, so much for being there. And yes, stop asking us on Twitter. We're going to
00:08:33
come to your town. Yeah, we will. Yeah, there's a planned fall tour. Yeah, we just want to keep doing it. Yeah, listen, saying the word Australia,
00:08:42
and that's all I'm saying. That's right. And say the word New Zealand, because that's also in there too.
00:08:47
And New Zealand. And yes, we're coming to your California. No, your state. We're coming to your personal California.
00:08:55
Anyways. It's what your California is like. This is my California, but maybe Texas is your California.
00:09:01
Right. Yeah. Like who, what's your California? What's your California? We also thank you for sharing the news
00:09:07
that Ian Brady is dead. That was your murder. That's the Moore's murder. Yeah. I thought he was dead.
00:09:14
Who cares? He was never going to get out. I mean, whatever. He died. Okay. He died.
00:09:18
I mean, it's great because he's a murderer and he deserves to be dead, but okay.
00:09:21
Now he is. But the thing a lot of people were very excited about is the very recent casting of Zac Efron to play the part of Ted Bundy.
00:09:30
They were excited, but there were some weren't. You guys seem to want to know what our opinion was because you had said, who was the guy that you said should play him?
00:09:42
Never mind. But no recollection, even though I remember us talking about it. Okay.
00:09:47
I'll be able to remember it. Steven. Steven's like, I don't listen to this. What do you think of it?
00:09:55
I fucking dig it. At first I was like, huh? But then I remembered, you know, he does these goofy movies, but he's also done some cool
00:10:02
shit and he's a good actor. Seems like a cool dude. And then someone put a photo side by side of like a young Ted Bundy and like a photo
00:10:10
that kind of matched of Zac Efron. and it was just exactly what it was supposed to be.
00:10:16
Yeah. So if he can act it, man, it'll be legit. And I tell you now he can act it
00:10:21
because I may have been keeping this to myself up until this point, although I can't imagine why
00:10:29
because I love the movie 17 Again. Yes, he was my lover. The movie 17 Again, I believe it's called
00:10:38
with him and Tom Lennon, where he plays his own father. he is so brilliant in it.
00:10:44
That must be the one I was thinking of. Yeah, it's such good acting. It's a Disney movie and it's a body switch.
00:10:49
You know, I'm young again. It's basically Zac Efron doing an impression of Matthew Perry.
00:10:54
And it is so fucking great. My sister made me watch it for the first time. She's like, you have to watch it so you'll like it.
00:11:01
And I have to trust her when she says that because she's always right. And it's just masterful acting by him.
00:11:08
He doesn't get enough credit for what a good actor he is. And he tries to do interesting stuff.
00:11:12
My only thing was April texted me, my friend April Richardson of Go Bayside podcast fame.
00:11:18
She texted me. It was like, I know I'm the one millionth person to tell you this, but did you know Zac Efron?
00:11:23
And she's like, and what do you think? And I said, you're the millionth person that's asked, but you're the first person I'm answering.
00:11:30
And I said, I believe in him 1000%. He just has to beef down because he's too cut right now.
00:11:36
Yeah. It's like, it's that like seventies cut, which is like super skinny, but also muscular,
00:11:42
but there's no like sinewy. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. He definitely has to do that, but.
00:11:48
He's like a bike rider as opposed to a weightlifter. Yeah. I'm just excited to see it. I mean,
00:11:53
there not really a good one at all There the Mark Harmon one which is fine but it like a made for TV movie So it not like Whoresome and realistic Right It not scholastic
00:12:06
It's not scholastic. It's not realistic. It's not bombastic. It's none of those things.
00:12:12
I think it'll be good. Also because I think people are just like, let's ride this fucking
00:12:17
true crime wave as hard as we can. So people are seeing that there's so much interest. They've just
00:12:23
combines two great things, which is like, what are girls like? True crime and Zac Efron.
00:12:28
Totally. Let's do this thing. Speaking of, listen, next week, we're going to talk about the Dede Blanchard and Gypsy Rose
00:12:36
documentary that's on HBO. So go watch it. And then we're going to watch it and talk about it.
00:12:42
But it's definitely something we want to chat with you about. Yes. I can't wait to see it.
00:12:47
It's called Mommy, Dearest and Dead. Yes. So go to HBO. It's on HBO. I think so.
00:12:52
I'm pretty sure it is. Pretty sure. go watch that. Yeah. Go watch yourself. Bunch of people have watched it
00:12:58
and asked us about it. Georgia did her homework. I did not. So I didn't want to out you.
00:13:02
Thank you. Did you hear me say that we're going to watch it? Yes, it was. That's called teamwork
00:13:06
and I appreciate it. But Karen didn't do it and I did it. Can you imagine? Oh my God,
00:13:11
what a cunt I would be. There was some, was there something in there that really wanted to do that though?
00:13:17
No. I was like, how do I get around saying this? Well, that was masterful. I appreciate it.
00:13:22
Yeah, I pretended I had it either. Thank you. You took that hit. Steven, did you watch it?
00:13:28
Not yet. Okay. Steven. All right. Get on it. It is on HBO though. Okay, good. Two against one.
00:13:34
Mimi, Elvis. It's always two against one in this setup. On that particular story,
00:13:40
no information is enough. So the fact that someone has put together an actual documentary
00:13:44
and has her gypsy today talking. Oh my God. There's a prison interview And the whole time I was just like, do I believe her?
00:13:54
You cannot tell. And then you're like, is she crying tears or is she just sounding like she...
00:13:58
And there's so much shit. And then I didn't know the background of the mom. So that was really fucking interesting.
00:14:03
That's in there as well. Oh my God. And... I can't wait. I know. It's, I very much liked it.
00:14:09
And the exciting part is, which a bunch of people told us and we discovered, the director, I don't have her name handy,
00:14:17
is a murderino. Right. Who somebody posted a thing that said, look when the, when this, um, famous documentary filmmaker just shows up on our Facebook page.
00:14:26
Like commenting on it. Like, thanks. I'm glad you guys liked it. Yeah. So cool. So cool. So
00:14:30
we'll tell you guys who it is next week. We'll write it down. We'll talk. Imagine. We'll chat.
00:14:35
Um, oh, I wanted to say, so my, in the vein of, we love it when just suddenly people like come out
00:14:43
of the woodwork that you would never know have a murder. And then they tell you about it. Like
00:14:47
your uncle did that, right? Like, oh, I caught the fucking... Oh yeah, my cousin Marty is the one
00:14:53
that lifted the Richard Ramirez's fingerprints at the last breaking and entering in San Francisco,
00:14:58
where they figured out who the Night Stalker was. And then you were like, why didn't you tell me?
00:15:02
And he's like, why would I tell you that ever? So I have a similar one, my cousin Nancy, who's like
00:15:07
pretty significantly older than me, you know, I think in, I don't know. And she's just like a
00:15:12
normal, really lovely, normal person and married with kids. She teaches old people how to use the
00:15:17
internet. Like she's just, she's just a really lovely woman. So she then emailed me. Sounds like
00:15:23
she's very patient. It does, doesn't it? She emailed me and says, hi, Georgia. I listened to
00:15:27
one of your, my favorite murder podcasts today. One of the questions was something about someone
00:15:33
you knew, a new murderer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, back in the late eighties, early nineties,
00:15:38
I worked at the Peterson publishing house in West Hollywood. One of the guys in the photo lab
00:15:42
killed one of the models on a shoot. I knew him when I worked there, but the murder was years
00:15:48
after I left the company, but I was an editorial assistant of one of the car magazines and he'd
00:15:51
come by and hand me the photos. He never smiled, but look me directly in the eye. It was creepy.
00:15:58
And then I knew anyway, and add another relative who knows a murderer, love Nancy. And then I was
00:16:04
like, I think this is the one I know, which is such an interesting story. It's Charles Rathbun
00:16:10
who killed Linda Sobeck in the fucking desert, right? And he said, oh, I hit her with my car on accident
00:16:15
when I was showing her some cool moves and I buried her body because I got scared.
00:16:19
And it's like, no, you fucking didn't. And then they found another one of his bodies
00:16:23
close by that as well. Yeah, was it in the desert? Was it in Anjali's National Forest?
00:16:28
Yeah, but I think it was like an open thing. I don't know, open plane type of thing.
00:16:37
Right, right, right. It was just far away. Like he would basically get them to come and go on quote unquote shoots.
00:16:42
And maybe that was just in my imagining. I like pictured it as a desert. So yeah, that's what it looks like.
00:16:49
It was what we know is it was far away. Cause I don't know my, I'm pretty sure though, that that was a city confidential for Los Angeles
00:16:56
about the death of Lentis Hoback. Yes. And I told her, oops, I messaged her back and was like, I've fucking gone into a rural area
00:17:08
with a guy who wanted to take photos of me when I was younger and didn't get murdered. And so that
00:17:14
murder is just, I know what it's like to suddenly be like, oh fuck, this was a mistake and nobody
00:17:21
knows I'm here. Yes. Yeah. So scary. And I don't know this. I thought I kind of knew this person.
00:17:26
I don't know him at all. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you're young, you think you're friends with
00:17:30
everybody. Yeah. It's just like, oh yeah, my buddy, that's a photographer or whatever, where
00:17:34
It's like, where is he from? What's, does he have any siblings? How much do you know this person?
00:17:39
And you're easily charmed. You don't bring anyone with you. Right. You do it by their dictate.
00:17:46
This is how we're going to do it. This is where we're going to go. Because you don't know to say, fuck no.
00:17:51
Well, also you're so complimented by the fact that someone's like, I think that you are a model Right Which I totally I admit to that completely Of course Why wouldn you That a big that a big part of all of that And then the shame of like
00:18:07
oh, how dare you think that? I mean, it's the perfect play. Yeah. They have you coming and
00:18:11
going. Listen, don't do it, you guys. Unless you're at a well-populated place and you meet
00:18:17
them there, don't get in the car with them. Right. Right? Yes. And there's also, there was a guy that
00:18:23
was doing this and he was actually going up to women at the Century City Mall. And he was saying
00:18:28
he was a casting director for the new James Bond movie. Yes. And they had it on surveillance,
00:18:33
right? Yes. They have him on surveillance and he would go to houses that were being,
00:18:38
he would get shown the house by a real estate agent. So he knew it was an empty house. Then he
00:18:43
would have the women meet them at that house and kill them there. And that's how he got caught.
00:18:49
It's so crazy. Yeah. That's amazing. Can I quickly do a podcast recommendation? Of course.
00:18:56
And I've said, I've talked about this podcast in its first season because it was excellent.
00:19:00
And then I just like listened to the second season in a fucking minute because it was so good.
00:19:06
Yeah. It's Someone Knows Something, which I think they're calling SKS now because no one knew anything last season.
00:19:11
Is that the Canadian one? Yeah. With the most lovely man. Love him. Yeah. So he, the second season is fucking great.
00:19:19
It's really great storytelling. He has so much empathy, which is hard to find sometimes in these stories.
00:19:25
His name is David Riggin. Riggin, Riggin. And he's like helped solve murders in the past.
00:19:32
He's a documentary filmmaker. It's fucking heartbreaking. It's really well done.
00:19:37
I highly recommend it. He has the most charming Canadian accent. He's so charming.
00:19:41
And that first season, even though there were no hard answers, it still is such a great series.
00:19:47
Oh my God. It's so good. It's heart, it's also heartbreaking. Yeah. It is, but it's also, it never really was solved.
00:19:54
So it's still so interesting because you don't know if someone knows something or not.
00:19:58
Right. And it also shows what these detectives are up against when these homicides come in.
00:20:03
It's like, because, you know, I do have a lot of guilt about how much shit we talk about detective work
00:20:08
or police work, where it's such armchair quarterbacking. And we talk about that a lot,
00:20:14
But going through it that way, especially that one was from the 70s, that first season murder of that little boy.
00:20:22
And it's just like, they're going on nothing. They have strands. They have basic bits of information.
00:20:28
And we don't think about the fact that they don't have time. It's not like they have the next three months to look into this case.
00:20:33
They have a bunch of other cases going as well and more adding up. And they don't have the time to unfortunately give to it by no fault of their own.
00:20:42
Right. You know, the fact that they haven't hired enough detectives, they don't have the money to at the department.
00:20:48
Yeah. It turns into all that red tape stuff. Yeah. That's such a, it's such an interesting, like the fact that politics affect so many of these murder cases and how much time and attention they get, which then folds in the whole thing of when sex workers are involved and they get dismissed or when it's-
00:21:06
Or did she disappear and did she just run away? Maybe she just ran away. Yeah, that old kind of 70s, like, I don't want to do the paperwork. She's a runaway. The sex working. And then also just the like, when it's a white, blonde, teenage cheerleader that's in high school, all of the political power goes behind it, as opposed to anybody of color, a person that's a sex worker, a person that was a drug addict.
00:21:28
Well, what I love about this episode or this season of Someone or Something is it's not a fucking perfect blonde cheerleader.
00:21:35
She had been into drugs. She was an exotic dancer. You know, she had a temper. She wasn't, but she still deserves to,
00:21:44
she still deserves to, you know, her mother is like the most heartbreaking character
00:21:48
you've ever heard. Odette, which I love that name. But- I gotta listen to that. Yeah, but yeah, it's not until,
00:21:55
and then there's the thing too, of like at the time of the murder, friends and family might not want to talk. You know, they know things, they're scared,
00:22:02
but he's, he's looking into it like 20 years later and he's such a empathetic guy and he's
00:22:08
just trying to solve it. He's not trying to, you know, fuck with anyone. And so they talk to him.
00:22:14
Right. I mean, he's fucking great. Yeah. He's so good. So watch Someone Know Something second
00:22:19
season and first. It's podcast, right? Yeah. Yeah. Hi. Hi, how are you? I'm great. How are
00:22:27
you. I'm really good. Is there anything else we wanted to, I guess my only, the one, and I can't
00:22:32
remember if I've said this already, but I've gotten on your recommendation. So into, um,
00:22:38
the, now I can't remember the name of it. Which one? What's it about? The, the guy,
00:22:42
the Australian guy. Oh, crime. Uh, mysterious wonders. Oh, honey. Yes. Mysteries abound.
00:22:51
Mysteries. Oh, it is the, just the most beautiful. It is so beautifully presented.
00:22:57
He, at the top of every story, he cites his sources. That's the first thing I noticed where I'm like,
00:23:04
ah, yes, that's what we're doing. But for someone who's just reading articles about mysteries throughout the internet,
00:23:11
it's so good. It's so good. It's not his stories. He's doing no research. He's, well, he's reading articles,
00:23:18
but it's performative. And it's also, he gets why certain things are interesting.
00:23:24
I don't know. It's just, I've listened to now probably 20 of them because we've been doing so much traveling.
00:23:29
It's just the perfect podcast for that. And it goes all over the place, like seven interesting facts about urine.
00:23:37
Or like, you know, why the like mysteries about the moon, which is my favorite fucking one.
00:23:42
It's like these things I never knew about. But then also he's the most droning, like a most comforting voice.
00:23:47
So I fall asleep to it every fucking night. Yeah, I was falling asleep on the plane.
00:23:51
But then there's this one thing he does where like he'll tell the story and then have music in between the next ones.
00:23:56
And for some reason that music is super loud. So I keep waking up. when the story's done.
00:24:01
It's scary. Pretty too bad. But I love it. Mysteries abound. Okay. Mysteries abound.
00:24:05
So good. Okay. So now we do ours. Do we go first based on our tour or do we go first?
00:24:13
We did... Sorry, Alice. Q&A last time, but then we did the live show after... No, wait.
00:24:18
We did the live show before. Q&A, Stephen? Yeah. Is this like a reset or do we go from the tour?
00:24:24
Should we flip a coin? Yeah. Flip the coin, the FBI coin. Yes. they gave us the way what side do you want like the fbi guys gave us these commemorative coins
00:24:34
that are so cool looking yeah i mean they even brought us presents hot fbi agents brought us
00:24:39
tens lovely the best time it was oh my god i i rarely get like um dumbstruck where i'm like
00:24:46
can't figure out one good thing to say and i just kept laughing and going really really and like
00:24:53
and yeah i almost started crying which i don't usually do and then every like the next 10 people
00:24:58
who we met. I was like, those kids were at the FBI agency. And they were like, so what?
00:25:03
All right. So pick gold or blue. That's blue. That's gold. This says Department of Justice,
00:25:10
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counter Terrorism Division and Gang. It says. No, it doesn't.
00:25:19
The Counter Terrorism Gang. Yeah, you do it. The one in the middle is blue. You know what I'm
00:25:24
saying? And that one's gold. Yeah. So Karen, you call it. I'll be blue. Can we flip a coin to see
00:25:29
who calls it? I'll be blue. You be gold. Okay. Gold. Wait, you're blue. Oh wait, but we didn't
00:25:37
say what we're flipping to go first or last. Oh, you get it. Oh, so you get to pick. Do you like
00:25:41
going first or do you like going last? I don't know. I guess it depends on the story. Yeah, it does.
00:25:46
Do we flip to whoever gets it gets to choose who goes first? Well, this is suddenly really
00:25:51
interested in what's happening. Georgia won that. So do you want to just pick what you want to do?
00:25:56
I like going first. Do it. Is yours a real big bummer? I mean, yes. So is mine. Oh, fuck it.
00:26:03
I mean, it's a murder. It's like, no, mine's super lighthearted. Yeah. There's nothing. It's,
00:26:07
it's not like an old one or whatever, but, but it's a good one. Okay. Do you, so you just do
00:26:12
what you want. Okay. Mine's pretty short. Okay. Um, and what? I just love it. Like we can't even
00:26:19
do a coin flip correctly? No, we're talking amazing. We like recommend these investigative
00:26:24
journalism, like fucking like next level pieces of journalism podcasts. And then we're like,
00:26:30
flip a coin to flip a coin. Steven, did we, who went first? It's just slop. It's so enjoyable.
00:26:38
Slop in a charming rapper. Yes, for sure. You know what I mean? I mean, let's hope.
00:26:44
Like what kind of candy is really gross. And then you're like, oh, it looks so good. Remember
00:26:48
Rocky Road, which was dark chocolate covered marshmallows and like some weird nut, maybe a
00:26:55
walnut. Chocolate and oh, fuck, those were good. Do they not have them anywhere? Oh, I was, I was
00:26:59
naming it as a bad one. Oh, I guess there's no candy. That's bad, really. Yeah, I guess you're
00:27:05
right. Let's talk about candy for a half an hour. I actually, when we were leaving the airport,
00:27:09
I fucking will talk about candy skippers. When I was leaving the airport, it was in that place
00:27:14
where we had traveled so much. I was so tired. I was so tired when we got back on Monday.
00:27:19
And I was supposed to do a show that night. Right. I fucking bailed on it because I was like,
00:27:23
by the time the show was going to start, it would have been 2 a.m. my time. And I had been traveling all week.
00:27:28
I was like, what was I thinking? And you were going to do another podcast on the way home, weren't you?
00:27:31
I did. We did my other podcast, Do You Need a Ride? I recorded one on the way home.
00:27:36
Honey. Then I got home when I laid down. All of my limbs turned to cement. But when I was leaving the airport,
00:27:41
I walked by a seized candy. cart. And I was like, I can have C's candy. I got this voice in my head that was like,
00:27:51
it was my birthday. I don't even know what I was thinking, but I walked up and as I walked around
00:27:55
the cart, I was just like, so you, what, you're going to take a pound of candy home and eat it?
00:28:00
Don't they have the singles? They, they have like smaller boxes, but I got around,
00:28:06
I walked around the whole thing and then I met a lady on the other side and I said,
00:28:10
there were little tiny boxes of things. And I go, do you have tiny boxes of nuts and chews?
00:28:15
And she was like, oh no, only one pound. And I was like, okay, bye. I walked away before anything
00:28:20
else happens. Why don't they give samples in there like they do at regular Seize Candies?
00:28:24
Because it's like a weird kiosk and they don't, you know. Next time their lollipops are super satisfying.
00:28:31
Yeah, those are good. Except for there's too many flavors I don't like of the lollipops.
00:28:35
Is there a butterscotch? I think I like that one. Yep. Or coffee. There's coffee, there's butterscotch. I mean.
00:28:40
Listen, when you guys come to California, that's our fucking seized candy. You just bring it to...
00:28:45
Whenever I see one, I'm like, am I going anywhere soon that I need to bring a box of seized candy?
00:28:49
I know. You know, that's our Christmas thing. We're like... That's our Hanukkah thing.
00:28:52
Really? Yeah. That's all we do is like, you're going to go somewhere, you grab one of those two pound boxes
00:28:57
of nuts and chews, and that's like the gift. I like the soft centers though. Do you?
00:29:02
Yeah. This is perfect with our like dark meat, white meat, turkey thing. We could share a chicken
00:29:08
and a box of chocolates. And everybody's going to be satisfied. And what was I going to say?
00:29:14
Yeah, we do that too. Just like a table and there's Jewish cookies and boxes of tea candy
00:29:20
and everyone just sits around, talks and eats too much. And it's the best. So good.
00:29:24
Shout out to arugula. That's just the best. Is it weird that I just shouted out a cookie?
00:29:32
I love it. Shout out to arugula. Just plain arugula? Arugula cookies. Oh, rugel is the lettuce.
00:29:40
Oh yeah. I'm not randomly shouting out a lettuce. It wasn't that random. It was Jewish cookies, rugel.
00:29:47
And that's the one that you got at Michael's, the diner we went to after the show, right?
00:29:52
No that was that was Baklava Baklava Sorry Get it straight out of here Where are we Shout out I not sure Do you want to start
00:30:05
Sure. All right. Shout out, Mary C. You really made some good candies. Is it Mary?
00:30:09
Oh, I love her. Yeah, I meant the little old lady with the glasses and the shawl.
00:30:13
Was that made up? I just recently found out that... What's the cookie woman? No, wait, that's not right.
00:30:18
Lorna Doon? No, one of those people are made up. Oh, probably Betty Crocker. That's it.
00:30:23
Yeah. My friend's reading a documentary on her. Is that a thing you can read? She told me that.
00:30:31
Yeah. And me. Wait, it's just created by a company. Yeah, which I think is not fair.
00:30:34
It is pretty fucked up. Okay. And we're back. Can you imagine us so innocently talking about our tour weekend where we drove,
00:30:46
we flew into one city, drove to the next city, drove to the next city, and then flew home.
00:30:50
No. Nasty. Who were we? Oh, we were young. We were young and naive and we're like, oh, this is what touring is.
00:30:58
Yeah, totally. Three cities a weekend. No, not anymore. We can't do that anymore, you guys.
00:31:03
Not with our old bones. No, it's a young ladies game. Oh, and that's the live show where the FBI guys, we've talked about those FBI guys quite a bit over the years.
00:31:12
That was pretty epic. I think since then we've definitely met a few people who are from that branch of government.
00:31:18
Secret government types. That's right. My niece-in-law, so Vince's sister's daughter, works for the FBI, which I can't talk about, but she's told me a few things.
00:31:28
Yeah. And it sounds pretty epic. She's having a lot of fun. What a cool thing to do as a young woman.
00:31:34
Yeah. That's very cool. Yeah, it's very cool. And so since then, also Zac Efron had his star turn as Ted Bundy.
00:31:41
I mean, everybody loved the job he did on that. I mean, maybe they didn't like the thing overall, but it was like, I feel like everybody was impressed by what he brought to the table.
00:31:51
Yeah. And we're talking about the movie Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, which came out in 2019. And yeah, he did a great job.
00:31:58
Yeah. He's a great actor. What is he going to not do a good job? He's Zac fucking Efron.
00:32:01
He's Zac Efron. He's been nailing it since he was 11. Like, come on. Oh, and then it's so funny. So since then, I was talking about season two of Someone Knows Something and they have now put out nine seasons.
00:32:13
Yes. As of 2025. And the host, David Ridgen, who we adore, also launched a new related series called The Next Call, which continues the style of investigating cold cases and bringing in family eyewitnesses and suspects.
00:32:26
He's so good at interviews. I mean, that sounds like exactly your kind of podcast.
00:32:30
It does. I'm going to go download now. You know, what's really funny is that Mysteries Abound is a podcast you can still listen to.
00:32:36
There's over 300 episodes. but also he hosts a podcast called unexplained that when we went back on the road and you know
00:32:44
the first time i like tuned out on a airplane that's what was in my ears i forgot about that
00:32:50
altogether it like makes you go to sleep but it's also compelling and it's like then you learn a
00:32:54
little something i love it i love it and we love richard mcclain smith we sure do he's a great
00:32:58
podcaster love his work and a great friend we met him when we were in um melbourne or sydney
00:33:03
That's right. I forgot. And we were like, let me hear you talk. Talk, please. It was hilarious. And he was so bewildered. He was just like, what the fuck is this?
00:33:11
He was just this lovely man, got into podcasting, you know, like, oh, I thought it would be interesting.
00:33:17
And then he said one of our shows with Murderino screaming at the top of their lungs.
00:33:23
All right. Should we get into some stories? Let's get in. So let's get into Georgia's story about Keith Warren.
00:33:33
Hey, speaking of fucked up. Yeah. This one's a bummer. Okay. So on July 30th, 1986, we're in 1986.
00:33:45
I can see the outfit I'm wearing. We're in an affluent community of Silver Spring, which is located in Maryland.
00:33:52
And 19-year-old Keith Waddell Warren was found hanging from a tree two days after he was reported missing by his mother.
00:34:01
Keith, who's an African-American, had been accepted into North Carolina Central University and was set to go in the fall.
00:34:10
But he was currently home for the summer making money and saving it up to go away.
00:34:16
Handsome, bright. Everyone said he was a good kid, you know, good in school. He did have some depression issues, but in his recent past, his parents had divorced, but he had a bright future.
00:34:30
So on, so July 30th, 1986, a woman walking her dog found Keith in a wooded area near his family's
00:34:38
home. His body was hanging from a small tree by his neck and the tree was bent double with his
00:34:43
waist. The cord was elaborately hung and anchored around the base of the tree. And it was 25 feet
00:34:51
then to a small sapling. So it was like this elaborate kind of hanging mechanism. And then I
00:34:56
encircled the sapling's trunk, arched through a fork. The first paramedic who arrived on the
00:35:02
scene said that he immediately knew it was a staged hanging. And so he didn't touch the body
00:35:07
at all. He was waiting for the police to arrive. Nice. But the officer and detective who arrived
00:35:12
at the scene released that paramedic. The officer stated that this was interfering with his lunch
00:35:21
break and they didn't cordon off the area and the scene was trampled. And I, of course, looked up his
00:35:28
name and warning immediately, crime scene photos come up. But you can see in the background of one
00:35:33
of them, just some fucking shirtless dude hanging out, staring at the body. So they hadn't even taken
00:35:39
it down yet. And there was a guy, you know, maybe not even 10 feet just hanging out.
00:35:45
Whoa. Yeah. Okay. It's like some hippie dude. So this was before they understood how was it?
00:35:52
I don't think so. It just it was just yeah I think when we read about a lot of these fucked up crimes that happens But I don think that that was a normal procedure I can imagine Yeah Let us know cops from the 86
00:36:06
Yeah. When did they really know that you had to lock down a crime scene and no one got to come
00:36:12
look, be near it? Like a whole, like, what do they call that? Establish a perimeter.
00:36:17
I want to know as well, when did they start wearing gloves and stop smoking at the crime
00:36:21
scene? Yeah. Cops. You know what I mean? Yes. It had to be in somewhere in the 90s because even O.J. Simpson's crime scene was handled without gloves, which they definitely should have known by then.
00:36:31
Yes. Right. Anyways. Wow. I know. It gets worse. Okay. Despite the obvious discrepancies, authorities didn't see anything wrong with the scene.
00:36:42
And after a brief visual inspection, the county department medical examiner determined that Keith Warren had committed suicide.
00:36:51
No autopsy was ordered. The body was sent directly to a funeral home. The detective chose it.
00:36:57
And this was all that happened. Oh, and his body was embalmed all before his mother was even aware of his death.
00:37:07
What? Yeah. Well, that's simply not procedure. Nope. It can't be. Well, back then,
00:37:14
you didn't need to perform an autopsy on a suicide, but it was definitely suspicious.
00:37:19
The embalming, that kind of thing is the parent's decision. Yes. And also he wasn't taking him to a moor.
00:37:24
He was taking him to a funeral home. I think the funeral director didn't really get any information
00:37:28
about what was going on. So he just thought he was supposed to embalm the body. But Silver Spring, do you know a smaller place?
00:37:36
Like, could they use that excuse that this was like small town they're not used to?
00:37:40
From what I can tell, I don't know if it was just the community or what, but it was like 70,000 people there.
00:37:46
Not huge. No. Okay. But it was like 40 minutes from Philly. It was like not far from DC. So it's not rural. It's rural. How do you say that?
00:37:58
I can never... You're saying it right. It's just a weird word. It's just stupid. Yeah. Okay. So by the six hours after he had been found, his mother
00:38:07
was finally told about it. And by then he had been embalmed. I mean, that's unacceptable. I know. Okay. When the family asked for his clothing that he'd been
00:38:17
at the time, the funeral home informed them that most of it had been destroyed because of the decay
00:38:23
of the body had ruined them. So they just got rid of the decayed body clothes. Okay.
00:38:29
They were only given his jacket and a pair of brown boots. And from, I can say from those,
00:38:36
from those crime scene photos that I of course looked at all of them and almost started crying
00:38:41
because I have to look at them because I'm a fucking weirdo. He wasn't decayed at all. He
00:38:47
wasn't decaying. He was found two days after he went missing. Don't know how long he was up there,
00:38:52
but he looks like he had gotten there recently. Like there is nothing about him that looks like
00:38:59
what you would expect from a hanging, which is a lot of really grotesque things happen to you,
00:39:05
right? There was no indication that he was decayed. Anyways, later when his mom attempted
00:39:13
to visit the tree to pray there because she was so fucking heartbroken. She got there and realized
00:39:19
the tree had been cut down. What? Yeah. Okay. Taken into evidence by the police, which his
00:39:25
mother was like, if this is a suicide and the case was closed, which it was, why are you taking
00:39:30
evidence? That's exactly right. Yeah. You're taking an evidence for a suicide that you don't do.
00:39:36
You're not taking evidence from the body, but you are taking the tree. Definitely.
00:39:40
and the tree couldn't be found or maybe it was destroyed in a fire. I couldn't really, there's not,
00:39:46
there's no Wikipedia about this. There's like not a lot of shit. A lot of the articles are just, you know,
00:39:52
the same stuff, regurgitated because there's just not a ton of information out there.
00:39:57
I couldn't believe there wasn't a Wikipedia about this. Yeah. So I had to do a lot of work.
00:40:02
So Mary had doubts, but it really wasn't until she heard from a friend of Keith's
00:40:08
that she really got suspicious. Thank you. So Rodney Kendall was a friend of hers and said that
00:40:16
he had seen a car full of black males looking for Keith shortly before his death. Rodney told them
00:40:23
they hadn't seen Keith and they immediately left. Then several days later, Rodney had another odd
00:40:30
encounter with a high school acquaintance of both of theirs named Mark Finley. And he said,
00:40:36
he seemed pretty urgent. I thought it was strange because he acted like he needed to find
00:40:39
Keith very quickly. And I told him I didn't know where he was and he left. So all these people searching for him, weird. The Maryland County PD refused to hand over the
00:40:49
photos taken at the crime scene to his mother because he said they would be too difficult for
00:40:54
her to see. So she's asking to see him and they say no. And they said that she should have a
00:41:00
clothes casket too. So April in 1992, so this happened in 86. It wasn't until 92,
00:41:09
which would have been her son's 25th birthday. Exactly. Mary found a plain manila envelope on
00:41:15
her doorstep, anonymous. And inside there were five pictures, each showing a different view of
00:41:21
Keith's hanging by his neck. So those are the photos that I saw. Whoa. Yeah. And so it's from the back. It's, I mean, a closeup of his face. It's just,
00:41:32
it's so heartbreaking. His face is so sweet and like young. So she saw the photos and she found
00:41:41
glaring discrepancies, including his clothes didn't fit him that he was wearing,
00:41:47
which made her think he was wearing someone else's clothes. There was no decomposition,
00:41:51
which the funeral told her, funeral home told her there was And also he was wearing in the photographs remember they had given him brown boots at the funeral home He was wearing white sneakers in the photographs
00:42:06
Oh no. What the fuck? Yeah. There was a note attached to all these photos that said, don't worry,
00:42:15
Mark Finley will be next. And Mark Finley was the kid who said that he had seen people asking for Keith. So the family hired private detective Joe Alarcia, I think,
00:42:27
who in addition to these discrepancies also saw that, and this is the fucking point of it that
00:42:33
always gives me chills. So Keith had on the back of his jacket leaves and debris,
00:42:41
meaning he, and he didn't land on his back, meaning they started to think that he had been
00:42:47
brought there and hoisted it up. So the family also then hired a renowned forensic pathologist,
00:42:57
Isidore Malakis, who exhumed Keith's body and did a toxicology report, which they never fucking did
00:43:06
originally, which is insane. Right. Like even not an autopsy, a toxicology report is just seems like a basic, you know.
00:43:15
Yeah, if you're just looking for information of what happened. How did he kill himself?
00:43:19
What state of mind was he in at the time? And also just that the family would want,
00:43:23
the difference between somebody who has hung themselves and somebody who has died under suspicious circumstances,
00:43:30
to give the family a story of your son killed himself is a totally different narrative
00:43:35
and says something about your son that then you have to live with. Whereas your son being a victim of a murder
00:43:42
is a completely different story. It's just like- No answers. You get no answers.
00:43:47
Well, and someone, you know, there is something too about the fact that they saw a young black
00:43:52
man hanging from a tree and immediately with suicide where it's like, someone said it reminded
00:43:57
me of the old South and hangings and not that old. I mean, it still happened by fucking racist motherfuckers at the time.
00:44:06
Right. So to see him hanging suspiciously and I saw his legs, his feet are on the ground and his
00:44:13
legs are kind of bent forward. So he's almost in like, if he were in a sitting position with his legs forward, then it got hoisted up a little.
00:44:20
So he wasn't hanging. Right. And it was definitely like, you know, indicative of lynching.
00:44:27
Yes. Is indicative the right word? Yes. I mean, yeah. Great. But also it's that thing of, yeah, that's to rush all of that away.
00:44:38
To immediately at the scene say suicide. No. Nope. No. No. Um, yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, no. I'm agreeing with you and
00:44:51
going with what you're telling me and it's very upsetting. Okay. Your gall? Yeah. I will listen
00:44:55
to it. Yeah. Gall? No. Yeah, it is. Okay. Shit, man. This is called Question Yourself Corner
00:45:05
by Georgia. So, okay. Toxicology report analysis reveals abnormally elevated amounts of
00:45:14
Here we go. Trichloromethane. Trichloromethane. Okay. A solvent found in paints and lacquers
00:45:22
and powerful chemicals that are usually found in glue and solvents. So according to Dr. Isidore Mahalakis,
00:45:31
the levels found in Keith's body were more than enough to kill him. And this is a body that has already been,
00:45:38
what do you call it? embalmed. Embalmed. And buried. So that was the argument that
00:45:46
maybe they came from the embalming, maybe they came from the soil where he's buried.
00:45:51
Yeah. But it was pretty, it was pretty... The doctor felt sure that it was not that.
00:45:56
Because they weren't chemicals used in that. Okay. And they weren't, you know, they weren't high enough levels
00:46:00
that it wouldn't have been absorbed if it was in the soil. Okay. So, you know, it's the argument.
00:46:08
Is it or isn't it, you know? But the doctor saying, I know what I'm looking at. I know what the situation was.
00:46:14
And I'm finding these chemicals there anyway. And that's highly suspicious. Yeah.
00:46:18
But the other side probably we're just as sure that it wasn't true. Well, the thing is once you embalm a body, you can't fucking say anything for sure,
00:46:28
which is why you don't rush to embalm a body. I mean, that one is the biggest glaring thing of that's the biggest fuck up.
00:46:34
Yeah. What do you or cover up? Yeah. Okay. For sure. Okay. Okay. Based on the high levels of this chemical in the victim's body, the doctor concluded that
00:46:46
severe mental confusion would have resulted in impaired decision-making of routine actions. So
00:46:51
he couldn't even decide to kill himself if he wanted to. Okay. Outside investigators claimed
00:46:57
that the way he had apparently hung himself was practically impossible due to the small tree and
00:47:03
the fact that two ropes were used in the suicide, which I don't totally understand because you can
00:47:07
still, if you want to kill yourself and you need two ropes, you can still do. I guess what they
00:47:13
were saying is the way that set up and what it sounded like is they were using one tree against
00:47:17
the other. That basically you can't do that by yourself. So all he would have needed to hang
00:47:23
himself was one rope and one tree, not. And there was nowhere for him to jump off of either.
00:47:28
Yeah. So I think it's probably, they were like, well, you can hang yourself any way you want,
00:47:34
But I feel like in the same way that when people try to drown themselves, you just can't allow
00:47:39
yourself to do that. There's something deep in you that stands up or gets out of water.
00:47:44
Yeah. There's the fight instinct inside of you. Right. So there's that. And then he said, I do not believe that he would have the ability to
00:47:53
hang himself. And for that matter, he would not have the ability to make the decision about hanging
00:47:58
himself. And so he's... ruled that the death must be investigated as a homicide.
00:48:03
The family appealed to the Maryland County PD and eventually the United States Attorney General,
00:48:08
Janet Reno, for a criminal investigation into the death as well as the subsequent actions of the police department.
00:48:16
All requests have been denied. Oh. Yeah. So here's what I wrote. So how did Keith die?
00:48:21
And these are kind of taken all over the internet of ideas. Did he overdose on solvents?
00:48:28
that were found in his body. He was at a party with friends. Maybe they were huffing.
00:48:34
Maybe they were doing drugs. And he overdosed and his friends panicked and staged his death to look like a suicide
00:48:40
to avoid police, which would make sense of his clothes being changed because maybe he vomited all over his clothing.
00:48:47
Maybe there was blood on that. And so that's why they changed his clothes, including his shoes.
00:48:52
And they just wanted to make it look like a suicide. or did someone come from behind with a rag
00:48:59
and that's why he had the solvents inside of him. So it wasn't his choice. Yeah.
00:49:05
His backpack had some of his favorite tapes in it, which points to him maybe going to a party.
00:49:09
That's just in my opinion, like when you're going out with friends, you're like, I'll bring some music.
00:49:15
We're going to hang out. Right. Because back in the, I will say this, in the 80s, you didn't travel with tapes.
00:49:22
like you would make one mixtape maybe and bring it somewhere, but like you usually left that
00:49:27
either at home or in your car because they were just such a pain. Yeah. So he had his backpack,
00:49:33
his favorite tapes in it, which makes me think it's someone he was going to visit someone he knew
00:49:37
in that, what just that I was thinking about. It's like- Party plan. If it was a party,
00:49:42
he would have bought a mixtape. Yeah. One or two tapes. If it was his friends, he'd be like,
00:49:46
I want you to hear this tape, this new one, this one's great. Right. Does that make any sense?
00:49:51
I think so. That's off the top of my head and clearly just speculation. We're just speculating.
00:49:55
Yeah. So, okay. Some people thought that he may have been, and this is on like, you know,
00:50:04
Wiki, what's it called? Reddit and shit. That he may have been an informant to the police
00:50:10
and he was found out by the local drug dealers, which might've been the guys in the car.
00:50:15
And they were looking for him and killed him, which makes sense that the cops would cover it
00:50:20
because they don't want everyone to know that they caused a murder. Yes. Which is actually,
00:50:25
I keep trying to find this murder that I found out about a long time ago. There was this girl,
00:50:29
it's kind of small town. The cops found all this LSD on her and said, you're going to jail forever
00:50:35
or you need to be our informant. And the guys, the drug dealers, she went over there wired,
00:50:39
they found out, shot her in the fucking head. Yeah. But it took them a long time to find out about,
00:50:43
I can't find that one. I think I remember you telling me about that one. It sounds familiar.
00:50:48
It's always stuck with me. It's like the sweet hippie, you know, in the nineties, hippie girl.
00:50:53
Yeah. Okay. So was it a hate crime? Very well could have been. Did he actually somehow commit suicide?
00:51:03
I mean, that's always an option too. It's not, it's not gone. Yeah. So in a final disturbing twist,
00:51:10
the one person who may have been able to answer those questions turned up dead under suspicious circumstances.
00:51:16
Mark Finley? Mark Finley. Oh shit. And when he was one of the guys who came looking for Keith a few days before he died and his mother had received the package that said Mark Finley's next, she told him and he said to her that he would be by to see her soon.
00:51:35
And she said, he said, I need to unload. So maybe he was one of the friends at the party.
00:51:43
Maybe he knew something. So one month after she received those photos and talked to him, he was dead.
00:51:50
According to police, he died accidentally when he struck a curb on his bike and was thrown off in what was described
00:51:58
as a freak accident. However, according to paramedics who were on the scene, his wounds were not consistent with a bicycle accident.
00:52:06
His wounds were more consistent with being hit by a car or being hit with a baseball bat.
00:52:10
Oh, man. His wounds were greater than that could have been, than that falling would have caused.
00:52:18
Right. Especially in the location where it allegedly took place. Yeah. So his mother, Mary Cooey died suddenly in May 25th in 2009.
00:52:30
And she dedicated- Keith's mother? Yeah. She dedicated, you know, her life after that finding justice.
00:52:36
They spent a lot of money. they had, what's it called? Awards for finding, for information.
00:52:45
Reward? Yes. Yeah. Not awards. Well, monetary awards, or as we know them, rewards.
00:52:53
Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Awards too positive for this. I mean. Listen. So she died, never found any justice,
00:53:02
but Keith's sister, little sister, Sherry Warren, has taken up her mom's fight. She says that even if he died of an accidental overdose,
00:53:12
she still wants the Maryland County PD to be held accountable for their actions.
00:53:16
So she organizes marches. She is still looking for answers. There's still rewards out there.
00:53:23
And she just wants answers. Yeah. Also just that idea, it's just that thing of like,
00:53:31
if something procedurally is so screwed up that they're taking pictures of a dead body
00:53:37
and there's just kind of a dude loitering in the background or there's no perimeter on the crime scene
00:53:42
or they're rushing a body to be taken to the funeral home. Like all of those things,
00:53:50
aside from the injustice to this family and to this victim, they can do it that way ever again So it that idea too that like this it just that thing of the crime procedure cannot be that screwed up
00:54:05
Like you just have to learn from those mistakes. Say it's all a mistake. Yeah. Best case scenario.
00:54:10
It's just a series of terrible mistakes. Especially because those people who were there at the time
00:54:16
are probably not on the force anymore. They probably retired. Yeah. So it's kind of admitting,
00:54:22
it's the thing of like, when you hear on these, on like, you know, 48 hours and all these things of like cops saying
00:54:29
or detectives saying, yeah, we did that wrong and we learned from it. It's so refreshing to hear
00:54:34
because everyone makes mistakes, you know, and we're fucking big on the eighties and nineties.
00:54:40
And before that being fucked up in terms of, you know, procedures. Yeah. So it is. And it is tough
00:54:47
because to be involved in stopping crime, you have to be a big, tough man who is brave
00:54:58
and faces the worst of all society all day, every day. And so being flexible and being able to admit mistakes
00:55:07
and all those kinds of things, don't go along with that persona. And I think that's changing too.
00:55:12
It's that thing of like, no one's looking for you to be the Texas Ranger or do every single thing correctly.
00:55:19
Yeah. People make mistakes. And it's like, you know, one guy on the force believes it's not what it is.
00:55:27
He's not going to fight with every other guy on there. He's a woman. He's not going to fight with his fucking boss.
00:55:33
You know, you get labeled snitch and, you know. Right. Or troublemaker or whatever it is.
00:55:39
From what we know on Law and Order and all this shit, you get desk duty after that.
00:55:45
That's exactly right. It's all political. I mean, it's political where it shouldn't be,
00:55:49
but wow, that's amazing. I just can't believe there's not more on that. Yeah. More on that.
00:55:55
Especially because, well, it also kind of goes to show that the, I feel like in this day and age,
00:56:01
because that is such a black man being hung and having that not fully and thoroughly looked into
00:56:09
is such a, it's so problematic and such a like, the kind of thing that, I think people are working very hard to make sure it doesn't get swept under the rug anymore.
00:56:21
Hopefully. And to be fair, Case File did an episode on this like in January. So it's not
00:56:27
nobody's, you know, episode 43, he does, you know, his story as well. So I don't want to
00:56:36
not give them a shout out, him a shout out. Yeah. But it's fucked up, man. Let's open that back up.
00:56:44
Yeah, I'd love to know the answer to that. That's crazy. Okay, we're back. Do you have any updates on this case?
00:56:52
I do. So Keith's sister, Sherry, continues to fight for justice, recently taking Keith's case to a panel of medical examiners.
00:56:59
The panel concluded that there's nothing medically to sustain a suicide ruling in his death.
00:57:04
So Sherry asked the state to change his death certificate. the Maryland Medical Examiner has since reclassified Keith's manner of death to undetermined.
00:57:13
So it's a step forward. Unfortunately, though, Keith's case remains closed for now.
00:57:19
But in 2024, Maryland passed the Death Reclassification Act, which requires police to reopen or reinvestigate cases where a death certificate has been changed.
00:57:29
Sherry is hopeful that this new law will apply to Keith's case and has said that once the case is reopened, she will be able to rest.
00:57:36
Shara's journey to find the truth has been documented in Uprooted, a three-part docuseries available on HBO Max.
00:57:43
And then also, just to point out that when we covered Keith Warren's death in 2017, we couldn't have known that a nearly identical tragedy would be in the headlines again in 2025.
00:57:54
DeMar Travion Reid, also known as Trey, was a young Black man with his whole future ahead of him.
00:57:59
He was a student at Delta State University, and on September 15th, 2025, just so recently, his body was found hanging from a tree on campus, and police ruled a suicide almost immediately.
00:58:12
Just like Keith's case, questions started piling up right away because the scene didn't make sense, evidence was mishandled, and the ruling just felt rushed.
00:58:21
Decades apart, these cases share the same disturbing pattern. Both families have fought to have the deaths investigated as possible homicides, not suicides.
00:58:30
And both families have had a pushback against indifference from law enforcement.
00:58:35
Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump is representing the family. Colin Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Camp is funding an independent autopsy, which is incredible.
00:58:43
You know, there's a lot of Black creators on TikTok that I've seen when this story broke,
00:58:48
just getting on and saying Black men do not go to trees. Right. It's absolutely insane to buy into that story.
00:58:58
Right. Even for one moment, knowing even a little bit about American history, that is an insane excuse belief that it would be any kind of suicide situation.
00:59:09
It's immediately suspicious based on history. And it's also a dog whistle. And it's also where we are in this country where those kinds of things, thinking that they can come back or that people are going to stand by.
00:59:21
Yeah. All right. Let's get into your story, Karen. about the Riverside County serial killer.
00:59:32
Mine's fucked up too. Congratulations. We matched. So rare that you find a murder story that's awful.
00:59:42
I got actually the first whiff of this I ever heard is from the show Real Detective
00:59:49
that we've talked about many times. So good. On Netflix? It is. Yeah Is it on Netflix I not sure It on regular TV now Like I have just TiVo And so I have like 10 episodes from regular TV Okay Then I think only season one is on sorry what you like to call
01:00:08
Regular TV. I mean, at this day and age. It's just regular TV. But you can also, it's on demand on direct TV.
01:00:18
Oh. That's how I watch the one I watched today. I fucking hate on demand. Why? Because you can't put it in, you can't list it.
01:00:26
You have to specifically look for something and then watch it. Yes. You have to know exactly what you're looking for.
01:00:31
Yeah, I fucking hate that. There's a new show coming up called like New York Detect,
01:00:35
or like the FBI in New York or some shit. Yeah. And they went immediately to record it and you can't.
01:00:41
It's just, I'm going to forget it immediately. Oh, we'll make Steven remind you.
01:00:45
Listen, Steven, can you change DirecTV, please? Listen. Give DirecTV a call. You need to start writing some letters.
01:00:51
Yeah. Okay. Okay, so Real Detective, try to watch it any way you can find out. But the reason I loved this
01:00:59
episode was not only because it was a Southern California serial killer that I'd never heard of,
01:01:04
which is pretty fascinating. But on this episode, Real Detective, if you haven't watched it,
01:01:10
basically follows the one detective who solves this crime. And that detective is there talking
01:01:16
about themselves in the 20 years ago or whenever the thing happened. It's like doing the storytelling.
01:01:21
So it's not like a dramatic reenactment. No, it's firsthand experience of what it was like
01:01:27
for this person to catch this case, go through, be at all these crime scenes and eventually, thankfully solve the crime.
01:01:36
And there are reenactments, but they're good. Exactly. Because they actually hire great actors
01:01:42
because it's not just, they don't just do like reenactments that are silent. There are whole scenes that they do like scenes.
01:01:48
Talking and everything. Yeah, it's great. really great show. Um, okay. So this one is the Riverside County. Um, the name of him was the
01:01:56
Riverside County prostitute killer originally, but, uh, I called him the Riverside County serial
01:02:02
killer. And, um, the detective is named Bob Creed. Um, and he, he is especially, um, as a detective,
01:02:12
He is so empathetic and he is so lovely and kind. And the way he talks about all of these victims,
01:02:20
it's the episode starts with him just kind of listing all the victims' names. Like he knows all of them now.
01:02:28
So it's that kind of thing where you're just watching a person who this was his life
01:02:31
and this, he took all of these deaths to heart. And the fact that it was taking place in his hometown
01:02:39
and his home territory. and it's this incredible story. So that's refreshing because when you said the name
01:02:46
of what it was before the prostitute killer, I immediately was like, oh, well then they're not important.
01:02:51
So him naming them immediately makes me think that they're important. It's not only that, but the way they present these murders
01:02:58
in on the show, Real Detectives, they really play down, if not, don't mention the prostitute aspect at all.
01:03:07
So they really are just talking about, they found this victim here, they found this victim here.
01:03:11
And when Bob Creed talks about them, he talks about, like he starts out by saying, these were women with families who loved them.
01:03:22
And he talks about the family, they were good families and they loved their daughters.
01:03:26
So it's because all of the, in the Murderpedia articles that I was reading, it's all just prostitute, drug user.
01:03:34
Because you never know the circumstance of their life. You don't, and the Killing Fields did that really well when they talked to their families and sisters.
01:03:40
but you know when I go missing is it going to be ex-drug addicts you know yeah yeah because I'm a
01:03:46
drug addict I was a drug addict at one point yeah I haven't been in 20 you know it's like
01:03:50
like we did I did a murder when we were doing the live shows and one of them called her a prostitute
01:03:55
but in other places I saw as a masseuse and it's like did she cross some lines at her job and they
01:04:02
called her a prostitute it's just there's so many there's so many nuances around it well yeah and
01:04:06
And when you boil, like in journalism and this kind of journalism, when you boil people's lives down to their criminal records or the basic facts of their lives, what are you choosing to leave in and what are you choosing to bring out?
01:04:20
Because there are lots of people who have been addicted to drugs, whether or not they go to jail for it.
01:04:26
There's lots of people on drugs right now that if you died right now and they took the toxicology report, not you, but like anybody in the street, any man in the street.
01:04:34
that if they died and they took the toxicology report and they'd be like, well, you're filled
01:04:41
with Welbutrin and Adderall and this and that. And you smoke marijuana. Tocomax and pot and you just had four drinks. So are you a drug user? And so should your
01:04:51
murder matter less because of that? And that's kind of like, I was really blown away because
01:04:56
when I was reading these old articles, it was one story, but the way Real Detective presents this is
01:05:03
so different and it's so modern. And then this detective on top of it, you love him and you love
01:05:10
the work that he's doing because it's just very personal. So, all right. So this is like, no,
01:05:15
that's okay. I need you to. And the presentation or this, like what I've written up is a combination
01:05:21
of me writing down things from this episode of Real Detective, but it's also, there's an article
01:05:27
I found in Murderpedia that gave me a really good timeline and talked a lot about these victims.
01:05:32
and it was written by a guy named David Lohr. His article was called The Riverside Prostitute Killer.
01:05:39
I didn't get a year on it, but it does seem old because it's definitely from like the early 90s.
01:05:44
So anyway, October 30th, 1986. So there's an area, I don't know how much you know Riverside,
01:05:52
like the Riverside City or the county. Vaguely even though I from here Yeah it weird because it about an hour and a half directly south of where we are right now And it it halfway We never go there
01:06:05
It's halfway between here and San Diego. It's inland. Lake Elsinore is the big, like this guy.
01:06:12
Yeah. That lake that's nearby it is like kind of the tourist nice area. And that's where this guy lived.
01:06:19
Okay. But, but most of the murder, the crime scenes are in and around Riverside,
01:06:25
the city itself. So there's apparently an industrial area outside of Riverside called
01:06:31
Rubidoux and it's like apparently smoggy and gross and it's all factories. So on October 30th,
01:06:39
1986, there's a man who's collecting cans that around that area and he comes upon the body of a
01:06:47
woman who's stuffed into a drainage ditch. She's covered in blood, her clothes are ripped to shreds
01:06:52
and her genitals have been mutilated. So he runs, this man who discovers this horrible crime scene
01:07:01
runs to the closest factory to get help. And the police identify her as 23-year-old Michelle Yvette Gutierrez.
01:07:09
And she's from Corpus Christi, Texas. And her autopsy reveals that she suffered severe trauma
01:07:15
to anal and vaginal areas. Multiple stab wounds were discovered on her face, chest, and buttocks.
01:07:22
and she has ligature marks on her neck, suggesting that she'd been strangled while she was being mutilated.
01:07:30
Oh, God. Bad news right away. So two weeks later, on December 11th, the body of 24-year-old Charlotte Jean Palmer
01:07:39
is discovered near Highway 74 in Romoland, which is 25 miles away from the Gutierrez murder scene.
01:07:48
And her body was so badly decomposed that they couldn't figure out the cause of death.
01:07:54
So they weren't even necessarily related. In January of 1987, so about a month later,
01:08:03
the naked and mutilated body of 37-year-old Linda Ann Ortega is found along a dirt road in Lake Elsinore.
01:08:10
She had been dead for at least three days. They found alcohol and cocaine in her bloodstream.
01:08:16
investigators later discover that she worked part-time in a fast food restaurant but she also
01:08:23
had a rap shoot for drugs and sex working now the investigators are starting to see that they have
01:08:31
three similar homicides where the young women are being brutally stabbed to death and strangled to
01:08:37
death. So then four months later on May 2nd, 1987, Martha Bess Young, 27-year-old Martha Bess Young
01:08:47
is discovered in a ravine not far from the Ortega murder site. She is fully naked in a spread eagle
01:08:56
position. She also had a rap sheet for sex work and high levels of drugs were found in her body.
01:09:02
and the coroner determines that she's been dead for about three weeks and she had died from a lethal dose of amphetamines
01:09:11
while she was being strangled. So like he injected her with amphetamines while he was strangled or like at some point?
01:09:19
I don't know, just that they're both exist. Like she has a lethal dose in her system,
01:09:23
but the asphyxiation is what she actually died from. But she also, those things were happening
01:09:30
like at the same time. Got it. I was picturing it like at the exact same time. Yes.
01:09:37
Like he shot her up. While he's with one hand on her neck. Yeah. Which probably didn't happen.
01:09:43
No, but the first woman who was found, Michelle Gutierrez, also had stab wounds,
01:09:52
but she, lethal stab wounds, but she died from being strangled. So they do think that he kills them
01:09:58
and attacks them at the same time. Right. I mean, it's like all one frenzy. It seems like.
01:10:03
Jesus Christ. Okay. So then no murders for almost two years. And then January 27th, 1989, the body of 37-year-old Linda May Ruiz, who was known as a sex worker, was discovered on the beach of Lake Elsinore.
01:10:22
And her head was buried in the sand. And the autopsy reveals she has a high blood alcohol level.
01:10:31
and there was sand found in her throat and the cause of death is asphyxiation. Then about six months later, same year,
01:10:42
the body of 28-year-old Kimberly Little is discovered in Cottonwood Canyon. Also, she's also known as a sex worker and a drug user
01:10:51
and her autopsy reveals the presence of alcohol and drugs. the official cause of death is listed as asphyxiation.
01:11:04
And they find on her, they finally find fibers and pubic hairs that are not hers.
01:11:10
So they finally find some evidence that they can use, that they don't know what to compare it against,
01:11:17
but they're saving it. It's crazy that with that many victims, they didn't have a touch of that even.
01:11:23
Right. Right. I mean, not so far that's listed on this article. Or that they knew how to lift at that time.
01:11:31
Yeah, maybe. Because it was pretty early. What year is it? This is in the late 80s.
01:11:35
Oh, yeah. It started in 1987. So they probably didn't know what could be used as DNA. So even if there's some kind of saliva, they wouldn't know.
01:11:45
Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. But also they're starting to, I think, compare, they're starting to keep track of these.
01:11:55
So it's like they know, they can see what's standing out on these victims as they go. And so they're like, okay, we have a pubic hair that's not hers. And like,
01:12:05
they're learning what to look for and what to keep as they go. Okay. So on November 11th,
01:12:11
same year, a local resident discovers the body, bludgeoned and mutilated body of 36-year-old
01:12:20
Judy Lynn Angel near Temescal Canyon Road. And this is just Northwest of Lake Elsinore.
01:12:25
and she also had a rap sheet for sex working and drugs. But they discovered defensive wounds in her hands
01:12:38
when her autopsy is being given. She also had several blows to the face and ultimately she died of having her cranium crushed.
01:12:51
So then the next month, they find the body of 23-year-old Christina Leal in Quail Valley. Now she is fully, appears fully clothed and not having suffered any serious abuse
01:13:05
or mutilation. She was, had a record for sex work and drugs. And at that crime scene,
01:13:14
investigators found tire tracks for the first time. So they made impressions of those tire
01:13:19
tracks. Which I found so fascinating that they think to do that. But to me, that's like
01:13:24
one in a million chance of finding that person. But I guess it can be used once they find somebody they think is a suspect.
01:13:31
What kind of car did they drive at the time? Exactly. And when it's serial killing,
01:13:35
they know they start finding, taking imprints of tire tracks to compare to the other places
01:13:41
because they know that eventually there's going to be some that becomes a consistent impression
01:13:47
that they're like, okay, this is the tire. Maybe this is the car. Interesting. So then when she gets her autopsy, the coroner finds that she had one stab wound to the heart
01:14:00
and they didn't notice it at the beginning because she had been stripped and then redressed by the
01:14:07
killer. Oh, so there was no, through the shirt, there wasn't anything. It wasn't a stab through
01:14:10
the shirt. It was underneath. So the cops didn't see it like right away. Yeah. Super weird.
01:14:17
here's a weirder thing and maybe the weirdest thing of this uh of this whole case um when they
01:14:25
inspected the victim's genital area they found the killer had put a light bulb up into the woman's
01:14:33
no uh vag and the woman's womb so he shut all the way up and it was unbroken and it was also a very
01:14:44
it was a very kind of different, it was an elongated light bulb. it wasn't just a standard.
01:14:54
It was a different, It was kind of old timey looking. It wasn't a common one. For somewhere and something.
01:15:01
Exactly. So they now know that he's escalating and he's becoming more, you know, deviant.
01:15:09
He's starting to do weird shit. That seems like such a big clue that they're almost lucky to have.
01:15:13
Was she dead or alive when that happened? I feel like she must have been dead. I think she must have been dead because it took,
01:15:20
they said it must have taken a really long time for him to be able to put it up there unbroken.
01:15:26
Yeah, because she would have been fighting. Yes. Right. Oh, for fuck's sake. So he is then now,
01:15:31
the escalation is part of that, them knowing he's escalating is because he's leaving things behind intentionally
01:15:39
and he's degrading them more than average because he was, you know, the degradation of being left, you know, often spread eagle,
01:15:50
often half naked in ditches, in drain it, you know, in like on these places where he's just
01:15:56
saying these people are garbage with how he's leaving them. But now he's adding to it even more
01:16:02
in a very upsetting way. Okay. So then on the morning of January 18th, 1990, so it's actually
01:16:11
only a month later, but it's the next year. Investigators get called to a scene east of the
01:16:16
I-15 in Lake Elsinore. A jogger had found the half-nude body of a woman who is identified as
01:16:24
24-year-old sex worker Darla Jane Ferguson. She had been strangled so severely that she nearly
01:16:33
bit off her own tongue. Oh, fuck. I didn't know that was a thing. I didn't either. Investigators
01:16:40
find tire tracks at this crime scene, make impressions at this crime scene. A month later, February 8th, 1990,
01:16:48
farmers working at an orchard in Highgroove find the nude body of 35-year-old Carol Lynn Miller,
01:16:55
also known as a sex worker and drug addict. She had gone missing a month earlier.
01:17:01
She had multiple stab wounds to the chest and she also had a wound near her right nipple.
01:17:10
Um, the, they found pubic hairs on this victim, um, that they kept. And, uh, the, this murder is
01:17:20
where that episode of Real Detective starts because they, they basically come in and they,
01:17:26
they talk about how these murders had been going on. And, but, um, they just, it was that kind of
01:17:34
thing of like, they would have a murder and it would be a sex worker and they would be like,
01:17:38
oh no and they were like suspecting that they had a serial killer but it wasn't until um this
01:17:45
I think this may have been um Bob Creed's like one of his early like when he got put on the case
01:17:54
I mean uh no because I think he was on this task force early but I guess that the point of interest was when he got there and he was looking at the crime scene he realized that his grandfather
01:18:09
used to own that orchard. Whoa. And so he's starting to go, is this guy fucking with us?
01:18:15
Yeah. Like, is this guy doing this on purpose? Because they also, there was a half-eaten grapefruit
01:18:19
that had been peeled, half-eaten, and thrown on the victim. What the fuck? So there was like a lot of kind of messaging in that.
01:18:30
Or just kind of like... He was really freaked out about it. So obviously the guy was taking his time.
01:18:34
He was purposely... Yeah. What's the word? Antagonizing the police. Yeah. That's what...
01:18:42
That's where he started to go like, could this guy know... Could this guy have known that this was my grandfather's?
01:18:49
Like he's like, we used to play here when I was a little kid. Yeah. Coincidental.
01:18:52
so uh i wish i knew exactly when they put this task force together i don't um have it but it
01:19:02
basically it was like i would say probably after the fifth or sixth body they actually put a
01:19:07
dedicated task force together to be like what is going on but the but they never find fingerprints
01:19:12
at any scene um they know that the bodies have been taken to those scenes and dumped there that
01:19:17
So they can rarely find any evidence. And they've only found tire prints twice up until this point.
01:19:26
And no semen? Not that I've ever heard the image. I feel like they would say so.
01:19:32
Yes. So, yeah, so the guy's very careful. Okay, so on December 21st, 1990, a janitor emptying the garbage at a factory complex on Iowa Avenue discovers the nude
01:19:52
and carefully posed body of a young woman who turns out to be 27-year-old Susan Sternfeld,
01:20:00
also local sex worker, drug addict. There's no mutilation on her remains. She died of strangulation. The county coroner eventually finds out.
01:20:09
next 42 year old Kathleen Leslie Milne is discovered on January 19th a motorist is driving by
01:20:24
and sees her body alongside a road northwest of Lake Elsinore she had been rendered
01:20:32
unconscious by several blows to the head and strangled but she had been dead less than 24 hours
01:20:37
oh my god that I would hate to be the person who found her. Yeah, so horrifying.
01:20:44
So then a couple months later, April 27th, a transient stumbles upon the body of 24-year-old Cherie Michelle Pazer,
01:20:53
a part-time maid and sex worker. She'd been left in a flower bed in a bowling alley parking lot.
01:21:00
She'd been violated, strangled, posed. And this is awful. She had a toilet plunger protruding from her vagina.
01:21:07
So this is a person that is intent on degrading, after murdering, degrading these victims.
01:21:17
And there's a couple parts in this episode of Real Detective where he is, Bob Creed is talking, and then he just stops talking and stares, and then they just cut away to something else.
01:21:27
Because he's just like processing it. He's remembering these horrible fucking scenes that he had to come upon and process.
01:21:34
Well, what I noticed too is that it seems like he's getting more and more bold with where he
01:21:39
leaves the bodies. Yes. Because he's not putting them in a drainage ditch where no one will see
01:21:43
him put it there. He's putting it in a flower bed in a parking lot of like probably busy business.
01:21:48
At a bowling alley. Bowling alley. That's just so bold. Yes, exactly right. Because he's gotten
01:21:54
away with it now, how many, 12 times or however many, whatever number I'm on. That's fucking with
01:21:59
them. Yeah. So now he's like, I'm smarter than the police. I can get away with this. I'm doing
01:22:04
whatever I want. I can't breathe. Okay. So now July 4th, 1991, picnickers near Railroad Canyon
01:22:13
Road discover the remains of 37-year-old Sherry Ann Latham. Also has a rap sheet for sex work and
01:22:22
drug use. Her hand was wrapped around nearby branches suggesting she was still alive when
01:22:28
the killer left her. An autopsy later reveals that she'd been strangled and they find cat hairs
01:22:37
on her corpse. According to her friends, she did not own a cat. So now the investigators
01:22:43
are thinking the killer does. So they take those hairs and they put them aside. Kind of monster murders women, but also has a cat. I mean, it kind of goes to show how great cats are.
01:22:58
They love you no matter what, no matter what kind of monster you are. Monsters love them no matter what.
01:23:04
Okay. So they get their first major lead on August 15th, 1991, because a man driving a gray van
01:23:12
picks up a sex worker near the University of California, Riverside. And she told investigators that everything was fine at first.
01:23:19
Then he becomes angry and starts assaulting her. And she manages to jump out of his van and run down the street.
01:23:25
Good girl. so he leaves but then he stops in a nearby corner and he picks up her friend 23 year old kelly
01:23:38
hammond so in this is what's interesting this is this i'm reading from the a part of that article
01:23:46
But in the episode of Real Detective, when they come upon this body, Bob Creed lifts up the tarp that over her whatever covering her And he goes I know this girl She lives in his neighborhood
01:24:05
Oh my. Oh. And he watched her and her mom walk by his house a couple of times a day.
01:24:11
So he knows her. And that's again, where he's like, this guy's fucking with me. Yeah.
01:24:16
This guy knows that I'm working on this case. He knows these people. Well, I would think this is someone I know.
01:24:22
This is someone who knows me. Right. Well, the other thing too, it's smart of you to think.
01:24:27
The other thing too is in this episode of Real Detective, they do not mention that either of these women
01:24:33
are prostitutes at all. Sex workers. Sex workers, sorry, at all. Which I think is really interesting
01:24:40
because they basically, the story comes in as this girl, the girl that got away, her name is Allie Whitecloud.
01:24:48
And she comes in and says, we were at a bar. This is how they, and I wonder if it's,
01:24:53
because that's how either she wanted it presented or that they were trying to erase the stigma of sex work.
01:25:00
But it's Allie Whitecloud comes in and says, my friend and I were at a bar and we met this guy
01:25:05
and she wanted to go home with him. I didn't want to. He offered both of us a ride.
01:25:11
I said, don't go with him. And she did. And so she goes to the police and gives a full description and describes the van.
01:25:18
Fuck yeah. um so i don't whatever version of this is the truth or whatever i i think it doesn't really
01:25:28
matter though it doesn't matter but i also think it's interesting and i like the fact that real
01:25:32
detective just presented as it's a girl that almost got pulled into a van and then came in
01:25:37
and spoke for her friends to the police um with respect yeah yeah uh so so they give um they do
01:25:47
an APB with the description of this guy. And he's the creepiest look. It's the creepiest looking
01:25:51
picture because he's wearing like sunglasses and- Wait, a photograph or like a drawing?
01:25:56
It's a drawing. It's a police sketch. And the van he's driving is 1989 Mitsubishi van,
01:26:04
which is one of the weirdest looking vans. It's got that flat front. Is that the one?
01:26:08
Yes. Like it, yes. Like when you're in the front seat, wherever you park, it's like you're right
01:26:12
there. I totally know that one. Yeah. And it has a weird, almost like a nautical window in the back,
01:26:18
like a little round window, like a creepy van window. Yeah. So, okay. So now they have way
01:26:26
more information about this guy than they've had for since 1986. So it's a huge, it's a huge lead.
01:26:34
they put out the APB and so now the cops are looking for that van oh they also say
01:26:44
is there anything else you can remember and she says that when he opened up the back
01:26:48
she remembers seeing a red sleeping bag and at most of these crime scenes they found
01:26:58
animal hair which turned out to be a tan cat tan cat hair at every scene and red nylon fibers, which they link to and match to
01:27:11
the kind of nylon fibers that they find on sleeping bags. What a crazy thing. I feel like there's so many people, and this is what he talks about in Someone
01:27:19
Knows Something, where it's like, that is one detail that you wouldn't, why would you bother
01:27:23
mentioning that? But that is actually really important to the case. So that's really interesting.
01:27:28
I thought you were going to say that she said she saw a cat in his veins. No. Well, it's close.
01:27:35
It's the other thing. But that's when they presented in The Real Detective Show,
01:27:41
when she's giving all that information, when she says that thing about a red sleeping bag,
01:27:46
he's just like, dang, this is the guy. Love it. So they put out all that information.
01:27:51
and uh oh so they the basically from from all of the um information and the victims that they've
01:28:01
had so far the task force knows this that all the victims are found raped stabbed asphyxiated nude
01:28:08
posed they all have ligature marks on their wrists ankles and neck they have one set of shoe
01:28:14
impressions um so they know that he carries them to the scene dead and leaves them there
01:28:20
and that he works alone. They say that if he's married, his wife would work nights
01:28:27
because then he can just do, clearly he can do whatever he wants at night and he's not being questioned about it
01:28:33
or no one's suspicious of him. They never find fingerprints at any of the scenes,
01:28:38
but they consistently find cat hair and they consistently find those red nylon fibers.
01:28:44
It'd be more exciting if I had said that before that thing I just said. But anyhow.
01:28:49
um so on october 30th 1991 um they see a man is driving along summer hill drive and he sees um
01:28:59
what he thinks is a mannequin never a mannequin you guys never a fucking mannequin he goes up and
01:29:05
finds that it's the dead body of 35 year old delilah uh zamora wallace um mother of five um
01:29:13
also known sex worker and drug addict. She's also, her cause of death is asphyxiation.
01:29:21
Then two days before Christmas, Eleanor Ojeda Casares' body is found near Victoria Avenue,
01:29:29
which is just down the street from the Riverside Police Station. She's 39 years old.
01:29:36
She's been strangled and her right breast is missing. She was also had a rap sheet
01:29:41
for sex work and drugs. and the cops are positive that he placed her there too close to the police station to fuck with them.
01:29:51
So the very last victim is 31 Catherine McDonald She found raped and murdered in a field by a construction broker There they find a set of tire tracks and they find footprints
01:30:05
that match a pro-wing tennis shoe. They know now he's rushing, he's escalating because this is the sloppiest he's ever been.
01:30:17
So they process all of that. Then they go to make a next known, next of kin, you know,
01:30:26
they go to tell notification for the next of kin. They go to her house. They find the front door open and the house is dark.
01:30:34
They walk through the house, guns drawn, and they finally find Catherine's three-year-old daughter, who's been
01:30:41
by herself since her mother disappeared the night before, hiding downstairs. So sad, and it's the saddest part of
01:30:49
the whole episode. this little girl who was just hiding alone in a house because her mom didn't come back.
01:30:55
Her mom went, took the garbage out and disappeared. Oh, so she didn't even see anything.
01:31:00
She's just like, something is wrong. Her mom walked outside and never came back inside at night.
01:31:05
Oh my God. Horrifying. Okay, so she was snatched. Yes, she was. And which he hadn't done that before.
01:31:13
It was out in front of her own house. Oh my God. Um, they have, uh, altogether they had found five different types of tire prints at these crime scenes.
01:31:23
Um, so, so Bob Creed decides, he asked the guy to check, is there one type of van that could use all five of those, um, uh, types of tires?
01:31:35
And one type of van comes back and it's a 1989 Mitsubishi and it's this type of van.
01:31:43
Um, it's so weird looking. So on the night of January 9th, 1992, Officer Frank Orta is patrolling University Avenue, which is where a lot of sex workers were known to walk.
01:31:55
And he sees that exact type of van. So he follows it. Can you imagine seeing that?
01:32:02
Yeah. There it is. What the fuck? And it has expired tags. And so he pulls it over and he talks to the driver a little bit.
01:32:11
He asks the driver to open up the back of the van. The driver says, sure, no problem.
01:32:15
He opens it up. There's a red sleeping bag there. And the officer places him under arrest.
01:32:21
Now they bring him into the station and somebody immediately starts questioning him.
01:32:26
They don't wait for Bob Creed, who is the head of this task force for like five fucking years.
01:32:32
They don't wait for him to come down to question him. Just whoever was there. I don't know exactly how it happened.
01:32:38
So the guy they arrest immediately is like, I want a lawyer. I'm not saying anything.
01:32:42
Son of a cunt, man. So Bob Creed doesn't even get to question him. Oh. But here's what they end up finding out,
01:32:49
that the guy, the driver of this van is a man named Bill Suff. He was born August 20th, 1950 in Torrance, California.
01:32:58
According to his high school classmates, he was friendly, a skillful musician, and he graduated 87th in a class of 144.
01:33:07
So not a, you know, sounds like a C- student. his brothers were very troubled one of them was a drug addict
01:33:15
the other was a pedophile Suff ended up living in Texas and there in 1974 when he was 24 years old
01:33:27
he and his former wife were arrested and later convicted for the beating death of their two year old daughter
01:33:34
are you fucking kidding me he was there sentenced to 70 years in prison but he was paroled after serving 10 years.
01:33:42
Why? No. His wife served 20 months, but her conviction was overturned when it was found that he was fully responsible
01:33:50
for the beating death of a two-year-old child. Can you imagine not only having your child
01:33:56
beat to death by your husband, but then getting sent to being held responsible and sent like she's mourning in the most painful way.
01:34:04
And then she goes to jail. and in jail, you hurt your own kid. If you're in jail for hurting your own kid,
01:34:11
you're like a pedophile in man's jail. I mean, they are like tortured. And so, yeah, she spent over a year in prison
01:34:21
as a baby killer. So when Bill Suff is paroled, he goes back to Southern California.
01:34:30
He gets out of Texas and he then gets a job. He's now 41 years old. He gets a job as a stock clerk, and he is known to be a writer of books.
01:34:43
He likes to drive fancy cars. He does community service work. He also likes to impersonate police officers.
01:34:49
Of course he does. His neighbors described him as a friendly nerd who was always doing things to help people.
01:34:56
What the fuck? Yeah. So basically now Bob Creed is scrambling to find evidence they can hold him on
01:35:03
because they finally have him in custody, but he's gonna get out and more women are gonna die.
01:35:11
So they look into his background, they find out that he works for Riverside County Supply.
01:35:18
So he is a clerk at the supply company that supplies desks and chairs for the Riverside Police Department.
01:35:30
So when they were putting together the task force and building the task force. Every time they would order a desk
01:35:38
or some chairs or a chalkboard, well, Bill Suff was the guy that would come and deliver it straight into the room
01:35:46
where they were investigating his serial murders. What? I bet he enjoyed that so much.
01:35:54
He not only enjoyed it, he knew exactly what they were doing. So the first time they knew...
01:36:00
that they had tire imprints, he changed the tires on his van. Yeah. Every time he would go in there
01:36:05
because they were constantly... At one point they said, some officers working on the case
01:36:12
asked him if they could use his phone and made a phone call on his phone trying to track something down
01:36:19
for the murders he was committing. So he was just this neutral face in the background that they saw as like,
01:36:27
oh, that's the delivery guy, that's the clerk guy. But meanwhile, he was all eyes and ears every time he was in that room.
01:36:34
He was looking at everything. He was memorizing all of it. He knew exactly what they were doing
01:36:39
and he knew who they were. Which is weird that he then didn't get rid of the red sleeping bag,
01:36:44
kind of. Right. That must not have been a prominent thing up on the board, but it's so
01:36:49
amazing because they, in Real Detective, they set it in really perfectly where he's in the bat when
01:36:54
like the first time they have the task force meeting, Bob Creed clears the room and then starts telling everybody,
01:37:00
blah, blah, blah. Well, Bill Suff is one of the people he asked to leave the room.
01:37:04
So he's in there, like he's working side by side with an, like near the police. Oh my God.
01:37:13
So Bob Creed gets a search warrant for Bill Suff's house. And when he arrives there,
01:37:19
he's surprised to meet Bill Suff's 18 year old wife. Oh God. So this is where it all comes together.
01:37:27
She tells the detective she works nights. He's standing in their kitchen. She offers to make coffee.
01:37:34
She's like, I need coffee because I'm so tired because I was up all night. He's like, oh, you work nights.
01:37:39
A tan cat runs through the room. He looks over and sees a pair of pro-wing tennis shoes over in the corner where all the shoes are by the back door.
01:37:49
So when he's looking out the window, he sees a truck bed that's filled with tires.
01:37:54
And he's like, what's up with the tires? And she's like, oh, he's always out there
01:37:57
changing the tires on that van. So he was changing the tires. Anytime he would see them get a tire imprint,
01:38:04
he would change the tires on his van. My, yeah. Then the kicker is he looks at the lamp
01:38:11
that's hanging over the kitchen table. Oh my God. Tips it up and sees it's exactly the same kind of light bulb
01:38:18
that was left inside his victim. Fuck. And he's like, this is, we're here. So he, essentially they arrest him, they get him.
01:38:27
He is tried and convicted for 12 counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
01:38:32
The jury deliberated for 10 minutes. Oh my God. And they came back, they gave him the death penalty.
01:38:38
He's still on death row in San Quentin to this day. And the police believe he is responsible for 22 murders, if not more, in Riverside County.
01:38:49
I wonder what, you know, he was gone for those two years. I wonder where he went and what happened at that time.
01:38:55
You mean where there was no bodies found? Yeah. Yeah. Or yeah, there was no bodies found for two years.
01:38:59
Yeah. Because that's a long time. And he usually, it just goes faster and faster.
01:39:04
And Bob Creed who I have to say is just like one of those I feel like detectives are those they like all the good cops become detectives It like the ones that are on the street that
01:39:16
are good at it and they're smart and they care. Yeah. And they get promoted and they become
01:39:21
detectives. And he's so clearly it was one of those people that like treated these women,
01:39:25
like his neighbors and his friends. And he, when he talks about going to talk to Kelly Hammond's
01:39:29
mother, it's like a big part of that episode where he's like, we know these people, we have
01:39:33
to tell them we have to now change their life for the worse by us being there and being like
01:39:38
your daughter's dad. He eventually, Detective Bob Creed eventually became the head of major crimes,
01:39:46
the major crimes unit in Riverside County. Yeah. And that's the Riverside serial killer.
01:39:54
Wow. That was fucking crazy. Isn't that great? And I have no idea. Good job, dude.
01:39:59
Thanks. I know. I had no idea either. Like Riverside is close by and I've never heard of that guy.
01:40:06
It's so funny. Like the way you find these murders now, I just put in the weirdest
01:40:10
searches and you still don't know anything. I know. What's going on. Also, I do find it
01:40:16
fascinating. Like they know almost nothing about this guy's childhood, which I would love to know
01:40:24
because obviously it was insanely fucked up. If his two brothers are insanely fucked up and he is
01:40:29
the worst of all of them. I'd love to know what kind of evil and insane parents they had and what
01:40:35
that situation was. But I really love that show for how much it really shows. It's like the side
01:40:43
that you never get to hear, which is these detectives and like the experience that they
01:40:46
go through and the years sometimes that they spend trying to find these killers. It's just,
01:40:52
it's so insane. There's the one on the killer that you did, the guy. Oh, yeah. Ben...
01:40:59
Mendelsohn. No, his last name is Ben something. Oh. The child. Bar Jonah. Yes. Yes.
01:41:07
Yes. That wasn't even what I was saying and you knew what I was saying. I'm so shocked that I knew that.
01:41:12
And what I like about that show too is that it gives you little glimpses into the PTSD that you know they fucking have.
01:41:19
And so they're not trying to be like, this is what happened. It's like, the one I did, he starts crying.
01:41:25
Yes. No, they suffer terribly. I mean, Jesus, like that guy having to, it was like a child killer that had multiple victims.
01:41:34
And every story was horrible. And that one is especially great because the way he just, the way he eventually finds him is he starts walking the path that those children were taking to school.
01:41:47
And he finds Barjona standing in a security guard outfit at the end of one of those alleys.
01:41:51
This is why you make them move their finger from the photo. That's right. This is why you fucking do it.
01:41:57
That's exactly right. If someone knocks on your door, if you get pulled over and they're holding up a badge,
01:42:02
you fucking call that number into the police department and make sure it's real before you.
01:42:07
Yeah. I guess if you're on a rural area, if you're alone in the house. Now you're finding reasons to say rural.
01:42:14
God damn it. I am You right Rural You can say farmland You in farmland Out in the country Out in the country Do not you don have to You don have to
01:42:26
Well, you get to check first. It's your right. And like, I'll tell you what, and those FBI agents flipped,
01:42:32
the one guy flipped open. His quiet friend behind him. I was like, what are you doing?
01:42:37
It kind of looked like they were coming for us. Take us away. A little bit. But you don't look at the ID.
01:42:44
when someone flips a thing like that at you, you look at the badge. You look at the thing where you're like,
01:42:49
oh, this is a real cop. And you get all caught up in the kind of like the gold badge part.
01:42:54
I wonder if you're allowed to say, hand me that and I want to look at it. What's your name?
01:42:58
What's your this? What's your that? Well, a real cop would give it to you. Yeah.
01:43:01
What would they have to lose? Yeah, totally. I mean, they would want you to believe they were a cop.
01:43:06
It's why they're showing it to you. Listen. Hey, look. Be cautious instead of. Everyone listening is like, we are.
01:43:14
Yeah, you've already taught us that. We know. We did that before. Oh, my God. That's all this podcast is.
01:43:23
I know. Is warning you and scaring you and giving you anxiety. It's all we want.
01:43:26
And then telling you how to get rid of your anxiety. Okay, we're back. Karen, are there any updates?
01:43:34
There are. This is such, obviously, another horrible moment in time. So this correction is awful as well.
01:43:42
When Suff murdered his daughter, I said that she was two years old. She was actually two months old.
01:43:49
Jesus Christ. Also in 2024, investigators linked Bill Suff to the 1986 cold case killing of a 19-year-old Southern California woman named Kathy Small.
01:43:58
They did that using DNA from Kathy's clothing and the rape kit that was collected after her murder.
01:44:04
And when detectives interviewed Suff about the DNA match, he confessed he remains on death row.
01:44:10
He's 75 years old. Wow. Yeah. All right. Well, this was such a dark episode. Let's go back and hear what we had to say about our good things of the week way back in 2017.
01:44:24
What's a positive thing from this week? I fucking totally knew it at some point and now I forgot it. What's yours?
01:44:31
I would just say that this my this past birthday was like one of the best birthdays I've ever had
01:44:39
because I'm at the age now where like I honestly don't care about birthdays so the last couple
01:44:44
have been super low-key if not totally doing nothing you didn't even fucking we were recording
01:44:51
that day and you didn't tell me I know I mean I didn't remember well but why would you I mean
01:44:56
But you should have told me, but you didn't care. So you don't. Yeah. But that was in my mind.
01:45:01
I was like, it doesn't matter and I don't care. But it's actually not true because, well, first of all, so many people because of your tweet
01:45:09
responded to the lovely tweet you sent to me about my birthday. But there were just so many nice things and not just people that listen to the podcast,
01:45:19
but then like my actual friends knew and said lovely things. And it like when you actually give people a chance to do that if they want to then they do And it really nice And it makes them feel good too Yeah exactly It just it was just lovely And we had that fun dinner in Washington DC
01:45:37
Yeah. That was so nice. Like, what if I just threw up? For no reason. It was just like a really lovely kind of
01:45:45
redefining birthday experience. I love that. Yeah, it was nice. Happy birthday. Thanks.
01:45:53
Congratulations. Thanks so much. Way to go. Um, something I love or I'm happy about is, uh, when Steven babysits the cats when we go out of
01:46:02
town, it just makes me so happy because I know they love him and they like hanging out with him.
01:46:07
And I know this because Steven, the first couple of days of us being gone, Steven babysat them and
01:46:12
sent me photos constantly. And I could tell they were happy and they don't run away when he comes
01:46:15
in. Um, and then my dad was going to stay at our place for the rest of the weekend. And so Steven
01:46:21
left. And when my dad, who doesn't like cats came in the door, he said, Oh, Elvis came out at first
01:46:27
and then ran away immediately. And I think he thought my dad was Steven and got excited because
01:46:33
the guy who gives him all the cookies was there and then realized it was my dad ran away. So I
01:46:39
think Steven, it means a lot to me that to have someone there who I really, I know loves my cats.
01:46:45
Yeah. I mean, I just have the best time. And like, I've always told you that like,
01:46:49
I'll come over here. You're always like, you and Vince are always like, come do some work,
01:46:53
hang out for a while. And then I end up just hanging out with the cats. I don't get anything done.
01:46:57
It's just pictures of Elvis, good pets. Yeah. I love it. Have a good time. You have my Instagram password for the cats too.
01:47:04
So I'm like, fucking go for it. It's great. Thank you. So thanks for doing that.
01:47:09
And guess I pay him. Don't worry. I'm not. You get paid in loving, and Mike's being nice to you.
01:47:15
Yeah. Okay. Hey, we're back. Steven no longer watches my animals when I'm gone. I'm sorry to say that we couldn't let him anymore because he worked for us.
01:47:27
So my friend's been doing it since then, my friend Crystal. So Steven just gets pictures of the animals.
01:47:33
That's right. Sorry, Steven. All right. So this episode was originally called Never a Mannequin.
01:47:39
Which is a hard one to top. Yeah. We could call it What Do Girls Like? Combining true crime and Zac Efron is what you meant by that.
01:47:48
And you are not wrong. Yeah. Or flip a coin to flip a coin, which was Georgia talking about our lack of professionalism compared to, say, the other investigative podcasts that we are fans of.
01:48:00
And not them. Yes. And never have been. Never tried to. Or we could call it reasons to say rural.
01:48:05
Oh, I hate that word so much. There's always a reason to say it. Yeah. Get in there.
01:48:10
All right. Well, thank you guys for listening to Rewind. Let's go back in time and we'll let Elvis say goodbye to you from 2017.
01:48:17
Aw. But you guys, thanks for listening. Yes. We really appreciate it. And you guys are, this is the best.
01:48:27
I can't, this is the best. It's pretty nice. It is. Yeah, I like it. All right. Well, you guys stay sexy.
01:48:33
And don't get murdered. Elvis? You want a cookie? Okay, bye. Bye.