446 - I’m Michael Caine | My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

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hello and welcome to my favorite murder that's georgia hartstark that's karen kilgareth

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no no sips right after we say something it leaves you to say something fuck but it's hard to do this

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that's the spot guys georgia has brand new bangs thank you this is thank you thank you

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this is breaking news new bangs i just cut them myself up in my sink upstairs. Did you? Yeah, because like we're trying to make the audio studio filmable so we can put

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that footage up because people like video podcasts these days. I haven't been on camera since before

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the pandemic when I was in my 30s. So now, now I'm dealing with 40s Georgia. And so sometimes you

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just have to come straight home and cut your bangs off. You know what I mean? And so teenage

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Georgia shows up and goes, you know, we need bangs. Right. You know, it'd be great. That's a

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lot of face on camera. Maybe half. Let's do half that face on camera instead. Let's do a bunch of

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bangs, maybe some scarves wrapped around our necks. I feel like piercings always distract,

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you know, on a face. Yes. Especially late in life piercings. Very distracting. Like, oh,

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she's got a cool job. Probably she's got one of those septum piercings. Or she's going through

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something right because she never had this before yep and now she needs it it could be anything

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i feel like maybe more effective than a septum piercing would be like we get a little whiteboard

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in the studio and just write down what's bothering you that day just write down the like part of your

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like for me it will be my neck oh yeah the neck's there for sure being a woman is like it's hard

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because you want to be like casual about it and be like i love myself i'm a feminist i like the way

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I look beauty is like a fucked up standard and not anyone can live up to it. And I want to look

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like myself. And then you see yourself and you're like, no, that's not what I look like.

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But not like that. But that's not what I see. Also, when I am a full on TikTok addict,

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I am watching like what seems to be 16 year olds being like, here's this great moisturizer for

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fine lines and wrinkles where it's like, ma'am, ma'am, it can't be you that's telling me this.

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I can't. No, no. Yeah. That and like- All those kinds of things. Don't tell me your skincare routine if your skin is already perfect, which I know is like

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the point, like your skin is perfect because of your skincare routine, but I want to see

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your fucked up skin when you're still doing your skincare routine and it's not fucking

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working. Right. That's the thing that got me into Korean skincare was all of the people who had like fungal acne

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or cystic acne that were like, they went to it like as a last resort and it actually worked.

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I mean, you could join my church. Still out there. Is it TikTok or is it Korean skincare?

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Korean skincare church. Yeah. Yeah. I'm dabbling in it. I'm giving it a shot. Okay.

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Cause I could put some products together for you. Just tell me your complaints. That would be great.

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Let me know. I'll put some stuff together. That's our new thing. Literally. The last time I had people over, I brought my friend Chase Bernstein because she's a

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Maxinista herself. And I was like, do you know about this? Because not only are these products

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great, they all cost $12 and it's insane. And so I brought her into my bathroom and just opened

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underneath the sink where it was like a small TJ Maxx under the sink. Cause I have to buy it if I

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see it. I don't need it, but someone's going to need it. You're an influencer. You need to try it.

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It's right. This is swag. I have to give away to continue my life. Yeah. Well, this is a true

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crime podcast. Is it? That's not true. Someone said it was once and we just went with it.

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That can't be the truth about this podcast. I have a true crime documentary I can recommend

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so we can be on track for a hot second. Okay. It's just a two part documentary called Into

00:05:45

the Fire, The Lost Daughter on Netflix. Did you see the trailer for this? No. It's so wild.

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Essentially this woman who, when she was very young, gave her daughter up for adoption,

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finds out 20 years later that that daughter went missing when she was 14 And then is like this badass who like how has this not been solved

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No one's looked into this at all. Here I go. And like with the help of, you know, the sleuths tracks down what happened.

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And it's wild. I'm almost positive one of us covered that at some point in the past eight years.

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Because it sounds familiar like in a forensic files way. And then it also sounds familiar in a one of us talking way.

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If we covered it, man, then I don't know what I'm doing. But that idea that this mother already had these regrets and these second thoughts and all these things.

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And then when she goes to finally find that daughter that she had been thinking about the entire time, she hears this horrible news.

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Right. And then takes up the cause. It's like one of the most beautiful, tragic stories.

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And it's so sad because when it comes down to it, she's like, I gave up my baby when I was 17 because I was convinced that I was giving her a good life.

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Yeah. And these parents that needed her and wanted her and it turns out the call is coming from inside the house.

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I mean, you kind of can figure that out. But it's like she's so angry that that didn't happen.

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Yeah. That she just fuels her. And it's really amazing. A horrible thing. And then she actually gets to do something about it.

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Right. Totally. God damn it. When did you call from that? Wait, sorry, which one of us covered it?

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You. Why don't I remember that? There's fucking 500 episodes. What do you mean? I can't remember what happened this morning.

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Okay. All right. So yes, Karen did cover it in an episode. What was it, Alejandra?

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309. Not counting is the key. The sixth anniversary special. Okay. Oh, okay. And I bet it was a great job.

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So you should listen to that and watch the documentary. Listen, I'm taking this feedback as it stands,

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which is I need to tell you stories better so that you remember them for years and years.

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How many cans of wine deep was I when you told that story? That's the most important question.

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Oh, I actually could follow that up with something that is also true crime related

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in a way that I thought was so touching and so beautiful. Well, first of all, I just wanted to

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say, and I think most people understand this at this point, it's been going on for so long.

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We record this podcast on Monday and then the episode drops on Thursday. Last week,

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we recorded the episode the day before that debate. So we had no idea what was about to happen.

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And we would have absolutely been thrilled to talk about it. When she basically paused,

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instead of calling him a motherfucker is one of the like, most I think for me personally,

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I'll just say therapeutic moments that I've had in a while in terms of what is going on around us.

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So everybody still has to try really hard and nothing is for sure. But wow. It's so funny.

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Yeah. And like the restraint that she had as a woman had to practice in that moment or in that

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entire thing that that clearly isn't an equal thing are the restraint that we learn from

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childhood because you have to seem a certain way or no one's going to take you seriously

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is like was just on stage. Yeah. Well, and also just she's so overqualified the way it usually is for black women in this country, which is, oh, I have to come up here and do all this tap dancing to a person that some say can't read.

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That's just a that's just a rumor. Like essentially a toddler could have my job or I could have the job I've been training for for decades.

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So. Right. Yeah. Let's see. Let's see how that goes. Anyways, good news. Yeah. Love good news.

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We love some good news. Who do we do? And then there was inspiring news because of the Emmys, which I think happened last night or the night before Sunday, probably.

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Last night, yeah. For us, last night. For us, it's last night. Deferro Wunatai, who was nominated for lead actor from Reservation Dogs, one of my favorite shows in the past decade, I'd say.

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And he's the first indigenous man to be nominated in a lead acting category for an Emmy.

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Wow. He showed up to the red carpet with a big red handprint across his mouth to represent all the missing and murdered indigenous women that no one is talking about. And it was fucking amazing. Like, it looked incredible. Of course, then everyone was talking about asking him about it. And just like, to take that moment that he could have made all about himself.

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And I'm sure most people would be like, hey, this in and of itself is this incredible achievement, that whole cast.

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Yeah. It's an incredible achievement that all you guys are here and you were so good in all those seasons of that show.

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But instead he was just like, why don't we actually do something here? I mean, inspiring.

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So beautiful. That's incredible. Oh, I have a little like a fun, cute little thing that we can.

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It's almost like a story that would be on bananas, but it made me so fucking happy.

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and I feel like majority of our listeners would rejoice, that there's a bed and breakfast in Scotland

00:11:02

that lets you run a bookshop. Like they have a bookshop, you rent it out like as a B&B

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and like for a week, that's your holiday. I bet there's a cat. I bet you could bring a cat.

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You just fucking, it's a volunteer run enterprise that lets visitors run their own bookshop.

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How incredible is that? I saw that on BBC Scott News. Sorry, do you have to balance that drawer every night?

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Oh, that's, yeah, that's hard. I bet there's like a, if you need me, I'm here. But with a Scottish accent, you know, background player.

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You know what I mean? It'd be great if there was a guy that kind of looked like Gerard Butler, maybe.

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Yeah. He was there to balance the drawer and just kind of like, don't worry about this part that you don't like and go run your bookstore.

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Also, when the money goes to charity. For the whole bookstore? What the fuck, man?

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I think so or at least a large part of it Damn This is that a goodbye I going there now Also that idea of like if you open a birthday present and Vince was like here what the present is yeah you have a nervous breakdown

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of being so overjoyed yeah that's a perfect vacation for for me I like this idea of like

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vacations for people who don't like typical vacations yeah go do this thing that you've

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always wanted to do that has nothing to do with like sitting by the beach or drinking

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Mai Tais, you know? Right. I bet you could still drink at that bookstore. If it's your bookstore,

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you can drink all you want. Sure. Nice mug of something boozy. That's true. A mug of hot rum.

00:12:32

Oh my God. Microwaved mug of rum. It's not, it's just microwave. In the staff microwave,

00:12:40

it smells like fish and chips. Microwave your rum. Okay. Hey, let's talk about our business

00:12:47

that we run with cats. Oh, good idea. Involved in it. Hey, we have a podcast network.

00:12:52

It's called Exactly Right Media. Here are some highlights. Over on I Said No Gives this week,

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Bridger's guest is Sam Taggart, a comedian and the host of the hilarious podcast Stradio Lab.

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If you missed last week's episode of Bananas with legendary comedian Kathy Griffin,

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go check that out. In the meantime, they're basking in the afterglow of Banana Fest.

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And so are we. I mean, they should. What a success. Then over on I Saw What You Did,

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Danielle and Millie discussed two films this week, The Raid Redemption from 2011 and from 2014, John Wick.

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Oh, classic. Yeah. And our next throwback merch from Rewind with Karen and Georgia is here from episode 11 of Rewind.

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to us as a podcast host. Near and dear to our hearts. Yeah. This podcast is brought to you by

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Goodbye. All right, you're first, yes? Yeah. This story, I actually found this, I think it was on the now defunct website, Twitter.

00:16:45

No, I can't remember, but it was like one of those ones where there's like a picture

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and then there's like a couple facts underneath it and it basically brings you to the Wikipedia page.

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Oh yeah, I love those. But it was a serial killer I had not heard of before. Isn't that wild when that happened?

00:16:58

And they're like, I thought I knew them all. I think it's just such a sign where it's like, there are so many and they're all so horrible.

00:17:07

It's so scary when you realize that you're just never, yeah. It's an issue. It's a true issue.

00:17:12

Yeah. So this story I'm going to tell you about today is about a man who by day sought a career in the priesthood, then in education, and then he ended up in policing.

00:17:23

Jesus. And all while committing heinous murders. Oh my God. The attorney who prosecuted this man called him, quote, the most sexually deviant person I've ever seen.

00:17:36

He made Ted Bundy look like a Boy Scout. Holy shit. Decades after being tried and convicted for two homicides, this man is still being linked to missing and murdered women in Florida and beyond.

00:17:50

I going to tell you the story of Gerard John Schaeffer the serial killer cop Oh my God The main source used in today research is the book American Ripper the Enigma of America Serial Killer Cop by Patrick Kendrick This is the exhaustive

00:18:10

resource on this very, very disturbing case. I love that Maren reads entire books to cover these

00:18:16

cases when she does research for me. It's just incredible. So good. And I now want to read this

00:18:22

because this case, you get just enough awful information to go, wait a second, how did I not

00:18:29

know every detail about this? And just if you are riding in the car with some people who maybe don't

00:18:35

like true crime, if there are children anywhere near you, do not listen to this story with anybody.

00:18:42

This is a very disturbing, very, very, very awful case. If you are easily kind of freaked out,

00:18:51

don't listen to this. So it begins in March of 1946. That's when Gerard John Schaefer,

00:18:57

who will go by John for most of his life, is born in Nina, Wisconsin. He's the first child born to

00:19:05

parents Doris and Jerry, who then have two more children after him, a daughter and another son.

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Doris is a homemaker, raises the children. Jerry works as a traveling salesman, and his company repeatedly transfers him to different regions around the country.

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And each time he's relocated, he uproots his young family and moves them with him.

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The Schaafers first leave Wisconsin for Nashville, then Nashville for Atlanta. And then in 1960, when John is 14 years old, the family finally settles in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

00:19:39

So even though he's still young, John's already dealing with complex emotional problems.

00:19:44

He has a lot of anger and a lot of resentment. And he's known to hurt animals, which is something that the kids in the neighborhood notice.

00:19:54

He will eventually tell doctors that he fantasizes about dying. And one of his childhood friends, Gary Hainline, who is also his next door neighbor, says, quote,

00:20:06

he seemed to enjoy killing things. He enjoyed shooting things, things you can't eat, songbirds, land crabs, that sort of thing.

00:20:14

So along with those habits, John is developing sadistic sexual fantasies that involve hurting women. They seem to go hand in hand. So the fantasies progress as he grows into early adulthood. When he's about 20 years old, he seeks treatment for these troubling thoughts.

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And in therapy, he attributes his violent misogynistic fantasies to his father, Jerry.

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According to John, Jerry is an abusive alcoholic who sets an awful example by constantly cheating on his wife.

00:20:51

It is possible these statements are true because Doris will eventually go on to divorce Jerry, citing, quote, drunkenness and adultery.

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But then at the same time, we're probably talking about a burgeoning psychopath.

00:21:05

So it could be everybody else's fault. John does say that his resentment towards women also stems from his father.

00:21:13

According to him, it's because Jerry clearly favors his daughter, John's sister, over his sons.

00:21:20

So by the late 1960s, when John's in his mid-20s, he seems to be trying to figure out his life's path.

00:21:27

In 1966, he tours the southeastern United States with a singing group that's sponsored by a conservative organization aiming to, quote, glorify wholesome, patriotic American youth.

00:21:39

Oh, good job. This is where he meets a young woman named Martha. Martha goes by Marty.

00:21:48

The two wed two years later, but the marriage is short-lived and they get divorced in 1970.

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So it's not totally clear why John and Marty break up, but a friend of the couples will later say, quote, Marty was a genius.

00:22:04

John is very intelligent, but he's a very competitive person. It was hard for him to be with a genius like Marty.

00:22:10

End quote. All right. Kind of interesting, though, that he would be attracted to her.

00:22:16

Yeah. But also she's like in this wholesome, patriotic American singing group. maybe it all just, they all got caught up in the show. So around the time this marriage ends,

00:22:29

John, who was raised Catholic, tries to join the priesthood, but he is turned away from seminary

00:22:35

school after being told that he doesn't, quote, have enough faith. It makes him extremely angry.

00:22:42

So angry, in fact, that he turns his back on the Catholic church forever. Meanwhile,

00:22:47

he keeps looking for a job, preferably one that would give him power and authority over others.

00:22:55

So before long, he becomes a teacher. He lands a teaching job, but it's short lived. He's fired

00:23:03

for quote, trying to impose his own moral and political values on his students. End quote.

00:23:09

I mean, and it's in the seventies and it's that bad. Like they didn't give a shit. You could

00:23:13

fucking hit a kid back then. So whatever he was doing was like, very true. Extreme, right?

00:23:19

It had to be crazy. Yeah. And then also like, you didn't have enough faith. Like what was he

00:23:24

not doing that someone could tell that something was off? Like that just might've been an excuse

00:23:29

to be like, get this guy out of here. Yeah. I wonder if he had a particularly deep confessional

00:23:35

and they were like, oh, that's why you're here. Right. How do we get rid of this guy? You don't

00:23:40

Oh my God, enough. Get the fuck out of here. Yeah. Please take this elsewhere. Please take this to the local high school.

00:23:49

So one of his teaching supervisors would later say that, quote, I told him when he left that he'd better never let me hear of his trying to get a job with any authority over other people.

00:24:00

Or I'd do anything I could to prevent it, end quote. What did he do? Oh, my God.

00:24:06

Unfortunately, that person didn't try to prevent that job. And what does happen is that John is dead set on becoming a policeman.

00:24:19

Kind of the worst case scenario. Just go to a call center and leave everyone alone.

00:24:24

So in the early 1970s, John Schaefer is rejected by multiple police departments, including the Broward County Sheriff's Office, who pass on his application after he fails a routine psychological test.

00:24:38

Oh, Jesus. Something basic. Yeah. So he ends up getting hired by the small Wilton Manors Police Department based in Fort Lauderdale suburb.

00:24:48

Wilton Manors just happened to be in desperate need of officers right when John applied.

00:24:56

So it was like the perfect storm. So at first, John seems to be finding his groove.

00:25:02

Things at work are quiet and steady. He even gets remarried to a woman named Teresa.

00:25:07

But within a year of being hired by Wilton Manors PD, John is abruptly let go. The Tampa Bay Times, who later interviewed his colleagues, reports that, quote,

00:25:18

quote, supervising officers found him unreliable, a man who could be found leaning against a pole

00:25:23

eating potato chips when he was supposed to be directing traffic around an accident,

00:25:28

end quote. More troublingly, John is also caught, quote, running female traffic violators through

00:25:34

the department's computer, obtaining personal information, and later calling them for dates,

00:25:40

end quote. Oh, no. We've heard about that happening through the police and police officers

00:25:45

doing that same thing. So in the summer of 1972, just two months after being fired from the Wilton

00:25:52

Manners PD, John somehow gets another job as a police officer. This time he's hired by the Martin

00:25:57

County Sheriff's Department, which is also in South Florida. And a month later, in late July,

00:26:04

John is out on parole when he sees two teenage girls hiking near Florida's Jensen Beach.

00:26:09

They are 18-year-old Nancy Trotter and 17-year-old Paula Wells, who goes by her middle name, Sue.

00:26:17

So Nancy and Sue are vacationing in this area from out of state. So John sees them.

00:26:24

He pulls the cop car over, rolls the window down, and warns the girls that hitchhiking is illegal in this county.

00:26:30

This is not true. Nancy and Sue don't know this, of course, and they don't think a police officer would pull over and go out of his way to lie to them.

00:26:39

so when john offers to give them a ride back to their hotel in the town of stewart which is a few

00:26:44

miles away the girls see no reason why they shouldn't take a ride from a cop like yeah

00:26:51

ostensibly the safest thing they could do and also it's florida it's boiling hot you know they're

00:26:59

like we don't want to walk all the way back the ride back to stewart is quick and when he gets to

00:27:04

the hotel, John drops both girls off, but before he drives away, he offers to give the girls a ride

00:27:11

back to the beach the following morning. And that way, he says, they won't have to illegally hitchhike

00:27:17

again. Nancy and Sue are very grateful for this young officer's kindness, and they accept the ride.

00:27:23

And the next morning at 9.15, John arrives to pick them up as scheduled. He claims he's on duty,

00:27:30

but he's wearing plain clothes and he's driving a civilian car. The girls don't think much of it.

00:27:37

Nancy says that then, quote, he asked us if we wanted to see an old Spanish fort that was on the

00:27:43

river. We said, okay, end quote. So John pulls off Florida's A1A highway and onto a small dirt

00:27:51

back road that leads to a woodsy remote area. His car is now on a strip of land known as Hutchinson's

00:27:58

island. It's about 10 miles away from Jensen's beach. So he parks the car by an old abandoned

00:28:05

shed in the woods and then his entire demeanor completely changes. That's the thing I think

00:28:11

about in a lot of these stories too. That point where survivors talk about a moment where the

00:28:17

person that they met completely disappears and this new like entirely evil person arrives.

00:28:23

It's like a horror movie. Yeah. The moment you realize like, oh no, this isn't what I thought it was.

00:28:30

Yeah. It's so chilling. And the turn comes and Nancy and Sue are shocked and horrified when John announces, quote, I could dig a hole and bury you.

00:28:40

There is no crime without a body. End quote. And then he says, quote, I'm afraid I'm going to have to put you under arrest as runaways.

00:28:48

Oh my God. End quote. And then he threatens to sell the girls into a sex trafficking ring.

00:28:53

he then instructs nancy and sue to dump their purses out in the car and then he orders them to

00:29:01

step outside he binds and gags both of them and when they are tied up he walks nancy over to some

00:29:07

thick tree roots they stand about 10 inches off the ground he tells her to stand on top of them

00:29:13

and then he puts a noose around her neck and he basically swings it over a branch above her

00:29:20

and now Nancy is bound gagged and basically with this noose around her neck she's at risk of hanging

00:29:27

if she slips off this these uneven tree roots oh my god so she's basically trapped in trying to stay

00:29:35

perfectly still and that is when he begins to molest her oh my god he threatens quote I could

00:29:43

rape you right now right here if I wanted to end quote and then after a few minutes pass he starts

00:29:49

walking back toward where Sue is. But as he goes he tells Nancy that he will be back for her Nancy is a very strong determined young woman So as she watches standing on her tiptoes on these tree roots John wanders off into the woods with her friend Sue And the second they out of

00:30:09

sight, she spits the gag out of her mouth. She like kind of forces it out with her tongue and

00:30:16

immediately starts chewing through the knot that's next to her that's around her neck.

00:30:22

So like, yeah, her chewing creates enough slack in the rope that she is actually able to wriggle her neck out of the noose.

00:30:30

And then once she's free from the risk of hanging, she's able to get all of her other binding ropes off.

00:30:37

She actually will later say, quote, I didn't take very long, maybe 10 or 15 minutes, but I still had the handcuffs on.

00:30:44

And then once Nancy gets free, she runs. Oh, my God. She's panicked. She's still handcuffed.

00:30:51

She's rushing to escape through the thick Florida underbrush, but Nancy is only thinking about her friend Sue.

00:30:57

She doesn't know where Sue is, if she's still alive. All she knows is that she has to go get help.

00:31:04

So she comes to a river and she throws herself in and then she follows it upstream for what would feel like an eternity.

00:31:13

She actually at one point gets stung by jellyfish. Oh my God. And then finally she sees the highway in the distance.

00:31:19

So she gets out and runs toward the highway. All while handcuffed. All while handcuffed.

00:31:25

Jesus. And also like Florida, it's like Florida swamp, like everything in Florida.

00:31:31

It's like the idea she's getting stung by jellyfish in a river is insane. It's just like so dangerous.

00:31:38

So horrible. Treacherous. Yeah. So she's running toward the highway and soon she sees a Martin County Sheriff's patrol car

00:31:46

driving toward her. And it's the same car John picked the girls up in the day before.

00:31:53

But before Nancy can react, she sees John is not driving that car. Instead, it's Officer Robert Lewis Crowder.

00:32:00

So she flags him down. Officer Crowder tells Nancy that her friend Sue also escaped and was picked up by a truck driver 45 minutes ago.

00:32:10

Oh, my God. Right. He then tells her Sue has already told the police about how John Schaefer abducted them and threatened their lives. And they've been looking for Nancy ever since. And that's why Officer Crowder is out patrolling the highway right then.

00:32:25

Wow, that's wild. So now both girls are safe and they find John Schaefer and they bring him in.

00:32:31

But when his co-workers ask him what he was doing, Schaefer tries to cover by writing off his actions as foolish.

00:32:40

He claims he was, quote, demonstrating the pitfalls and the dangers of hitchhiking.

00:32:45

And he says, quote, he had gotten a little carried away. Oh, my God. But John Schaefer's superiors are not buying it.

00:32:53

he is immediately fired and then he's charged with multiple counts of aggravated assault.

00:32:59

He's ultimately convicted and sentenced to six months in county jail, followed by three years of probation.

00:33:05

Six months. Six months and also aggravated assault as opposed to attempted murder.

00:33:13

Right. But here's the thing. Don't waste your time getting upset at this. Oh, there's more.

00:33:17

Because it's going to get much worse. Okay. Because after his trial, when they figure all that out,

00:33:23

He is allowed to post a $15,000 bond and live as a free man for several months until his jail time begins in January of 1973.

00:33:34

What the fuck is that? That piece of our fucking legal system is so confounding.

00:33:41

Well, and you have to, I mean, just for the observations of amateurs that have been telling stories to each other like this for nine years, practically.

00:33:51

It's racism. Right. Because I don't think we've ever told a story about the police letting a black man free on bond until his aggravated assault term comes up.

00:34:05

I mean, clearly, I'm sure it was the privilege of having been a police officer or something.

00:34:09

Or it's also you can afford $15,000, which back then was probably a fuck ton more money.

00:34:14

And so bail in itself is a racist act because it really favors people who are privileged and have money and opportunities to do that, you know?

00:34:25

Yeah. And it also doesn't consider what it didn't at the time. And maybe, maybe these considerations have been implemented. It would be fascinating to talk to somebody who knew. But the idea of, oh, no, no, this, what he did was not, it wasn't some funny mistake. This is something that he has, like, that they would recognize the behavior and the violence and the threat.

00:34:51

But the point is he should be kept away from society because he is a threat to it.

00:34:56

Not like, you know, when someone who has a drug charge is locked up the whole time where it's like it's not it's not equal.

00:35:04

But those white cops are looking at this fired white cop and going, well, he's not a threat to me.

00:35:09

Right. So how much he wouldn't? I wouldn't. So he wouldn't. Right. I mean, it's you feel like perhaps that could be arguably and in my opinion, what they are thinking.

00:35:18

Who knows? It's also like you're saying, it's 1972. His jail time begins in the next year. So it's September of 1972. He's supposed to go to jail in January of 1973. So he's out on bond. And just two months after Nancy Trotter and Sue Wells were abducted, two more girls go missing in Fort Lauderdale.

00:35:40

16 year old Georgia Jessup and 17 year old Susan Place. And Susan actually was a student at the school where John Schaefer briefly worked as a teacher,

00:35:52

although it unclear if they ever interacted or even knew each other But that is just a fact So Susan parents tell police the girls were last seen at the Place family home And Susan mother Lucille actually watched the

00:36:09

girls head to the beach with this man in his mid-20s who went by Jerry Shepard. And she watched

00:36:17

them as they climbed into his blue Datsun and pulled away. But from the get-go, Lucille had a

00:36:23

weird feeling about this Jerry Shepard. So as the car was pulling away, she ran outside and wrote

00:36:29

down his license plate number. Look at her. Wow. Yeah. And then Lucille has to hand this information

00:36:36

over to the police when her daughter never comes home from the beach that day. Horrifying. Yeah.

00:36:43

What's more horrifying is it takes investigators six months. No. It's not until March of 1973 to

00:36:50

trace this information back to the car's owner. And that's when they find out it's not Jerry

00:36:58

Shepard. It's Gerard John Schaefer. She had been missing, missing for fucking six months before

00:37:05

they put the most basic effort. This fucking woman went out of her way to take precaution

00:37:10

because she was worried about her daughter. Her daughter's missing. Here's the car that took her

00:37:15

away. Here's the license plate. A citizen cannot do more. They can't do your job for you. She's not

00:37:21

a runaway. I haven't received a phone call. No one's seen her. Like this is not. Oh my God. Okay.

00:37:29

Yeah. So by the time police do make this connection, John has already been serving

00:37:34

his sentence at the county jail for two months. So they go down to talk to him. John is questioned

00:37:40

about the girl's disappearance. He denies having anything to do with it. But this lie unravels very quickly.

00:37:47

A few weeks later, in April of 1973, men collecting aluminum cans in Hutchinson Island,

00:37:54

the same area where John took Nancy Trotter and Sue Wells, and they find the badly decomposed remains of two people

00:38:02

who have been clearly very brutally murdered. Wow. The corpses are tied to the base of a tree at their torsos, and their heads were cut off.

00:38:15

Oh, my God. And those severed heads were later found nearby. A few days later, these remains are identified by dental records, and the bodies, in fact, belong to Georgia Jessup and Susan Place.

00:38:31

and their remains indicate that they were tortured, hanged, and one of the girls had

00:38:36

been shot in the jaw, although it's unclear if that happened before or after she was murdered.

00:38:43

So now John Schaefer has been unmasked. Days after Georgia and Susan's remains are found,

00:38:51

investigators obtain a search warrant for John Schaefer's house and his mother Doris's house,

00:38:56

where he stores some of his belongings. Investigators need any evidence that could connect John to Georgia and Susan's murders,

00:39:05

and they do. It's a purse that belongs to one of the girls, and according to John's wife, Teresa,

00:39:12

her husband gave it to her as a gift in September of 1972, the same month the girls went missing.

00:39:19

I forgot he was married, and that is so troubling. Like, oh my God. But that's not all. It turns out that John is sitting on with all of these things that they find in his house and his mother's house.

00:39:35

He's sitting on an arsenal of incriminating items. Journalist Yvette Cardozo, writing for the Fort Lauderdale News, reports, quote,

00:39:44

The officers found two gold crown teeth, small bones, much like wrist bones, a sorority pin, charm bracelet, a photograph, sketched over magazine pictures, rope, rifles, and hunting knives.

00:40:00

Jesus. End quote. The bones suggest he like went back to the scene of the crown, you know, like went back.

00:40:08

Mm-hmm. That's so chilling. And just that list of items is a textbook mixture of trophies from victims and possibly murder kit supplies.

00:40:19

And the sketched over magazine pictures refers to random pictures of women pulled from magazines and newspapers that John has labeled with words like adulteress and streetwalker.

00:40:32

In others, he's drawn images of nooses around their necks. There's disturbing photos of women that have been executed, returned letters John has sent himself posing as a researcher requesting information on urination and defecation that takes place during prison orchestrated executions of women.

00:40:53

Craven is one word you could use. It's base. It's just the basest, most disgusting.

00:40:59

Oh my God. So, of course, it gets worse because investigators find a so-called manuscript that includes several pages of various stories.

00:41:10

So it's essentially like he's trying to write like a book of short stories, but they're all just vile.

00:41:17

And they're all written from the first person perspective. It's like a journal almost that he's trying to pass off as like a...

00:41:24

Yeah. Yeah. Reporter Yvette Cardozo says, quote, the stories tell of hanging women, shooting them, hacking them to pieces, of sinking one body in a rock pit lake with a shotgun blast and of having sexual intercourse with the bodies months after the slayings.

00:41:41

Fuck. End quote. So essentially, this is a serial killer just writing out his plans.

00:41:51

Yeah. Oh, my God. So depraved. Yeah So some of these stories are clearly made up Others read like diary entries like you said mentioning very specific locations down to local road names In one story John gives a how on killing women that eerily mirrors his attack on Nancy Trotter and Sue Wells

00:42:13

So here's the writing from that. Quote, he will need an isolated area accessible by car and a short hike away from any police patrols or parking lovers.

00:42:23

The execution site must be carefully arranged for speedy execution once the victim has arrived.

00:42:30

Ideally, there would be two sawhorses with a two by four between them, a noose attached to the overhanging limb of a tree and another rope to pull away from the two by four, preferably by car.

00:42:42

The victim could be any one of the many women who flock to Miami and Fort Lauderdale during the winter months.

00:42:50

Jesus. End quote. So this is a man that hates women so very much, so, so much that this is what he's spending his time writing in notebooks as if anybody is asking him how he does it.

00:43:05

the idea of that the depth of that misogyny and hatred yeah is the thing that should be talked

00:43:15

about and this is the thing that everybody should talk about more when they're talking or that should

00:43:20

be underlined more when we're talking about true crime and we're talking about these serial killers

00:43:25

these men that go on and on repeatedly killing women like this it's it's a disease yeah it's so

00:43:32

funny you know it's it goes along with the like question we always get asked or that you always

00:43:36

hear like why do women love true crime and it's like because it's so often perpetrated against us

00:43:42

and we're terrified and want to learn everything we can so we can feel like we have some kind of

00:43:48

control over our lives or some kind of power over what could potentially happen you know it's not

00:43:53

that we're voyeurists who are like you know gawking at something it's like this keeps fucking

00:43:59

happening and we're so aware of it and it's you know it's known to us since childhood that we're

00:44:06

potential victims to any fucking misogynist man who has a bad day you know right and also to a cop

00:44:13

like and then to someone that would in your community pull over and offer to help you

00:44:18

right that you would assume you could be helped by yeah your buddy and yeah you think he's a great

00:44:23

guy and he would never do such a thing and he's married and all this shit it's like

00:44:26

terrifying. Yeah. So prosecutors are now building a case against John Schaefer for the murders of

00:44:35

Georgia Jessup and Susan Place. And as they do, investigators start looking for links between

00:44:41

John's belongings and any open cases involving missing or murdered women in South Florida,

00:44:46

and they find them. So investigators recover items belonging to two missing 19-year-old

00:44:53

hitchhikers and their names are colette goodenough and barbara wilcox these women were last seen

00:44:59

alive in january of 1973 just one week before john started his jail sentence wow so that time

00:45:09

mother fuck like out on bond yeah oh oh god colette and barbara's skeletal remains are found

00:45:17

by a truck driver alongside a canal in 1977. Oh, wow. So not for a while. Not for a while.

00:45:24

And the remains were bound together with wire and the bodies were missing part of their skulls.

00:45:33

So police also find a piece of jewelry belonging to a 14-year-old girl named Mary Briscalina.

00:45:41

Mary had gone missing while hitchhiking to a restaurant in October of 1972. Mm-hmm.

00:45:47

With her friend Elsie Farmer, Elsie was just 13 years old. Oh my God. Babies. In January of 1973, shortly after John reports to prison, those girls' bodies are found by construction workers in a large overgrown field.

00:46:05

And their remains show signs of horrific torture and mutilation. then investigators find newspaper clippings about the 1969 disappearance of a local waitress

00:46:17

named carmen marie hallick soon a dentist will confirm that the gold teeth found at john's

00:46:24

mother's house belong to carmen a woman named carmen even pops up in one of the most disgusting

00:46:31

and disturbing stories from john's so-called manuscript wow i'm gonna leave out the details

00:46:36

They're horrible. Yeah. Yeah. But basically in the story, he describes luring an unsuspecting woman by asking her out on a date.

00:46:46

Once she accepts this invitation, she meets up with him wearing a black cocktail dress.

00:46:51

Carmen Hallock was last seen wearing a black cocktail dress. And her remains have never been found.

00:46:58

Police also find a charm bracelet with the name Lee etched into it. Immediately, investigators suspect that this bracelet belongs to a 25-year-old woman named Lee Hainline Bonadies.

00:47:10

Like Carmen, Lee was reported missing in 1969. So they had this, like, string of women missing.

00:47:17

And, like, then this guy kidnaps and assaults these two girls who get away. And they don't, like, at no point with someone like, why are all these girls missing?

00:47:30

Right. that if it wasn't for Susan and Nancy getting away yeah and like fighting their way out and

00:47:38

getting their way and you're right and that mom yeah that mom who fucking wrote down I mean yeah

00:47:43

what a hero that was the beginning that was like truly yeah that they were like oh what's happening

00:47:49

here yeah and then suddenly it's like oh there's murders every possible place there could be

00:47:56

it's like instead of putting the pieces together and solving something they just

00:48:00

had to clean up this mess that they hadn't even realized was on their fucking doorstep, you know?

00:48:05

Yeah. And because of that, all these women were horribly murdered. Yes. It's just not fucking fair.

00:48:12

And I'm, this is infuriating. Okay. It's definitely infuriating. Also, the name Lee Hainline Bonadies, if the name Hainline sounded familiar from the beginning of this story,

00:48:25

Gary Hainline was John's next door neighbor and friend who would talk about John murdering things that didn't, you know, songbirds and stuff.

00:48:36

Gary was friends with John. Lee was Gary's sister. So there was a point in time where John claimed that Lee, quote, teased him as a child by undressing near her bedroom window.

00:48:50

Now it seems much more likely that he was a peeping Tom, which we know is an early indicator of serial killer behavior.

00:48:59

Peeping Toms, killing animals. Fires. Fire. In the late 1960s, shortly before she went missing, John had reconnected with Lee and they'd become platonic friends.

00:49:12

He occasionally played tennis as a group with Lee and Carmen Halleck, the woman in the black dress.

00:49:20

Fuck. Like he's just like strangers or people I know, whatever. He's just. Yeah. So in 1978, a portion of Lee's skull is discovered by hunters and is described as having

00:49:32

at least three bullet holes, but it was not conclusively identified as belonging to Lee

00:49:39

until 2004. Yet incredibly, this is not the exhaustive list of victims linked to Gerard

00:49:47

John Schaefer. Dozens of missing and murdered women in Florida and beyond, and even some men,

00:49:54

will eventually be connected to him. Wow. So John Schaefer's ultimately charged with two homicides,

00:50:01

the murders of Georgia Jessup and Susan Place. And that fact might sound shocking given all this

00:50:07

evidence linking him to these other disappearances. But the problem is, as it always is,

00:50:13

that evidence is circumstantial. The bodies of many of John's suspected victims won't be found

00:50:19

for years, if at all. And prosecutors know it's too risky to bring murder charges against someone

00:50:25

when there's no body, especially if that suspect, like John Schaefer, isn't admitting to any of the

00:50:31

crimes. That said, prosecutors feel like they have everything they need to secure John's conviction

00:50:38

for the murders of Georgia and Susan. This time, John is kept in jail without bond

00:50:44

as he awaits trial. Imagine that. As the news spreads about the horrific crimes that he's accused of orchestrating,

00:50:51

people across the country seethe. When the case finally goes to trial, the atmosphere in the courtroom is extremely tense.

00:50:59

At one point, the proceedings are abruptly suspended after a bomb threat is called in at the courthouse.

00:51:04

Then an anonymous caller threatens the local police saying, quote, if the jury does not convict Schaefer, the jurors should be shot, end quote.

00:51:14

Okay, so people actually did react to what we're reacting to. Yes. I think people reading those stories, it's like this system kept saying, don't worry about it.

00:51:25

Why don't you calm down? This don't make such a big deal about it or whatever. Okay.

00:51:29

In total, there are six people on this jury, three men and three women, and they are subjected to hours of horrific, devastating details from these crimes, including having to hear from the grief-stricken parents of Susan Place and Georgia Jessup, as well as the civilians who found the girls' remains out in the woods.

00:51:53

Very traumatizing, obviously. yeah we don't talk about that much like the ptsd that the jurors on a horrific murder trial

00:52:01

are you know absolutely what they're subject to and what what they walk away knowing is just

00:52:06

life-changing it seems like i mean i've said stuff in this that i'm like there was stuff that

00:52:11

was on this page i'm like let's just not say it we just know it's horrible right those those people

00:52:16

had to listen to every detail like as the police found it yeah see the photos i mean geez the jury

00:52:24

also hears from Nancy Trotter and Sue Wells, who actually come back to Florida to testify

00:52:31

against John Schaefer. Wow. And then prosecutors present a video reenactment of Nancy and Sue's abduction just to show

00:52:40

the jurors what John Schaefer is truly capable of. And this very special level of violence against women that he was out there trying to practice

00:52:52

on anybody who happened to be walking down the road. But on the advice of his attorneys,

00:52:58

John Schaefer does not testify. His defense team does its best to wave off the damning evidence against him

00:53:05

in arguably offensive ways. For example, John's lawyers claim the brutal manuscript he'd written

00:53:11

is merely their client's exercise in creative writing. And in response to Nancy and Sue's testimony,

00:53:17

the defense doubles down on the claim that John was just trying to teach the girls

00:53:21

a lesson about the dangers of hitchhiking. Every other piece of evidence or testimony is dismissed

00:53:28

as purely circumstantial. Regardless, in September of 1973, the jury declares Gerard John Schaefer

00:53:37

guilty on two counts of first-degree murder. According to a journalist who was in the courtroom

00:53:42

at the time, John Schaefer shows zero emotion when the verdict is read. And then, as Patrick

00:53:49

Kendrick reports quote as the court guards led John out of the courtroom bombarded by flashbulbs and questions from the press he smiled into the cameras End quote John will tell reporters that quote that the roll of the dice

00:54:07

I had a good defense, but I'm innocent. Okay. Friend. Yeah. Meanwhile, the jurors seem grateful to finally put this horrible murder trial behind them.

00:54:16

One member of the jury who asked not to be named tells St. Lucie News Tribune that, quote,

00:54:21

I just want to forget about the whole thing now. I hope you understand. Oh my God.

00:54:27

So coincidentally, Gerard John Schaefer is convicted one year to the day that Susan Place and Georgia Jessup were last seen alive.

00:54:37

Wow, that was fast. Yeah, it was fast. A year later. And that fact is not lost on Susan's mom, Lucille,

00:54:45

who tells reporters, quote, you know, when they brought the verdicts in, it was probably about the exact time

00:54:50

he murdered Susan in Georgia last year. end quote and then on october 4th when john shaffer is sentenced to two life sentences

00:54:58

again lucille points out the significance of this specific date she says quote it's very ironic

00:55:06

isn't it october 4th is susan's birthday she would have been 19 oh my god yeah a poor mother

00:55:14

so just two months after john shaffer begins his prison sentence his wife theresa divorces him

00:55:21

and in a weird twist immediately marries his defense lawyer what yeah what is i man that i

00:55:30

want to hear more about how the fuck that happened right well you got to figure the defense lawyers

00:55:37

have to give him a like a fair defense that's what defense lawyers do yeah but he's sitting there

00:55:43

going you were given the purse of one of these victims like this isn't it isn't real i mean and

00:55:49

And she is a victim too. Absolutely. I am hoping it's an empathetic connection. I just think it would almost make more sense if she were like, if it was with the prosecutor,

00:55:59

you know, not the victim. In my mind, it's like, wow, that seems like a trauma bond in some way.

00:56:07

Yeah. So meanwhile, John begins to flood the Florida court system with appeals, each of which are

00:56:14

summarily rejected. I added the word summarily. I don't know if that's correct. No, it sounded.

00:56:19

perfect it's it sounded pretty smart yeah next john attempts to sue just about any journalist

00:56:26

or public figure who dares to mention his name god and he loses every single one of those legal

00:56:31

battles as the years pass john pathetically starts bragging about the number of people he's murdered

00:56:39

he never publicly admits to killing anyone but at one point he writes to a friend in a private letter

00:56:44

which you're in jail yeah but he writes quote i am not claiming a huge number i would say mine

00:56:51

run between 80 and 110 over eight years and three continents wow the rest of this quote is him

00:57:00

describing and in these details that i don't want to repeat because they're so disgusting like

00:57:07

so disgusting and basically he's writing it like it's just hey how are you i'm fine

00:57:14

like just a regular letter. It's like, like a conversation. That's fucking wow. Horrifying.

00:57:21

Wow. And that's such a short period of time too, you know, in eight years. Yeah. And like,

00:57:28

if that woman hadn't written down that license plate number, because he was only going to jail

00:57:33

for six months, he would have been in jail for six months. He would have been right back out.

00:57:38

Like literally he would have killed so many more women if that woman hadn't written down his license.

00:57:44

I hadn't thought really quickly, you know what I'm going to do real quick? Jot this down.

00:57:48

Talk about following your gut in the most important way, which is what would it hurt to write?

00:57:53

You can write down a license plate, but what would it hurt? Just have it. Throw it away.

00:57:57

Yeah. In December of 1995, John Schaefer is found dead on the floor of his prison cell.

00:58:04

He was stabbed over 40 times. Wow. His killer was a fellow inmate named Vincent Rivera, was already serving a life sentence plus 20 years for a double homicide.

00:58:14

He got another 53 years for this murder. It's unclear why Rivera killed John, although it's suspected John was targeted because he was a cop and or a prison informant and or a serial killer.

00:58:29

Right. Or just fucking the worst fucking person to be around. Yeah. You know, he'd been harassed by other inmates.

00:58:36

who, quote, had repeatedly thrown human waste at him and twice set his cell on fire.

00:58:42

Gerard John Schaefer leaves behind a horrific, despicable legacy of cruelty and hatred and

00:58:48

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00:58:55

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00:59:01

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00:59:09

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00:59:15

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00:59:22

when john was out on bond yeah insane her mutilated body was found tied to trees

00:59:28

off of Florida's A1A highway. And it's easy to believe there are more victims out there

00:59:34

that just haven't been located or identified yet. Yeah. And that is the story of the serial killer cop,

00:59:41

Gerard John Schaefer. Wow. Yeah, that's a fucking heavy one. That's just, that shit sticks with you.

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01:02:41

of us in a totally different direction get in my clown car we're gonna make a fucking ewe

01:02:46

and we're gonna talk about the largest burglary in british legal history how about let's go there

01:02:53

instead shall we great perfect all right let's talk about a fucking heist here we go so this is

01:02:59

the story of the largest burglary in British legal history and the surprising, but also kind

01:03:04

of not surprising, notorious old timers who almost pulled it off. Hey, I've seen this movie.

01:03:12

Guess who's in it? Michael Caine. Of course he is. I'm Michael Caine. Like you kind of couldn't make this movie unless he agreed to be in it.

01:03:21

You know what I mean? Yeah. I hope Judi Dench is also in it. Oh, yeah. So this is the story of the

01:03:27

2015 Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Heist. Oh, Safe Deposit. A Safe Deposit Heist story.

01:03:33

Oh, yay. Yes. Yay. So sexy. Open those boxes, bitch. Okay. The main sources for the story are an article from The Guardian by Duncan Campbell, an article

01:03:43

from Vanity Fair by Mark Seal, and an episode of the podcast, Scotland Yard Confidential.

01:03:48

And the rest of the sources can be found in our show notes. So it's just after midnight on the morning of April 3rd, 2015.

01:03:57

or in London. It's the Friday morning going into the Easter weekend, which in the UK

01:04:03

is what they call so darlingly a bank holiday, which just means the bank's closed. All the

01:04:11

businesses are closed. It's a long weekend. So there's a man named Kelvin Stockwell. He's the

01:04:16

main security guard for Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Limited. It's in London's Diamond District,

01:04:22

And Hatton Garden specializes in the safekeeping of jewels, gold, and cash. Pretty much anything its customers don't want touched, as we've learned.

01:04:31

The customers are mostly other jewelers in the Diamond District because they don't want to keep their merchandise on display and out at night.

01:04:38

So they tuck it into the security of these safe deposit boxes every night. And it's said that the Hatton Garden safe deposit is the best security in the area.

01:04:48

We've heard that before. Very similar to the story in Antwerp that you covered in episode 441, Aim for the Basement.

01:04:57

So Kelvin, the security guard, is home in his apartment, locked up the shop for the long weekend at 6 p.m. that evening.

01:05:03

Everything should be fine. All the loot is stored in the basement vault lined with safe deposit boxes.

01:05:08

The boxes are behind two alarmed iron airlock gates, an 18-inch metal door, 20-inch thick concrete walls, and motion sensors inside and out.

01:05:18

So like fucking safe as shit, you know? Classic safe deposit box area. Right. So like I shouldn't even have a story here.

01:05:25

That should be the end of it. And no one got in. Right? The end. The end. Michael Caine, it was a really short movie, but he was great in it.

01:05:34

So when Kelvin gets a call from one of the facility's owners saying that he just got a call from the monitoring company that the alarm had been triggered, he's shocked.

01:05:43

He gets in the car and heads over. But when he gets to the shop, it's totally normal.

01:05:47

Looks like how he left it. There's no sign of forced entry at the door. It's dark and quiet inside.

01:05:51

He calls his boss and he's like, false alarm. And then he heads home for the long Easter holiday So here we are after that long holiday It 8 a on Tuesday April 7th Kelvin gets his ass to work And as soon as he gets downstairs to where the boxes are

01:06:06

he sees that something is very wrong. The wooden door that leads to the hallway that leads to the

01:06:11

safe deposit boxes is smashed open. Why is it wooden? I don't know. It must be like the,

01:06:17

I think it's like the first door to the safe, you know, to the like area probably, right?

01:06:22

Yeah. Right. Like an office door almost, you would think. It's almost like you have to ask yourself,

01:06:26

how safe do all the doors have to be? Right. Right. Just that main safe door should be.

01:06:32

Right. Like how far out are we talking that you need to go like to the bathrooms? Like I don't,

01:06:36

yeah. It's so like, it's not on them. Where does security end and where does it begin?

01:06:41

Exactly. That's a beautiful question. So there's tools, dust, hoses, debris, and bits of pipe all over the floor, a big mess. The vault door is still closed,

01:06:51

But in one of the walls of the vault, there's a gaping hole just wide enough for like a Finnish man to squeeze through.

01:06:59

Oh, I know you like to measure things by kind of Finnish man squeeze through. How many Finnish men could squeeze through this hole, you know, finish like from Finland?

01:07:06

No, like thin on the thin side of thin. One bass player thin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:14

Exactly. so those 20 inch concrete walls on all sides of the vault were impenetrable when the vault was

01:07:22

built we're not talking about today's fucking money we're talking about 1946 walls oh they had

01:07:29

no idea which i guess somehow yeah i mean you'd think they'd hold you know but i guess they have

01:07:36

like a 50 to 75 year limit of how well of the tools that could be made to break into them yeah

01:07:42

lasers wait lasers what year is it 2015 oh yeah lasers there's no way 46 can hold up against

01:07:50

2015 they didn't even know what we were gonna have remember you get like you get vintage clothes

01:07:55

and everything is like sized down yes it's like human beings merely 70 years ago were way

01:08:03

fucking smaller than they are now yeah it's weird i see i'm always vintage shoes are so hard to find

01:08:09

because every woman had a size five fucking foot back then. Yes. The wastes on most of those dresses.

01:08:14

I'm like, well, I guess if you have a waist, this is fine. But no. I'm hungry looking at that waist.

01:08:21

What the fuck? So actually a 1947 Finnish man. Right. Very different than today's.

01:08:28

That's so true. So Kelvin bends down and peeks through the hole and a wall of safe deposit boxes has been overturned and is on the ground.

01:08:36

and the box's inner drawers are stacked all over the floor. There's actually a photo of this that

01:08:42

I think we can include in the socials. It's a fucking huge mess and it's clear the vault's

01:08:48

been ransacked. Wow. So the press loves this story. Everyone's like kind of impressed by it

01:08:55

because it's like nostalgic, like an old school, you know, vault break-in. People kind of love that

01:09:01

shit everyone loves a heist yeah look you don't want your stuff stolen but if it's some rich

01:09:07

people's stuff that they're just hoarding anyway right let some wily you know talented michael

01:09:14

king fucking motherfucker if they want it bad enough let them have it let if it let a finish

01:09:20

man have some jewels can a finish finish man please please so like london used to be home to

01:09:29

a lot of professional criminals who attempted and often succeeded at crimes like this routinely,

01:09:34

like this was a fucking regular thing, but with better technology to deter thefts,

01:09:38

better forensic technology, and of course, London's intense network of CCTV footage.

01:09:44

They love that shit over there. This kind of thing doesn't happen much anymore. So everyone,

01:09:49

the press and the public eat it up. It takes a while to total up the value of all the stolen

01:09:53

goods but it comes out to be worth in today's money in today's u.s dollars 77 million dollars

01:10:01

that they stole from fucking safe deposit boxes worth it yeah but because it's all diamonds and

01:10:08

shit you know yeah it's not like aunt marjorie's fucking candlesticks but doesn't it seem like

01:10:13

like even the antwerp one that we just did wasn't that high no no it felt like it wasn't but i also

01:10:21

can't remember, but it felt like it wasn't that crazy. I feel like because people took their loot,

01:10:27

like jewelry stores took their loot every night there instead of like having it in the back of

01:10:32

their, you know, store. It's probably a lot more. Yeah. But I don't remember. And it makes it the

01:10:39

biggest jewel heist in British history. Some people speculate that this is the work of the

01:10:45

Pink Panthers. Hey, that's an audacious gang of jewel thieves who we of course know personally,

01:10:51

not really personally, but know the story of from exactly right's podcast, infamous international,

01:10:58

the Pink Panther story. So go fucking check that out. You like your haste. You're going to love

01:11:02

that series. It's real good. It's wild. So the investigation is handed over to London Metropolitan

01:11:08

Police's elite flying squad, which handles organized crime and major burglaries. And

01:11:14

they're called that awesome name because they were formed originally to fly between London's

01:11:20

boroughs, not to be tied down to any one specific borough. So cover the whole damn thing. Because

01:11:27

there was no sign of forced entry at the front of the store, investigators initially believed the

01:11:31

burglars had help from an inside figure. They figure out that the thieves had been able to

01:11:36

disable two different alarms, but not before one alarm sent a silent signal to the monitoring

01:11:41

company, which was the one that Kelvin had checked off and then said it was fine and left.

01:11:47

So when that went off, they were like already in there basically. Oh. Yeah. And they just, everyone froze?

01:11:53

I think, yeah, I think they were like, let's freeze and not move and it'll look like a false alarm.

01:11:59

Yeah. can keep going, which is pretty smart. This fucking must have been so scary on the inside of that.

01:12:04

I know, like Jesus Christ. No sneezing. Investigators can also tell that the robbers accessed the basement

01:12:10

by taking the customer elevator up to the second floor. They just took an elevator.

01:12:15

They jammed it there and then climbed down through the shaft into the basement where they forced the doors open.

01:12:22

Okay. So like the shaft of the elevator wasn't secure. And then from the equipment left scattered on the floor

01:12:27

in the state of the safe deposit boxes, it's clear that the thieves had used sledgehammers crowbars and angle grinders to open the box

01:12:35

so they just went for it but before they did that they had to get themselves into the vault and

01:12:41

police can see exactly how they did that too directly underneath the gaping hole in the wall

01:12:46

of the vault the thieves have left behind a highly specialized drill with a diamond bit how ironic

01:12:51

that they use a diamond bit to get to the and they don't take it with them I'm missing it.

01:12:57

It's a thing of like, you know, the Tiffany fucking skylight in the house was worth more money than they had in debt.

01:13:03

Like that's, that's like the drill bit. It's actually one of your favorite drill bits.

01:13:08

It's called a Hilti DD 350. You love that one. I love the Hilti. That's the one that I use for my really important heists.

01:13:14

Yeah. You always say it's the Porsche of diamond bits. It's kind of annoying. You say it a lot.

01:13:21

Look, I'm trying to stop. this kind of drill didn't exist when the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Limited opened in the 40s.

01:13:29

Like they didn't, they couldn't even fathom this kind of fucking drill bit. Somewhere, maybe sometime in the future when they use the things that are in the boxes to break into

01:13:39

the box, maybe. But until then, let's not worry about it. I bet they'll remodel this place in the

01:13:44

year 2000. Like we don't need it. It doesn't need to be a hundred years, you know? Yeah. They're

01:13:48

They're going to have flying cars and TVs inside of their eyes. Right. These drills cost several thousand dollars and are used in big construction projects.

01:13:57

And basically, you can't just pick one up at the hardware store. So when they tried to trace it, it had been stolen from a construction site just four months prior and only half a mile away from Hatton Garden.

01:14:09

So clearly, they were like planning this thing. There's footage of the men who took the drill because of CCTV, but you can't tell who they are.

01:14:17

When investigators go to look for the CCTV footage from the vault itself, they find that the company's hard drive had been ripped straight out of the wall.

01:14:26

Oh. And all the footage from the safe deposit company is gone, but footage from neighboring businesses is available.

01:14:32

And as it starts to come in, investigators start to piece together what happened.

01:14:36

So here's what happened. Just after 8 p.m. on the night of Thursday, April 2nd, a white van pulls up outside the safe deposit building.

01:14:42

three men get out all dressed like construction workers in yellow vests. So like so smart if

01:14:48

someone were like walking down the street, they'd be like, these are workers are supposed to be here.

01:14:52

I feel like those yellow vests are probably good to have around no matter what. Yellow vests and a ladder, like you can get in anywhere.

01:14:59

And maybe some of those big kind of two big gloves, you know, workman's gloves that almost no one has.

01:15:05

Like leather ones. Yeah, definitely. It's only 8pm. So there are passers on the street,

01:15:11

but none of them give the men a second glance. They just look like they're supposed to be there.

01:15:15

So two of the men walk past the main entrance and one of them holding a big bag on his shoulder

01:15:20

is blocking his face. He opens the door with, seems like with a key, like it almost seems like

01:15:25

there's more information here than they get, but like maybe there is an inside person. I don't know.

01:15:30

So that man goes to the back of the building and lets the others in through the fire exit.

01:15:34

And the men walk through a hallway that was shared with another business and they were picked up on that business's security footage.

01:15:41

I think they thought it was part of the bank one. And so they didn't try to hide themselves.

01:15:46

So the footage shows a total of six men, all disguised as workers, all with their faces covered by dust masks.

01:15:54

Immediately, police noticed that this is not the Pink Panthers, first of all, because those guys are like young and fun, right?

01:16:00

They're young, they're fun. They do things to get like CCTV footage to go viral.

01:16:05

They're not trying to hide anything. No, no. And also these robbers seem old. Oh, the exposed skin they can see looks wrinkly and there are flashes of white hair.

01:16:17

Some of them are moving slowly, like they're seemingly in pain as you do when you're fucking

01:16:22

older. Hey, one of them is having breathing difficulties while he brings in bags of heavy tools through

01:16:28

the fire exit. And there's also the one who entered through the front door is also wearing a red wig.

01:16:33

So by 9 p.m., the robbers are inside the building and are no longer visible on this one camera.

01:16:38

They reappear at 8 a.m. on Friday morning. So that's how it took them like 12 fucking hours to do the mess they made to do.

01:16:45

Oh, OK. Yeah. But the thing is, when they show back up at 8 a.m., they're empty handed.

01:16:49

They don't have any of the equipment they brought in, nor do they have any bags of loot of $77 million worth of loot, you know, which is probably a lot.

01:16:58

the investigators keep scrubbing through the footage and when they get to the night

01:17:01

of saturday april 4th the night before easter they discover that this audacious gang of seemingly

01:17:08

old dudes come back to the scene of the crime the fucking following sat like that following night

01:17:14

which like does not happen professionals do not do that no that's what serial killers do yeah so

01:17:20

actually only four men come back and it appears that two out of the gang decided it was too risky

01:17:25

to come back. So only four guys come back. The investigators figure out that the thieves

01:17:29

hadn had the right kind of equipment that they needed to knock over a wall of the safe deposit boxes that was against the concrete they had drilled through So they come back with a more specialized hydraulic pump to finish the job So they hadn gotten their loot yet And they like we can we did all this work They had to leave go get a

01:17:46

different tool and come back. And it took them from when they left Friday morning to like Saturday

01:17:50

evening to get that tool. Like. Jerry, if you could call me back, this is actually pressing.

01:17:58

I do not. I really don't. I know it's Easter. I know you're having your, what do they call it?

01:18:04

You're having your bank holiday with your family. But if I could just borrow that diamond head drill bit.

01:18:11

Right. So on the footage from that night, they're finally seen leaving with garbage pails and

01:18:15

garbage bags, presumably full of diamonds, jewels, gold, and cash that had been stored

01:18:22

in the now empty safe deposit boxes. So they got what they came for two nights ago.

01:18:28

But the biggest break from this second wave of footage comes when investigators see street footage of two of the burglars arriving back on the scene in a white Mercedes, not the white rental van from the first night.

01:18:38

Of course, London has an automatic plate recognition system, blah, blah, blah. They're able to track the car.

01:18:46

They track it and they find it parked in front of a nondescript house and they're floored when they see who comes out of it.

01:18:53

I literally have seen this movie. Have you really? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I love the British and their entertainments.

01:19:00

Of course you have. So the Hatton Gardens heist, you know, it feels like a throwback to a different era in London crime.

01:19:08

And that's because it is. The man police see going back and forth to the Mercedes with all the loot that they track down, you know, in that house.

01:19:17

Turns out to be a career criminal named John Collins, who goes by Kenny. And guess how old he is?

01:19:25

The first number that popped in my head was 76. 77 oh shit good one 77 that's like my dad's age right it might be because i saw the movie

01:19:37

oh right well yeah that's a weird specific thing or how old is it michael kane i don't know

01:19:41

i'm michael kane he's not michael do it again i'm michael kane thank you i don't think we gave

01:19:48

you enough credit when you it's not good at all no it's pretty good literally it's it's an impression

01:19:52

of somebody else's impression, basically. Right. Okay. But we get it. So he's not played by Michael Caine.

01:19:58

He goes by Kenny and police have long assumed him to be retired from fucking doing shit like this because he's 77.

01:20:05

Kenny Collins had been involved with robberies going back to the 1960s. He'd been in and out of jail

01:20:10

lots of times over the years, but he'd been out since 1988. And as investigators follow Collins

01:20:16

around London, he leads them right to his accomplices. And it's a veritable who's who of London's most infamous heists.

01:20:24

Yes. It's like they are trying to make a movie, seriously. Yeah. They were trying to keep Michael Caine in business.

01:20:29

That's right. I think went to him first. I'm like, if we do this and pull this off

01:20:33

and then get caught, will you play me? Yeah. Will you please help us get the movie made?

01:20:37

He's like, yes. Get the movie made and then we'll do the heist. Okay. So at a pub, Collins meets up with a 76-year-old man

01:20:44

named Brian Reeder. And that's who Michael Caine plays. And maybe that's why you thought he was 76.

01:20:49

Karen. I'm Michael Coyne. I was right. So this guy, Brian Reeder, is a legend. He had been involved with the robbery of

01:20:59

Alloyd's Bank in 1971, which he was never caught for. He had lived on the lam in Spain's Costa del

01:21:06

Sol for many years, taking advantage of a lapsed extradition agreement between the UK and Spain.

01:21:12

I'm sure it was the most beautiful time of his life. For real. And after returning to London, he was ultimately nabbed in the 1983 Brinks-Matt robbery in which thieves robbed gold bullion that would currently be worth about $150 million from a warehouse.

01:21:31

Jesus Christ. It was while he was serving time for these bullion capers through the 90s that Reeder is said to have first hatched the plan for the Hatton Garden heist.

01:21:40

But he didn't wind up following through until decades later after his wife Lynn died of cancer.

01:21:47

And some people think that he was mostly motivated just by grief or boredom and maybe the desire to pull off one last job.

01:21:55

He was like kind of fuck it all. Yeah, like Lynn was like, I need you to stand straight and narrow.

01:22:00

And he's like, gotcha. And he did. And then she passed and he was like, what's it all worth?

01:22:07

Also, I swear to God, I think when you start doing stuff like that, I can only compare it to like going on stage in front of a bunch of people.

01:22:16

Yeah. But you just the adrenaline becomes its own thing. Totally. Or it's like you want a shot of that again.

01:22:22

You want to like get that feeling again. Hell yes. Nothing will ever match it. So police figure out that the first guy, Kenny Collins, who is not in great health, posted up at an office building across the street from Hatton Garden and acted as a lookout.

01:22:37

And they also figure out that Brian Reeder was one of the two men who did not return to the scene of the crime to finish the job.

01:22:44

That could possibly be because he was 76 and carrying a bunch of heavy fucking loot out of a, you know, might not be the best idea for him.

01:22:53

Do you think it threw his back out? It sparked his gout? Exactly So the flying squad you know the policemen follow Collins to another pub where he meets up with two other men These men too are familiar to the investigators One is a 67 year old named Terry Perkins He known for the 1983 security express robbery where he and others rob cash from an armored car It so funny It like these are like the who who of this thing

01:23:22

They're like the basketball champions from high school. And it's like they're from the number the championship where they played this guy.

01:23:29

Exactly. Exactly. Heist championships. And it's tempting to think that these are all lovable, like working class heroes in, you know, in many ways.

01:23:36

But they did hurt people, I will say. In the Security Express robbery, the group poured gasoline on the driver and shook a bottle of matches in his face until he gave them the keys.

01:23:47

Very traumatizing. Yes, very traumatizing. They didn't set fire to him, though. These three robberies, Lloyds Bank, Brinks Mat, and Security Express are among the most infamous in British history.

01:23:58

So it's just like, let's get the gang together. Yeah. Like Olympic style though.

01:24:03

Yeah. Being a grandpa isn't doing it for me. Right. I need more. Understandable.

01:24:09

The other man at the pub with Collins and Perkins is a 59 year old named Daniel Jones.

01:24:14

Jones doesn't have the same like, you know, lengthy criminal history or pedigree, but he is younger and in better health.

01:24:21

And investigators are pretty sure that he's there to do any heavy lifting that the older men couldn't do.

01:24:26

And I mean, this is such a guy, Richie fucking plot of a movie. Yeah, I was going to say that younger guy sounds like that's where our Jason Statham gets to come in and help the oldies.

01:24:39

Yes, that is generous, though. Let's just say. In what way? They just look like dads.

01:24:46

They look like British dads. You know what I mean? Like, except for the Michael Caine guy who is hot.

01:24:50

Like, they're just British pasty. They're British dads. Dads. It's all the better.

01:24:55

Yeah. they're very normal looking people okay so i also love that like we need someone younger to carry

01:25:02

shit let's get a 58 year old 59 year old you know it's like that shows you like what how bad

01:25:09

how bad they were oh no shame against 59 year olds i just like i'm 44 and my back hurts so like

01:25:15

you know yeah it's not you get a 28 year old not a 50 fucking whatever year old and also they were

01:25:20

like can you help me with this email and he's like no i actually can't i can't you're gonna have to

01:25:25

Ask your granddaughter. There's a fifth man that they find out was involved. He's a 58-year-old named Carl Wood.

01:25:33

And he, like Jones, was relatively youthful. So he was also tasked with carrying heavy equipment.

01:25:38

And he also didn't return to finish the job. So it was just the four men. As for the sixth man, the one who wore the red wig, his identity continued to elude police.

01:25:50

When police first hear the other five men talking, they refer to him as Basil. seems like they don't even know his identity which is so usual suspects of him you know basil

01:25:59

scotland yard surveils the men they put cameras on them and shit and they learn terry perkins

01:26:05

danny jones and kenny collins are planning to meet on may 19th to divide up their spoils like

01:26:11

they talk they talk like fucking school girls about this shit with like no no thought that

01:26:17

maybe we're being recorded by the police and also they have no idea that whatsapp even exists they

01:26:23

can't do it anywhere else besides like on the phone or right at a pub they like go to the pub

01:26:28

they always go to put a camera in there and record them it's just like oh not complex they love their

01:26:36

pubs over in england they really do amen okay so on may 19th 200 officers raid 12 different

01:26:43

addresses with warrants to arrest the five known burglars and three other men who worked with them

01:26:49

after the fact. Police find Terry Perkins, Danny Jones, and Kenny Collins, like the main guys,

01:26:54

together at a dining room table with a gold smelter set on it. And about $4 million worth

01:27:01

of gold between them about to fucking burn that shit down and sell it. Yeah, make little rings,

01:27:07

fun necklaces. Best, they're all making best friend necklace charms. Oh, I love heisting with

01:27:15

you. Best heisters. What a heist it's been. So basically everyone gets arrested and the five

01:27:24

men are charged along with the three accomplices and Brian Reader, Danny Jones, Terry Perkins,

01:27:30

and Kenny Collins all plead guilty. They first pretend that they don't know each other. And then

01:27:35

they show them the video of them at the pub drinking together. And it's like, okay. They're

01:27:39

all sentenced to between six and seven years in prison. Three out of the four men, including

01:27:43

Carl Wood are later found guilty. As for Basil, this mysterious sixth man, he evades law enforcement

01:27:50

for another three years with about $15 million worth of stolen goods, which is about two thirds

01:27:56

of the spoils. So he goes and has some fucking fun. Was Basil an inside man, I wonder? Like,

01:28:01

why did he get so much money? I don't know. I think they were like, some of them were holding

01:28:07

onto it because they were in the process of splitting it up and doing things with it.

01:28:10

I'll hold this big bag over here. Right. Let's leave this one for last. Yeah. Calls the police.

01:28:18

Grabs the bag. Right. So finally in 2018, a 57-year-old man named Michael Seed is arrested.

01:28:26

Police find hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewels and gold bricks in the apartment that he lives in in London, like not far away, as well as an electric smelter.

01:28:37

And he's ultimately convicted. He's Basil, by the way. He ultimately convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison and seven more if he doesn repay six million pounds in damages which is about eight million dollars today So what would you take Seven years or you have to pay six You got to keep that eight million dollars

01:28:55

15. Doesn't that leave him with seven million? Yeah. Well, I bet he spent a shit ton of it.

01:29:02

Right. Still, it's millions of dollars. It's a lot of dollars. Like left him with seven and he spent four.

01:29:08

He still has three million bills. I think we all know. No one with money. No. goes to jail. That's the whole thing. That's why everybody wants money.

01:29:19

Yeah. We've been trying to teach everyone that for eight and a half years. It's, I mean, and also that's why it'll, this system has to change because it's a fucking scam.

01:29:29

It's just not fair. It's just not fair. So Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Limited has since,

01:29:35

sadly for everyone, gone out of business, but a plan is in the works to move the entire

01:29:40

preserved crime scene of the basement vault, which we have the photo of, to a museum that

01:29:45

people can actually go visit. Yes. Which is such a mess. It's an OCD person like myself's worst nightmare.

01:29:52

I mean, it's not something I want to look at, you know? I want to. The story of the heist has been adapted into two different movies, one with Michael Caine,

01:30:03

of course, and a limited series. And that is the story of the Hatton Garden Heist, the largest burglary in British legal

01:30:10

history and a real life one last job for a crew of notorious thieves. I mean, they actually were

01:30:18

imitating art because obviously I never believed that one last heist really existed in real life.

01:30:27

That seemed like a bit of a construct, but now we know it actually did happen recently.

01:30:34

You think that all of them, especially Brian Reader, who was played by Michael Caine, would do it all over again because he got to be played by Michael Caine.

01:30:43

Like that is an honor, an honor to be played by Michael Caine. You did something with your life to the degree that Michael Caine's getting involved in telling others about it.

01:30:54

Yeah, maybe his late wife Lynn is looking down from heaven being like, you cheeky so-and-so.

01:31:01

I love it when you break the law, baby. Yeah. no she's the one that wanted him to stop she'd be like you son of a bitch but he he did it he waited

01:31:11

he did wait you know but that would piss her off even more because she's like but that's just

01:31:16

manipulative because now i'm doing an irish accent that doesn't make sense that was a beautiful

01:31:22

button of you know what you're never too old come on guys too old yeah one last in you one last what

01:31:29

in you. There's a lot of people sitting around. They're like, oh no, I'm 41. Blue, blue, blah. Well, what about Michael Caine's friend?

01:31:37

What about Michael Caine who fucking filmed a movie? Michael Caine who is still active on Twitter. God bless his soul.

01:31:45

We should all strive to be a little more like Michael Caine. I agree. I agree. Thanks for listening to this episode, this long ass episode.

01:31:53

This is one of those episodes that's going to get you on a nice, like a car trip.

01:31:57

for something. A hundred percent. But only if you're by yourself or around someone that is absolute,

01:32:05

that got you into this podcast. Right. No new people. No. Like even your dog maybe shouldn't listen to this.

01:32:12

No being bossy with your boyfriend and being like, you have to let, this isn't one of those.

01:32:16

This isn't his, this isn't for him. Oh, wait a second. We're saying it at the end when it doesn't matter.

01:32:21

It's too late. Guys. You're behind them. Thanks for being here with us. We love you.

01:32:27

stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah! to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com.

01:32:59

Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder and Twitter at MyFaveMurder.

01:33:04

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My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgi

446 - I’m Michael Caine

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