00:00:00
This is exactly right. Isn't some far off concept? It's already here. Next starts now.
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Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. When a charming neurosurgeon rode into Frontier Town
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selling a persona of confidence and care, patients trusted him. He wore cowboy boots in the operating room
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and became sought after by patients. He promised to heal them. Instead, he left a trail of broken bodies.
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This is a story of greed, betrayal, and a fight for justice. Listen to Dr. Death the Cowboy wherever you get your podcasts
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or binge the entire series right now only with Audible. Goodbye. Pandora Jewelry brings the sparkle to summer, now with even better prices.
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Terms and conditions apply. See Pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. Warning. The following episode deals with mature and disturbing themes,
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including threats of violence, drug use, explicit language, and wild animal abuse.
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But listener discretion is not advised, because we dubbed it all out. Now you can listen to this podcast in front of children, in the car with your mother-in-law,
00:01:40
or at a public pool. Please note, no actual bears were harmed in the making of this episode.
00:01:45
Enjoy, mother friend! Dubbed. Hello. And welcome. To my favorite murder, the podcast.
00:02:07
It's a true crime podcast. That's right. And I'm Georgia Hardstark. And I'm Karen Kilgara.
00:02:12
How do you do? Very well. And you? Fine. Thank you. Good. Do you ever get mad at people?
00:02:18
Do you ever get mad at people when they say to you, how are you? And I said, good, thanks.
00:02:22
And then I say, how are you? And they say, I'm well. because they're like pointing out that you just said good.
00:02:27
And so you immediately feel bad about yourself. Is that grammar, passive aggression?
00:02:32
It is. Oh, I never knew that. Well, I swear it drives me crazy. I'm well. I would assume that someone who is posing as a as some sort of therapist is what that sounds like to me.
00:02:45
Or some that sounds like someone who's like, I'm well. I was just at the farmer's market buying fresh broccoli to steam into my pores.
00:02:56
Do you eat organic yet? Do you eat organic? Well, no. Because I'm unwell. Well, I'm fine with not having organic.
00:03:10
Yeah. How about I'm just fine, barely getting by? Do you see the circles under my eye?
00:03:17
They look like a well person's under eye baggage. I'm well. Thank you. I'm well.
00:03:24
I'm well. I'm a Stepford wife. I'm well. I'm well. Well, that just makes me think of Banana Boy, Scotty Landis, where he and I were talking
00:03:35
about some people that were like very successful and also had kids and both of the husband
00:03:41
and wife are famous in some way and both rich or something like that. And I go, wow, they really have it all.
00:03:49
And Scotty goes, ew, who wants it all? It's this thing where it's like, that's what I always feel like, especially in Los Angeles.
00:03:58
I always want to tell those people with the tall nubuck boots and the white sweater and the big weird hat and the bleach blonde hair.
00:04:07
I know them. I'm not competing with you. I'm not interested in your life. I don't want what you have.
00:04:14
I understand that you believe yourself to be the pinnacle of, you know, your yoga class.
00:04:22
And congrats. And avocado toast. Yes. You're doing all the things. You're checking all the boxes from the weird subscription box company that you signed up for.
00:04:32
God forking. Bless. Get away from me. Have you seen the movie Ingrid Goes West? No.
00:04:39
There is a character in that. And it's what she is striving for. What's her name?
00:04:44
She's so great. Stephen, she plays Aubrey Plaza and she's trying to reach that character's lifestyle
00:04:52
goals, hashtag lifestyle goals but she's just like us so she can't and just screws it all up in all these
00:04:58
charming, not charming ways, like dark ways but that, like the character they had play
00:05:04
and all of it is so exactly, lives in a bungalow in Venice Beach with her hot bearded husband and their puppy
00:05:12
And they have a lot of boho, you know, Joshua Tree style life. And everything they eat is perfect and cute.
00:05:20
And it's and so she steals her dog to become friends with her. It's like it's very that.
00:05:25
So I highly recommend. That sounds really good and relatable. I really love that movie.
00:05:30
Yeah, it's a this town is and I think maybe it's not even this town. I think a lot of pop culture has become so drastically homogenized in a way that is like
00:05:43
And I know this is because I'm never on Instagram And so when I see little bits of Instagram pop through, it's shocking to me
00:05:52
How strange it everyone is starting to look exactly the same Yeah and a little bit like sex dolls where it like sex dolls Everyone has equal size top and bottom lips and they they both giant and they the exact same size
00:06:09
Yeah. Everyone has not a line or wrinkle or a mark on their face. Yeah. Every single person has like half inch long eyelashes and gigantic eyebrows.
00:06:20
Eyebrows. not even like a wrinkle not even an expression and everyone's kind of to the side
00:06:27
and has a lot of contour and there's a window on every wall in every room letting in the most dappled
00:06:35
lovely sunshine God bless it all it's a flipping rat race to get somewhere that we don't even
00:06:44
know what the point of it is because it's not real ultimately I mean I don't look
00:06:49
I'm not saying beauty is bad. Obviously, everybody wants to feel good and look good.
00:06:54
And that's good. Yeah, good. Make yourself happy. Sure. Good, good, good. But it's don't assume
00:07:00
it's interesting just because it's what what you think people want. Here, let me brag real quick
00:07:06
about how real I am. It's cat food in this room I'm in right now. That's how real. And you can't
00:07:13
you can't put that. There's no Instagram filter for that, baby. That's all just like it's all for
00:07:18
me. You know what I mean? Like, is it hearty seafood platter? Or is it more of a chicken
00:07:23
dinner supreme? Like fisherman's wharf on a hot day? Yes. Yeah, it is. That's what it is.
00:07:32
Hashtag what? Hashtag fisherman's wharf. Like you see a seagull picking out an empty bread bowl that's got like the clam chowder
00:07:43
residue on it. And then a tourist right behind it taking a picture of it. than making the seagull's waist smaller and the seagull's boobs bigger.
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And then there's no lines around the seagull's eyes. Oh, where did he get those boots?
00:07:58
Oh, my God. Did he have a rib removed? That seagull is so skinny. No, he's on a paleo diet.
00:08:05
I was going to say, you lived in San Francisco in the 90s. No, 2000s. Correct me if I'm wrong.
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2000s. Oh, 2000s. Yeah. Chips and dip. Then there's no way you'll remember this.
00:08:15
What is it? Because there was a thing on Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39. I used to go with my dad, so maybe I remember it.
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To Pier 39? To Fisherman's Wharf. Okay, same. Same diff. Yeah. Same area. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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But basically, Pier 39 was like the weird marionette doll store that my parents would be like, we're never buying you anything from that store, so don't look at it.
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Those are precious art pieces. There's no flipping way. Where they're like, you can pick one thing.
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And I'm like, I absolutely want the $400 marionette. My mother's like, what is wrong? How do you do it every time? But they used to have on Pier 39. I guess I'm thinking of this because of the seagull.
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Yeah, sure. A bag of bones seagull. I was just thinking they had a thing there in the 80s that you could go in and sing along to your favorite like Whitney Houston hit and make a cassette tape of yourself singing a hit.
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So it was like individualized karaoke, one person karaoke to no one. But then you had a tape.
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You could like was it a video car? No. OK, because it was that long ago. That's that would have cost five thousand dollars at the time.
00:09:25
Yes, exactly. That is awesome. But I feel like they had those around in malls all over the country and then eventually became like because because these videos pop up of kids.
00:09:36
Yeah. doing that, that like that must have become the video you could get. And then like, remember how
00:09:41
they would have like teen magazine and you and your sister had to sit in and they take a photo
00:09:45
of it and show you on the cover of teen magazine. Yes. It was like the young girls version of the
00:09:51
time person of the year thing. It's instead it's like I made it on cover. I feel like you getting
00:09:58
that and those things are the rich girl equivalent, not to say you're rich, no offense, the rich girl
00:10:02
equivalent of having to get a caricature drawn of you on Fisherman's Wharf, which was just like
00:10:06
the bottom of the barrel. Are you ready for your low self-esteem beginnings? Yes. Here's how big
00:10:12
your teeth are, Georgia. Yes. Here's how like your head is like for mine, you know, they give you a
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tiny body. Yes. Like if you're like, I like to ride horses, it's a tiny body, a tiny body on a
00:10:24
tiny horse. But then you're accentuated whatever you hate about yourself. Yeah. So I already had
00:10:30
a big face. So it's like they couldn't figure out what to do with me because it was like there was
00:10:35
the caricature itself is a gigantic head. That's the joke. I don't know what to do
00:10:40
with this girl. We're going to make her eyes bluer? That's not going to hurt her feelings.
00:10:46
How do we make this child hate herself for the rest of her life? That just made you feel better about yourself? Because you're like, wow,
00:10:54
my eyes are like pools. And then she's like, so you're saying that's my real-sized face?
00:10:59
yep yep that's that's not a caricature that was for a long time like what you wanted is that big
00:11:06
head lollipop head skinny body you know and it was you're above lollipop head skinny body tiny horse
00:11:13
golden gate bridge in the back little cowboy hat like what hashtag this is that was the original
00:11:22
Instagram. Poor characters from Pier 39. Can everyone please post their caricature
00:11:28
drawings or their cover of Teen Magazine photos from when they were kids. From the tourist trap. Oh my god.
00:11:39
I was a cowgirl. I have one as me as a filthy cowgirl. I swear to God. It's from Knott's Berry Farm.
00:11:45
Do you have one? Yes. I have one. The group of friends who all decided one day we were going to go to Pier 39
00:11:51
and you know who in it legendary holly gardner tampon suitcase story who who i have to say suffered greatly in the retelling of the tampon suitcase story was my best friend from sixth grade through high school
00:12:05
So like, yeah, you really told it and said her full name if you had really hated her.
00:12:09
Yes, exactly. No, no, no. That was just a bad moment in our relationship. But but she's in that, you know, the all stars of like seventh grade, essentially.
00:12:19
And what it is, is one of those old fashioned cowboy pictures that's supposed to be like a tin type.
00:12:24
and we're all dressed up in costumes. Okay, so here's what we're going to do. Stephen, there's no way you don't have a caricature
00:12:29
of yourself as your kid. A dinosaur. Yes, you at Jurassic Park. You're writing a tiny dinosaur.
00:12:35
Yes, I do. So here's what we're going to do. The three of us are going to post it on our Instagram.
00:12:39
Can I just retell? Hold on. Stephen, as George is saying, we know you have one. Stephen's looking...
00:12:46
It's almost like he was in a pantomime of a confused guy. And the second I said Jurassic Park,
00:12:52
He snapped right into it and was just like, oh yeah, I have one of those. Well, because my sister and I have
00:12:58
one of us doing it and then we recreated it as adults a few years ago. Is it a character or is it
00:13:06
a post? It's like a green screen being chased by a dinosaur. So we recreated that moment.
00:13:12
Because he's younger than us. We have the middle, beginning and hopefully end of what
00:13:17
we were able to do as children. Yes. complete yes we we span three generations this is our family i think i was too scared to get a
00:13:27
real caricature though you were saying you were too scared to find out what your uh one major
00:13:33
feature is on your face yeah i think i was too scared so like at knott's berry farm georgia i
00:13:38
never i never did that yeah he was he was easy on me because i think i was like four
00:13:43
and then please tag let's do mfm caricature hashtag because we have the whole thing point
00:13:52
of this is to get our own hashtag right that's what you wanted karen now you're speaking a
00:13:57
language like on twitter hashtags are straight up for nerds that never use twitter not instagram
00:14:02
i know instagram is a completely different language so you have to call this just tag us
00:14:07
just tag us mfm caricature is good okay i mean those are the ones we want big head little but i
00:14:12
want big head little body okay you're looking for a potentially fake magazine cover no i don't
00:14:19
just so funny i'd love to see that whatever the like the play area art we've spent too much time
00:14:25
on this just post it and tag us disagree i think we could dig deeper on this okay also it makes me
00:14:32
think of this too because it's like just to not to argue with you first we were definitely middle
00:14:38
middle class. But my mother would always do this thing where like, if we walk by the caricature
00:14:43
person, she'd go, you don't want that. It's not worth it. Pick something. That's a good trick.
00:14:49
She would always like out of sight of her mouth, basically be like, you know, you don't want that.
00:14:54
You're going to like it. You like it now. You won't like it by the time you get home.
00:14:57
She's a smart lady. And she knows how to work with people, I feel like, to like make them think
00:15:02
that they're making their own decision. Yeah. You mean manipulate children? Yes.
00:15:07
parenting 101 give them two options make one of them 12 foot skeleton you make the other one the
00:15:13
one you want them to do yeah and then you get whatever you want do you want a nap or do you
00:15:18
want to help mommy with laundry that's also head writing if anybody wants to take my class that's
00:15:24
that's the first one wow that's good stuff uh what the friendly shirt how did we get on what
00:15:31
we were talking about how things are superficial on social media. Oh, yeah. Speaking of social media, I have a correction because social media told us.
00:15:42
Perfect. It's a, you know, another clarification because last week I talked about the book I'm reading,
00:15:47
the Icelandic. We guessed Norwegian. It's called I Remember You by Irsa Sergador
00:15:53
Dottor. Remember? Yes. And we guessed all sorts of places where this book must be from. None of them were right
00:16:00
Because Deborah Taylor, 1654 on Instagram said, Yersa is from Iceland. You can tell if someone is Scandinavian slash Nordic if their last name has something at the end that resembles son or daughter, like Duter.
00:16:15
Oh, my God. Good to know. Scandinavia is. Then she goes on to give us a report. Scandinavia is geographically considered Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
00:16:25
Culturally, Finland and Iceland are included. Generally, all five and their territories like Greenland and the Faroe Islands are considered Nordic countries.
00:16:35
Maybe you can hit Reykjavik on your next tour and invite her to the show. Love you both.
00:16:40
So your author lives in Reykjavik? Yes, in Iceland. Reykjavik, by the way, is the capital of Iceland.
00:16:47
Well, I should have known that then. Now we all know. Here's why I know. In sixth grade, we had to do reports on countries of the world.
00:16:54
I'll tell this story again, even though it's not really a story. I love it. And I got picked second to last. And the only so if your name got picked out of a jar and you got to go up and there goes Matt Bracco. He picks Italy. Italy is gone. Everyone. All the people with Italian grandparents. Oh, in two more swipes, Ireland's gone. What? Come on. Then it goes all the way down through the 40 or 60 kids in my class. I can't remember however many. Then it's me. I pick Iceland. Last guess who was last?
00:17:26
holly gardner no and she got malta literally this was pre-internet pre-everything this is
00:17:35
encyclopedia there's two lines about malta i flipping literally it the librarian couldn't
00:17:41
help us she was like nobody knows these countries nobody wants to hear about them who's your teacher
00:17:46
what the sweet honesty what's mr gilardi doing over there so i end up digging up as much as i
00:17:53
can find out and become quite interested in Iceland because I was like wait a second Greenland the one that covered in ice Mom why did we move to Iceland I did a full report I became a true fan of Iceland
00:18:07
And then 25 years later, Iceland is all the rage. And I'm just like, I will tell you about Reykjavik and not vice versa.
00:18:14
Okay. Well, so I Remember You is a good Icelandic book. It's part of it. Takes place in Reykjavik.
00:18:20
It's forking. Creepiest shirt. I highly recommend it. I'm going to look up because that sounds familiar.
00:18:25
I feel like there might be. I bet there's a movie. Yes. Because it's very like as I'm reading it, I'm like, I can picture the movie.
00:18:33
Yeah. In my head. Doctor. There's a little boy, ghost boy. Gustafsson. Gustafsson.
00:18:40
Gustafsson. Your doctor. Your doctor. Let's go there one day for tour. Heck. Yes.
00:18:46
What do you have? What are you doing? I have started the podcast, which now this is weird.
00:18:51
And maybe you can explain this to me, Georgia. And OK, the podcast is called West Cork.
00:18:59
Oh, right. It's a true crime, legendary true crime podcast that I've heard about for so long.
00:19:03
Only recently became available on iTunes podcast because it was audible original that I recommended three years ago.
00:19:12
Easily, easily that it is. So I can't believe you haven't. It's one of those ones that everyone's like, but Karen, you'll really like it.
00:19:19
And you're like, but no, then no. And then Karen, I think you're like, no, no. And then three years later, you go, do you know what I found?
00:19:26
I found that. You know what you need to hear about? I knew it. It's excellent. It's one of those angering ones because it's a cold case still.
00:19:38
I don't know if anything's come out of it since it came out. But it takes place in Ireland.
00:19:42
West Cork, Ireland. Yep. Beautifully done podcast. It's just a classic, wonderful true crime podcast.
00:19:48
I didn't know you couldn't listen unless you had Audible. So that's awesome. Yet it just came.
00:19:52
It just became it. We just went wide. And then I was like, God, I know this, though.
00:19:56
How do I know that I'm listening to it? And obviously, what what's the one place I would go to if I'm like, how would who would have told me?
00:20:06
Who would have told me about this podcast? Surely I was just like, for some reason.
00:20:12
Well, it's because it was three years ago, which means it was 100 years ago in my brain.
00:20:15
But we also get tagged in a lot of them. Like, you have to listen to this. And you're like, OK.
00:20:19
I know. And friends tell us at this point, it's like it's going to be from one or either us to each other or a bunch of other people.
00:20:27
So or literally thousands of other people who know our taste very well. But I will say this.
00:20:33
What a listen, even separate from if you're interested, not interested in true crime or just a basic story.
00:20:39
This almost goes beyond a lot of that. There's like a kind of like small town psychology element to it.
00:20:45
And it is a true, like just a quilt of all the different Irish accents. There's a guy in there.
00:20:54
There's an Irish detective who I kept thinking was from France because his accent would go into this.
00:21:01
But she's French. She's French. This detective is from, I believe they said he was from Galway or something.
00:21:12
I can't remember. But his accent was unlike anything I've ever heard. Irish style.
00:21:18
But it like would go into these other places and come back around. And you're just like, this is how this brogue turns into all these things.
00:21:24
And this is in all different areas. This isn't narrative. This is like real people because it's true crime.
00:21:29
So, yeah, that's good. I'm excited for you. That's a great one. It's I'm just almost done.
00:21:35
I'm on the last like last half of the last episode. But I do that thing where I can't I can't.
00:21:40
I know. Tell you what. If there's been any updates since it came out, because I haven't followed along.
00:21:46
I will. Nice. I did want to read you one quote, which you may or may not remember.
00:21:51
Okay. But there's a witness who was old, who testified to seeing something or, you know, whatever, some story.
00:22:01
But he was old, so they were trying to act like he shouldn't have testified. Telling me I need to be in a home for the bewildered, you know.
00:22:12
that's his way of saying that they didn't trust his testimony and he was like mad about it
00:22:19
tell me i need to be at a home for the bewildered oh my god do they have those just if you're
00:22:24
generally bewildered you get to go stay in a hospital for a while like see someone stupid
00:22:29
doing a dumb thing and you're like i don't even understand why you would try that and he's like
00:22:33
let's go home let's go to your bewildered yeah bewildered you're too bewildered to be out in the
00:22:38
world right now yeah and be in a home for the bewildered can we call this episode a home for
00:22:43
the bewildered steven so that's my most um prominent i just love when there's a good podcast
00:22:52
that i get up and like do the dishes with and get get my stuff done it's like you finally have
00:22:58
someone supporting you and the things you want to do and the bull sugar you want to do not the work
00:23:03
it's like yes finally someone wants me to do the dishes and fold my laundry and like
00:23:07
go for a walk. Yeah. Just go kind of sit and stare. Well, if that's what you want for me,
00:23:13
West Cork, you know best because you love me the most. And I trust you. Can I plug? Can I plug
00:23:20
something about me? Oh, wish you would. Okay, great. I was on a podcast. And I'm really I was
00:23:26
really nervous about it. And I'm really happy with the way it turned out and proud of myself
00:23:31
for it because it was like kind of hard topics that I hadn't really shared before.
00:23:37
So it's this podcast called Turned Out a Punk that I'm a big fan of. And it's a Sky Damien who is in this band.
00:23:44
Steven! He interviews people who are in, were in and are in and have been in the punk scene and
00:23:51
how they got into it. And there's been all kinds of great, you know, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, a lot of comedians
00:23:57
and then a lot of like, you know, musicians like the government. go-go's and old punks and it's just really cool and i wanted to be on it because i love punk and
00:24:07
so i was on it and i'm i'm really happy with it so check out my episode of turned out a punk
00:24:12
it's episode 321 turned out punk turned out a punk turned out a punk yeah awesome congratulations
00:24:20
thank you oh nora went back to school noren's back she's back in class what grade is she in now
00:24:26
eighth nieces growing up but also like just in time it just makes me happy because it was really
00:24:37
for someone who loves school so much and also I just can't imagine that in eighth grade like right when things are
00:24:44
starting to get interesting and kind of fun or whatever you're getting your footing
00:24:48
yeah you just have to go sit home sit on the computer for a year gone crazy I wonder if it's
00:24:55
Like if it's kind of got them out of some trouble they would have been in or means that now they're going to get in more trouble to make up for the past trouble they would have gotten into.
00:25:04
I say probably more trouble. Yeah. Although did I tell you when Laura told me she was going back?
00:25:11
I texted Nora and said, I hope you're still popular. Do you think you're going to be popular?
00:25:14
What if you're not popular anymore? Did I tell you that? No, you didn't tell me that.
00:25:18
That's so funny. She sent all the laughing, like crying emojis going, I hope so.
00:25:24
Do you think it's like, it's like, you know how you measure how much you've grown on the wall?
00:25:28
Do you think when they all left school before, right when COVID hit, they all measured their
00:25:32
popularity on the wall and they have to go back and stand up against the wall again and be like,
00:25:37
oh, Shark Week. Nora, you're still at the same popularity level, but Lisa with two L's over here
00:25:42
is popular. She skyrocketed. So over the past year, Nora, give her your crown. You have to give
00:25:48
her your crown. It's so confusing at this age, but yeah, I guess people just don't like you in real
00:25:54
life like you're great on zoom it's your worst nightmare is you're only good on zoom imagine if
00:26:01
you adjusted so well to the pandemic that then you really as opposed to all the people that are
00:26:06
just hate being on zoom and the timing so off and shifty you're just like i've come alive on zoom
00:26:13
people finally care about me don't make me go back to standing on two legs and having to wear
00:26:18
pants in front of people and not being surrounded by the stench of cat food. I can't.
00:26:24
I am at my best when I'm surrounded by the stench of cat food and no one knows it.
00:26:27
That's when I'm at my best. I just need two snoring dogs near me to really podcast.
00:26:34
What if I started? I know I love your dogs. They're out. What if I started wearing like a cardboard piece of cardboard behind me that has this
00:26:44
wallpaper on it just so I always have because I need this background now this pink floral
00:26:50
like a backpack with a piece of pink floral wallpapered cardboard background just so everyone knows how good I look
00:26:58
with this I'm going to start carrying around books like I'm in the 8th grade and I'm just like oh these are my books from my
00:27:04
bookshelf from my Zoom when I was trying to seem smart like a leather belt around the books
00:27:10
lollipop lollipop you know when they went to school like that What was that all about?
00:27:17
Oh, did you hear the great author Beverly Cleary died? Yeah. Man. What a legend.
00:27:25
She really, she wrote amazing books. She wrote a ton of great books. Boys like those books.
00:27:31
Girls like those books. Young, old, everybody. Read them to your kids. Get them into it.
00:27:37
God, it's so good. Ramona Quimby. There's one that starts out. Ramona is so upset because her and Beezus went to the playground and some kid kept saying Jesus Beezus to Beezus.
00:27:48
And Ramona was out of her mind angry. And I was like, I just remember reading it and being like, let's get into this, Ramona.
00:27:57
What happened to you? Tell me your story. Yes. I mean, like, it's such good writing for kids.
00:28:04
It's saying what happens to you matters and like is a story worthy. Yeah. Yeah. So good.
00:28:11
You don't have to like waltz in through a wardrobe to get your story written, everyone.
00:28:16
You don't need a big, weird Christian lion telling your story. You don't need a giant peach.
00:28:21
You don't need insects to be your friend, although it's very helpful. Also, I loved the idea of being on a giant peach that you could like lay on and then just take a bite of if you wanted.
00:28:30
Oh, my God. That was my favorite. I read that book so many times when I was a kid.
00:28:35
We read that book. Also, did you have the copy of James and the Giant Peach that had the original illustrations?
00:28:42
And when they first show James, he is so scary looking, like his little eyes are so dark.
00:28:47
I don't remember that. And he's all like, you know, because his parents were killed by escaped animals from the zoo.
00:28:54
Yeah, a hippopotamus. And so he had to go live with Ant Spiker and Ant Fun. It was the saddest book ever.
00:28:59
It's so tragic. It's so tragic and horrible. They're so mean to him. I know. Jesus.
00:29:06
We were no wonder we're the way we are. I know. For real. It's all real dolls fault.
00:29:12
Should we do exactly right news? Yeah, I don't think there's much exactly right news this week, right?
00:29:18
Just some highlights of good stuff that's happening on shows. That's right. Well, really exciting.
00:29:24
I'm sure you heard the trailer that Tenfold More Wicked season three kicks off this week.
00:29:28
It's called Murder in the Court, and it covers a historical true crime story about a fractured family in Texas.
00:29:35
So check that out. It's so good. It's so great. Such a good series. It's such a good podcast.
00:29:40
We love it. We're so proud of Kate Winkler Dawson and all her amazing writing talent and her amazing
00:29:45
podcasting talent. She really is making just a hit. Yeah. I mean, people really love this show.
00:29:51
Such good feedback on it. She's just she's amazing. We thrilled to work with her There more COVID information on this podcast will kill you this week So go check out what Erin and Erin have to tell you There just it a bonus episode
00:30:05
So much good stuff. And I saw what you did. Millie and Danielle watch and discuss the amazing films with the incredible Pam Greer, including Jackie Brown and Coffee.
00:30:16
I mean, those are freaking classics. This woman is a legend. And Millie and Danielle are the people to tell you about it.
00:30:24
They break it down. All right. Should we get into this? Oh, yeah. Also, Pop Sockets in the merch store.
00:30:31
MyFavorMurder.com store. Pop Sockets. We have lots of them. Goodbye. Pop Sockets.
00:30:35
Get into it. Get into it. Pop it. Pop it and lock it. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes
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of a website or domain. Goodbye. So the story I'm doing this week was recommended by a listener.
00:32:42
His Twitter handle is, or her Twitter name is sweetly sarcastic. She's at sweetly sarcast.
00:32:48
She sent me a tweet that said, It said read this on medium dot com immediately thought of you.
00:32:53
Twists turn psychological drama. Highly recommend. And fun. Good. My favorite murder story to XO.
00:33:00
And she put the link and then she put no offense. Hashtag true crime, which made me laugh.
00:33:07
See there. It's used. I think it's being sweetly sarcastic. Got it. So that attached was a link to this article on medium.com written by Corey Mead called The Poet.
00:33:21
And it tells a tale of this story out of Wichita in the late 70s that I have never heard even an inkling of.
00:33:33
So the majority of what I'm about to tell you is a retelling of Corey Mead's article from medium.com called The Poet.
00:33:41
so I highly recommend is Wichita spooky or is it just me well you know you're thinking
00:33:47
you're about to find out why you think that's true or do you want me to just say it right now
00:33:50
no go no spoilers well it's about to happen there's other information we got was from medium.com
00:34:00
medium.com article by a writer named KM Brown called Trauma Stole These Women's Lives
00:34:07
as well as a 1988 People Magazine article by a writer named Gene Stone. Also an article from the Wichita Eagle
00:34:14
by Jason Tidd. And legacy.com, information from legacy.com. And also facts from a book called
00:34:23
Nightmare in Wichita, The Hunt for the BTK Killer. That's what you're thinking of.
00:34:29
Of course. Yes. So we go, I take you now to Wichita, Kansas, November 21st, 1978.
00:34:37
So 48-year-old Ruth Finley, who's a secretary for the head of security at Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, she's out running errands on her lunch break in downtown Wichita.
00:34:50
And she's leaving a greeting card shop on North Market Street when a blue-green 1964 Chevy Bel Air pulls up, cuts off her path, and a man jumps out.
00:35:01
He's wearing black frame glasses and a jean jacket over his sweater. no he's not a hipster it's 1978 he doesn't isn't about to ask her about animal seeing animal
00:35:12
collective life or if she has an extra cigarette yeah ruth immediately panics because she's seen
00:35:20
this man before this is actually the third time this stranger has approached her each encounter
00:35:26
being a little bit scarier than the last so at this moment he jumps out of the car ruth looks
00:35:32
around. All she can see is an old lady like way up the street. So she knows she's alone.
00:35:36
So before she can do anything, she's kind of in shock. He kicks her in the shin really hard,
00:35:42
then yells, have you got my money? She doubles over in pain. And as she does, the man shoves her
00:35:48
into the backseat of the car slides in next to her And then a man who her attacker calls Buddy who sitting behind the wheel drinking from a paper bag wrapped bottle He basically takes off when the attacker shuts the door So Ruth immediately slides over and tries to get out
00:36:06
the other backseat door, but the handle's gone. She looks around. She notices the upholstery in
00:36:13
this car is torn up. The floorboard's littered with junk. There's chains. There's rags. There's
00:36:20
an old gas can. There's pieces of concrete. And she also sees the dashboard is held together with
00:36:26
masking tape. So the man, her attacker starts going through her purse. He pulls out a $350
00:36:33
paycheck, $100 savings bond, and her safety deposit key. He says, we've struck it rich.
00:36:40
But then he finds the business card of a police officer and he starts screaming,
00:36:45
Let me tell you something. Hold on. Let me tell you something. And he picks up one of the pieces of concrete on the floor, hits her in the head with it and knocks her out.
00:36:55
So she's fading in and out of consciousness. But she later remembers snippets of the men's conversation.
00:37:01
At one point, they're at the Twin Lakes shopping center. She hears the driver complain about the shoddy job that Sears did on fixing his car.
00:37:09
At another point, she hears them say, we'll get rid of her, but not here. it's then that she remembers she's got a can of mace in her purse because the other two times she
00:37:18
ran into this guy it scared her so badly that she has mace in her purse but she's too afraid to move
00:37:24
or do anything um at the moment they end up driving around for hours and so finally ruth says
00:37:31
you have to let me out i have to go to the bathroom they both laugh at her and then she
00:37:35
basically says i'm gonna throw up if i don't go to the restroom and she starts gagging so they say
00:37:41
okay hold on a second and they pull into a park so at this point now it's cold and dark out because
00:37:48
it's november um so they make ruth take off her sweater and her shoes so that she won't run
00:37:55
anywhere or try to get away and her abductor you know the guy that who jumped out at her on the
00:38:01
street he walks her into the park and he's saying stuff like oh this is going to be fun i'll watch
00:38:05
you and you watch me. And then he's unzips his pants to start peeing. He says, I'll go first.
00:38:12
And she grabs her can of mace and sprays him with it because they let her take her purse.
00:38:18
Yes. So then she runs. She she runs up. She sees a bush. She kind of runs away, hides in the bush. The guy's walking around going, you can't get away. You'll freeze out here.
00:38:31
Just come out. We'll be nice to you. You know, whatever. But she stays hidden. Her feet start
00:38:37
going numb from how cold it is. She waits. She waits until it all goes quiet. And then she runs
00:38:44
up to a higher vantage point. And when she doesn't see the car, the Bel Air, she sees that basically
00:38:50
they've left. So she goes, she runs out of the park and she runs across the street to a liquor
00:38:55
store and has the store owner call the police and then call her husband, Ed. Amazing.
00:39:01
So now her husband, Ed, hasn't heard from her all evening. So he's already filed a missing persons report with the police.
00:39:09
So the liquor store owner calls Ed, says who he is, says Ruth is safe. Ed rushes to the store.
00:39:17
But by the time he gets there, his wife's already been taken to the police station.
00:39:21
So Ed, when he finally sees Ruth, she's shaken, but she's grateful to be alive. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time she's experienced a brutal attack and it wouldn't be the last.
00:39:33
So Ruth Finley, her maiden name is Ruth Smock. She's born on February 1st, 1930 in rural Missouri.
00:39:41
She's one of three children. Her father's a farmer. Her mother's a homemaker. She has a normal upbringing by Depression era standards.
00:39:49
So they had enough money to live, but they didn't have any extra like most families.
00:39:54
Her parents are pretty strict and they were very stoic. You know, none of the kids are really they were all encouraged to keep their emotions to themselves.
00:40:05
Sure. So when Ruth is 15, she moves out on her own to a boarding house in nearby Fort Scott, Missouri, to take sewing and typing classes.
00:40:15
And a year later, she gets a job working for the local phone company. And then on the night of October 14th, 1946, when Ruth is 16 years old, she comes home from the grocery store and is startled by the sound of the screen door opening behind her.
00:40:30
And she turns to look and sees a roughly 50 year old white male intruder who grabs her, starts pulling at her clothes.
00:40:38
She fights back against him. She presses her thumbs into his eyes. But the man overpowers her.
00:40:44
He has a chloroform on a rag that he holds over her mouth. And as she's passing out, she sees him heating a flat iron over the stove.
00:40:54
She wakes up later with scratches on her face, arms and legs, and both of her thighs branded with first and second degree burns.
00:41:01
Oh, my God. But her clothes are intact and investigators find no evidence of sexual assault.
00:41:07
And it's unclear if that assailant was ever caught. But she goes on to marry when she's 20 years old, June 1st, 1950.
00:41:15
and she marries her husband, Ed Finley, who's an accountant for a construction firm.
00:41:22
They settle into a one-story house in a quiet neighborhood in Wichita, Kansas. Ruth gets a job as the secretary for the head of security at the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company.
00:41:33
And in their free time, Ed likes to paint landscapes and Ruth makes ceramics. They have two sons and they basically live a quiet, fairly normal life.
00:41:42
she's described as soft-spoken sober and they're just an average middle-class couple
00:41:48
so basically all of this starts on a day in june in 1977 basically at this point ed is 50 years old he working in there in the backyard when he suddenly collapses So he rushed to the hospital Everybody thinks it a heart attack but they have he has to spend the night in the hospital to get his diagnosis of what actually
00:42:08
going on. So with both of their sons grown and out of the house, Ruth, now 48 years old,
00:42:14
is left to spend the night alone in her house for the first time in 30 years. And this is after the attack, right?
00:42:21
No, no, no. This is before. So this is this. This is how everything started. Oh, OK.
00:42:26
Got it. Got it. Is this night, June in 1977. OK. So she turns on the radio to distract herself.
00:42:33
But all of the news on the radio is about Wichita's first serial killer, the BTK killer and the seven victims he had so far murdered.
00:42:45
Oh, no. So, yeah, he had been he had been obviously going undetected. There's basically had a serial killer loose in Wichita and no one knew who he was.
00:42:56
And it was just it just he had killed seven people at that point. Oh, my God. So that's her first night home alone.
00:43:04
So she has to turn it to a different station to distract herself. And then a little later that night, the phone rings.
00:43:12
So Ruth is afraid it might be the hospital saying something bad about Ed. When she answers, instead, she hears the voice of a strange man who says, is this Ruth Smock from Fort Scott, Kansas?
00:43:23
And she is surprised to hear her maiden name and to hear her old hometown. She says, yes.
00:43:30
And he says, I know all about that night. And he then reads the article from an October 1946 issue of the Kansas newspaper, the Fort Scott Tribune,
00:43:39
Tribune, all about Ruth's horrifying attack. Oh, my God. So the man on the other end,
00:43:47
he reads the whole article to her. Then he asks if Ruth still got her brand. She says,
00:43:53
I don't know what you're talking about. But he says that he was a construction worker who found
00:43:59
this article about Ruth in the wall of a house he was demolishing. He says he's going to blackmail
00:44:04
and threatened to revive the story and tell everyone she knows unless she pays him.
00:44:10
She hangs up the phone. She gets a terrible headache. She goes to sleep and then she sleeps for 10 hours.
00:44:16
What the feelings? She wakes up the next morning. She gets the call from the hospital to say Ed didn't have a heart attack.
00:44:23
The collapse was from a car accident injury that had happened a year before. He has to stay in the hospital another week for observation,
00:44:31
which means that Ruth is alone in the house for another week. No. And she's fearing another ominous phone call from this man, but none come.
00:44:40
When Ed's released and back at home, Ruth decides not to bother him with the story of that call
00:44:46
and just decides to put the whole thing behind her. But then later that summer, she's at work
00:44:51
when an envelope appears on her desk with her name on it. She opens it up to find that same newspaper article
00:44:57
that the man had read on the phone to her. So she rips it up and throws it in the trash. And then the calls start again. Ruth keeps them a secret from Ed. So when she answers the phone and hears the man's voice, she immediately hangs up. And sometimes Ed will answer, but he basically the caller just hangs up on Ed.
00:45:16
So then in August of 1977, she's window shopping in downtown Wichita, and she notices a man that's there on a crowded sidewalk.
00:45:26
But suddenly there's a man walking alongside her. And then he says, you've done such a good job working this week.
00:45:31
You can take the weekend off. And she's kind of freaked out, but she stays calm.
00:45:36
She looks at him, estimates he's in his late 40s. He's 5'9", he's skinny. He's wearing a plaid sports shirt and jeans, white canvas shoes, and he has black hair graying at the temples.
00:45:47
So she kind of takes a picture of him with her mind, but she ignores him basically.
00:45:51
And she just she just keeps walking. But he keeps talking to her and he says, you work for the phone company, don't you?
00:45:57
What do you do there? Are you an operator? Then he tells her that he wanted big one big at gambling and asked, do you want to go to Vegas sometimes?
00:46:04
So she's just keep she's still ignoring him. And finally, she says, I'm waiting for my husband.
00:46:10
And his tone changes. And he says, are you still married? I like your face. I'm going to see you again.
00:46:15
You can count on that. What? Some people's fantasies are other people's nightmares.
00:46:20
So he disappears and then like into the crowd. And then Ed finally arrives. And so she tells him everything that's going on or that's just gone on.
00:46:31
He says, oh, he's just trying to flirt with you. It's fine. Ed. Ed. So a year goes by, she still gets the occasional phone call, but she just hangs up and she doesn't see the man in person again until a year later.
00:46:45
In June of 1978, when she's walking by an alleyway in downtown Wichita, when a hand reaches out and grabs her wrist and she hears a man yell.
00:46:56
Close your eyes. Now inhale through your nose for one, two, three, four. Hold one, two, three, four, and exhale one, two, three, four.
00:47:10
But she manages to get away from him and she runs into the Macy's across the street.
00:47:14
She finally gets to the fifth floor of the Macy's. She realizes where she is and that she's basically like blacked out from fear.
00:47:22
So she calls Ed. He comes and meets her at the Macy's and she tells him about that incident and about the
00:47:29
man that talked to her the year before and finally tells him about all the threatening phone calls
00:47:34
and all the stuff that happened. So they, Ed actually files a police report, but nothing
00:47:40
comes of it. So then four months later, in October of 1978, Ruth gets another mysterious letter,
00:47:46
and this one is sent to her home. And it's written in the same messy scrawl that the other
00:47:51
ones are written in. And this one reads, Cluck, you, Cluck, the police, Cluck, the telephone
00:47:56
company. Oh, shirt. Right? Which is... I mean, that's how we all feel. So a month later, the telephone company. Remember the telephone company?
00:48:08
Yeah, Ma Bell. I remember Ma Bell. Ma Bell. Oh, it used to be these rates. Oh, these rates.
00:48:17
OK, basically a month later, Ed and Ruth go to the police and they talk to a lieutenant, Bernie Drowatsky, who's a 34 year veteran criminal investigator.
00:48:28
and he is all his time is being taken up by this BTK case. I'm sure. Right. Yeah.
00:48:35
So he's listening to this nice couple. And in his mind, he's like, yeah, just don't have time for this.
00:48:40
Yeah. Bull shrub, basically. But now Ruth's got another letter where the man is now demanding $100.
00:48:48
And he ends the letter like this very threatening letter with a poem. And it says, wherever you go on water or land, you still got to pay.
00:48:57
or I tell about your brand. I am smart and no things to do. You talk to people I despise,
00:49:04
like police, lieutenant and telespies, like filled with misspellings and weird spellings and stuff
00:49:12
like that. And this is the beginning of this onslaught of letters. She just keeps getting
00:49:17
them each one stranger than the next. They're all they all have spelling errors. Sometimes
00:49:22
He uses really big, uncommon or, you know, fancy vocabulary words. And then sometimes he makes up words like Sanchused or Psychosthenia.
00:49:34
He's always he always refers to Ruth's branding scars. So the lieutenant takes these letters to the lab for fingerprint testing.
00:49:44
They don't find anything. We're still getting the phone calls at home. So it doesn't really seem like the call stop.
00:49:51
Ruth and Ed hope that the stalker is finally letting up. But then later that month is when Ruth is abducted by the two men in the Bel Air.
00:50:00
So that brings us up to November of that first thing that happened. So, OK, so now that Ruth has been abducted.
00:50:07
Yeah. Suddenly, Lieutenant Drowatsky is taking this case seriously because it's starting to match up with the BTK MO, the weird letters and then the actual physical violence.
00:50:18
Like they're very worried that this is some that it could be it could be BTK in some other weird form.
00:50:25
Right. They don't know. Or a copycat or they don't know what it is. Yeah. So the day after her abduction, Drowatsky's colleague, Detective Richard Zortman, goes back to the park where Ruth escaped and finds her sweater, shoes and footprints leading from the parking lot to that hiding spot in the bushes.
00:50:44
but he doesn't find anything else. So they also run a check on all 1964 Chevy Bel Air owners in
00:50:51
the area. None of them turn out to be suitable suspects for this abduction. So for five weeks,
00:50:57
several officers are assigned to keep watch over Ruth as she takes her lunch breaks downtown,
00:51:02
but nothing happens in that time. Another detective named Detective George Anderson takes Ruth and Ed
00:51:08
to Fort Scott to dive back in to her attack from when she was 16 to see if he can find any leads
00:51:15
connecting that to her, this current stalker. Yeah. They end up spending two days re-examining
00:51:22
the old case, and she actually reviews a number of mugshots the Fort Scott police have on file,
00:51:27
but nothing comes of it. Detective Anderson even goes back for a second two-day trip on his own
00:51:34
to look into it more, but he doesn't find anything. Meanwhile, Ruth can't sleep.
00:51:38
She has bad headaches. She's getting stomach cramps on a daily basis. And Ed is spending his nights hidden in the bushes of their backyard,
00:51:46
armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, hoping to catch this stalker approaching the house.
00:51:51
Which I'm sure makes her feel extra safe, that her husband's, like, that's terrifying.
00:51:56
I know, I know. But they're freaking out, and this is their own mini personal family freak out
00:52:03
on top of the wider city freak out. Then on December 13th, 1978, Lieutenant Drowatsky receives a letter of his own.
00:52:14
Ruth Stalker is accusing him of, quote, protecting a whore from death. The lieutenant's furious.
00:52:20
He now knows Ruth and Ed from this case. He believes Ruth to be a kind, good woman.
00:52:25
And now he wants to catch the stalker even now more than ever. So the letters keep coming.
00:52:31
each one with its own dark, threatening, error-riddled poem. Ed starts referring to the
00:52:38
stalker as the poet, and the name actually ends up sticking. Then on January 25th, 1979,
00:52:45
the poet calls Ruth at work. He tells her that he has a quote-unquote surprise for her in the lobby
00:52:51
down in a telephone company building. So she cautiously walks downstairs, and there in the
00:52:57
lobby phone booth, she finds a knife wrapped in a red bandana. She calls the police. They start
00:53:03
questioning everyone that's been in the lobby and in the building. A few witnesses come forward and
00:53:08
say that they saw a man resembling Ruth's description of the poet. They saw him near the
00:53:13
phone booth, but no one really has any information of who he is or where he went. So no leads are
00:53:18
taken from it. A month later, the poet starts sending letters to local businesses. He sends
00:53:24
a local florist, a letter with $5 enclosed, and their request to send Ruth one black rose.
00:53:32
The note reads, quote, if this is not enough ENUF for a delivered one, then call, and then
00:53:38
it has Ed and Ruth's phone number, and tell her to come and get it. Yikes. So as things get warmer, the letters and the calls start to slow down.
00:53:49
So Ed and Ruth decide to take advantage and plan a vacation to Colorado in July of 1979.
00:53:55
So to get ready for that Ruth tells Ed she going to go to the mall by herself to get a pair of jeans Now Ed doesn like that she going alone but she says it just going to be fine I just running in really quickly
00:54:07
So on August 13th, Ruth leaves work. She goes to Dillard's department store at the Town East Mall in downtown Wichita, gets some jeans.
00:54:15
By the time she's done, she goes outside to find herself walking through a practically empty parking lot alone at dusk.
00:54:22
No. Has anything good ever happened in a mall parking lot? Not at all. Especially toward the end of the day.
00:54:30
No. And it's worse and worse just as the sun goes down. That's right. But this was, you know, is 79. So malls were new for people.
00:54:39
True. So before she gets to her car, she hears a familiar voice yell, hey, Ruth, I didn't think you're going to make it this easy.
00:54:47
She spins around, sees the poet lunging toward her. She tries unlocking her car door, but she can't get it in time.
00:54:53
He grabs her. He shoves her against the car. He tells her to get in as he tosses a bag filled with rope, white tape, a red bandana and half a drunken bottle of wine into the backseat.
00:55:06
He tells her he's going to take her to a remote bridge near August Airport Road.
00:55:11
But right when that happens, she breaks away from his grasp. She manages to get into the car through the passenger side door and close up behind her.
00:55:20
The window is slightly cracked. The poet tries to reach in after her, but she rolls it up.
00:55:24
She forces him to pull his hand away and pinches a brown glove into the window as she peels out of the parking lot.
00:55:31
Ruth, this woman is a freaking hero. She gets away again. At the next red light, she looks down and realizes she feels a little lightheaded.
00:55:43
She looks down. She's been stabbed. an eight inch boning knife is sticking out of her left side of the left side of her torso.
00:55:52
Holy shampoo. Right. So she'll later learn at the hospital. This is actually the third stab wound that she got.
00:56:01
There's two more in her back that she didn't even feel. Oh, my God. So she she drives herself to a gas station phone booth and there she dials the number that she's
00:56:11
memorize 268-4181, which is Lieutenant Drowatsky's boss, Captain Al Thimich. This is his direct line.
00:56:21
And before Ruth can finish introducing herself, he picks up. She's like, hi, my name is Ruth.
00:56:28
Whatever. He's like, I know who you are. What's going on? And then she explains it to him. So he
00:56:33
sends an officer to where she is. But she's so worried that the poet's going to find her there
00:56:37
that she drives home, which is only five minutes away. Captain Thimitch has already called Ed and
00:56:43
basically said what's going on. So by the time she gets home, Ed's waiting for her on the porch.
00:56:48
As soon as she gets there, he gets in, drives her to the hospital. The police meet the couple at the
00:56:53
hospital. So Ruth, all of her wounds are treated. The doctors say that the third stab wound in her
00:56:59
left side was so deep, had it gone in any further, she would have died. She stays in the hospital for
00:57:05
nine days. Her story makes the news once again. And the reporter covering the story for the Wichita
00:57:13
Eagle Beacon newspaper is named Fred Mann. He reports the incident. And then in a follow up
00:57:19
article, he includes the police sketch of the poet. And for that, he begins to get threatening
00:57:24
letters from the poet. So the day after Ruth gets out of the hospital, one of the nurses tells the
00:57:30
police that a man who resembles the police sketch of the poet visited the nurse's station several
00:57:35
times while Ruth was in their care. So as a precaution, Lieutenant Drooutsky stays at Ruth
00:57:43
and Ed's house for two days just to make sure they're okay. Nothing happens while he's there.
00:57:48
So by September of 1979, the police have no leads and Ed is growing desperate to protect his wife.
00:57:55
His employer puts up a $3,000 reward on the Finley's behalf for information leading to the
00:58:01
poets capture. But Ed also tries contacting the poet himself. He actually puts an ad out
00:58:06
in the Wichita Eagle Beacon that says, poet, tell me what I owe you, RSF. And the poet responds to
00:58:14
RSF, the price of my service to stay alive can now be settled at five. But this isn't enough
00:58:22
information for Ed to know how much that is or what it's supposed to mean. They go back and forth
00:58:28
several times, but none of it leads anywhere. Nothing happens. So in October of 1979, the
00:58:34
newspaper puts out a statement saying that they've been receiving letters from the poet directly to
00:58:39
them. In one, he writes, quote, make sure that you don't confuse the executioners again,
00:58:45
referencing the rumors that the poet and BTK are the same person. So the public, of course,
00:58:51
is following this story like word for word. And there's rumors all around town, calls to the police, constantly roll in with alleged poet sightings. None of them bring any
00:59:03
leads or evidence. So Lieutenant Drowatsky assigns eight officers to go undercover around downtown,
00:59:10
and they have Ruth wear a wire whenever she goes out, just in case he approaches her downtown again.
00:59:17
There's no sign of him. But more letters with poems in them turn up on the Finley's porch and
00:59:23
in their mailbox. And at night, they can hear strange noises from their garage. But when they
00:59:27
go out there, they don't catch anybody. On Christmas Eve 1979, the Finley's phone lines are
00:59:34
cut. And that's the second time that's happened. So they're running out of options. Ruth agrees to
00:59:40
undergo hypnosis to see if she can recall any other details from her attacks. A psychologist
00:59:45
named Dr. Donald Schrag works with Ruth for two sessions until they reach the matter of her
00:59:51
kidnapping and her demeanor shifts from calm to distraught as she cries out I want out of the car I want out of the car Dr Schrag after this these sessions he concludes that whoever the poet is quote it likely he had psychological treatment and possibly has been in a state institution end quote
01:00:10
But he also believes that the man's highly intelligent. So in January of 1980, Lieutenant Drowatsky is promoted to vice and organized crime.
01:00:21
So a man named Captain Mike Hill takes over Ruth's case. Soon after, Captain Hill receives a letter of his own from the poet, a line of which reads, there was once a captain who had a cash hole for a heart.
01:00:35
He was a poet. Wow. I mean, it's really, it's so visual. So Juratsky had forged this strong friendship with the Finleys.
01:00:45
In fact, they went to the same church. They had basically the same political views.
01:00:50
And so Juratsky and his wife went out with Ed and Ruth on like double dates sometimes like they socialize together.
01:00:57
Yeah. But Captain Hill has no personal relationship with them at all. So it gives him the advantage of an objective point of view.
01:01:04
His first move after taking over the case is to install a surveillance camera in the Finley's backyard.
01:01:10
He has officers posted in the Finley's dining room on a round the clock watch, checking the camera's monitors for any suspicious activity.
01:01:18
Ruth feels guilty that all of these officers have to endure such a boring job. So she's constantly making them baked goods.
01:01:26
And sometimes she even reads some of the poets letters aloud to them for entertainment.
01:01:31
So a month later on Valentine's Day, Ruth gets a menacing Valentine themed message and a second letter containing a strip of red bandana.
01:01:41
And they're also letters being sent to local businesses. The utility companies get letters instructing them to shut off.
01:01:48
Finley's gas and power. The health department gets a letter claiming that Ruth Finley is spreading
01:01:53
STDs around town. The local mortuary gets a letter threatening that Ruth, quote, would be requiring
01:01:59
them soon, end quote. Yikes. So now Ed is driving Ruth to and from work, so she's never by herself.
01:02:07
And at this point, it's been three years. Holy snickers. The police have looked into more than
01:02:12
300 people of interest. All of them are dead ends. They install another security camera at
01:02:18
the Finley's home, this time hidden in a birdhouse in the backyard. Nothing happens. So in the spring
01:02:23
of 1980, they decide to use Ruth as bait. They have her wear a bulletproof vest and walk around
01:02:30
in downtown Wichita while several undercover cops are patrolling the area. But nothing comes of it.
01:02:38
Then on June 3rd, 1980, Ruth gets a letter from the poet that's postmarked from Oklahoma City.
01:02:44
So the Wichita police contact Oklahoma City police. They discover that an anonymous woman called in to report a recent poet sighting.
01:02:52
So the police close in on a man who's recently been fired from his job in Wichita, and they're certain that this must be the poet.
01:02:59
But when they bring him in for a lineup, Ruth says that although he does look similar, it's just not him.
01:03:05
So by July 4th, 1980, this story is national news. The rumors that the poet is BTK continue to spread. And police actually have a psycholinguistic expert named Dr. Murray S. Myron examine the handwriting in the letters.
01:03:21
I think I know. So he determines that while the handwriting is actually similar to BTK's, it's highly unlikely that they're the same person. But the public can't let go of that idea.
01:03:33
Okay. So the next few months, stranger and stranger items start showing up on the Finley's front porch.
01:03:40
An ice pick, broken glass, Molotov cocktails, firecrackers, cigarettes, even hair.
01:03:46
And at Christmas time, the Finleys are watching TV when they're jolted by the sound of their window breaking.
01:03:51
Ed runs out onto the porch to find a burning wreath has been hung from their front window, and the heat from that caused the window to explode.
01:04:00
in a rage ed runs out into the street with a pair of garden shears screaming that he's going to kill
01:04:05
the poet so they can things continue like this into 1981 the wichita police are widely criticized
01:04:12
by the public who can't believe they haven't been able to catch the poet and they also simultaneously
01:04:18
aren't catching btk either so now chief of police richard la munyan or la munyan but i'm going to
01:04:28
say La Mignon, is he's left fending off questions from the press about his department's ineptitude.
01:04:34
But La Mignon's annoyance turns personal on Friday, September 4th, 1981, when the poet sends a letter
01:04:42
to his wife. Oh, splat? Fed up, La Mignon, who has had no personal involvement in the case as of yet,
01:04:50
takes it over himself. So he, on September 5th, he takes all the poet case files home and pours
01:05:00
over them. It takes him several days, but at the end of his research, he believes he knows who the
01:05:06
poet is. He calls a private meeting for select officers on September 11th, 1981, and he begins
01:05:12
to explain his very secret theory. He says he finds it strange that all of Ruth's attacks have
01:05:19
been in public places, yet there are zero witnesses to any of these attacks. It's also strange that
01:05:26
despite all the hours of round-the-clock surveillance, no officers and no neighbors have
01:05:31
ever seen a trace of a trespasser, not even footprints on the Finley's property, and they
01:05:37
live on a dead-end street. When the surveillance camera is installed in the Finley's backyard,
01:05:43
all the action moves to the front porch. And then after Ruth's abduction, the only footprints
01:05:49
the investigating officer find at the park are Ruth's. And when Ruth is stabbed,
01:05:54
instead of calling 911 at the phone booth like a regular person would she calls the direct line for central investigations The officers in the room basically what he saying is he thinks that the poet is Ruth Finley
01:06:08
As soon as you said he's able to look at it with the new chief is able to look at it without any personal, you know, because he's not friends with her.
01:06:19
I was like, no, he doesn't have bias. He knows it's her. Yes. And then it hit me and I was like, don't say anything. Shut up. Shut up. Oh, my God.
01:06:28
This is exactly the way writer Corey Meade laid this article out. So the entire time you think you're just reading this case that you've never heard of before.
01:06:39
And then by the time it gets to that exactly thing, yeah, where you're just like this woman is being hideously victimized. Why have I never heard this story before?
01:06:47
so but here's the thing all of these police officers the wichita pd yeah think think this
01:06:54
guy is nuts they think the chief is totally lost it well there's no like munchausen syndrome back
01:06:59
then right like why would anyone do that to themselves right exactly it's it's the kind of
01:07:05
thing that yes no one had ever talked about yeah anything like that detailed before but also they
01:07:12
know Ruth. They've come to know her over the past four years. They cannot believe she'd be the kind
01:07:17
of person who would put her husband through that, who would do that to the police or do it to herself.
01:07:23
That's not what she's like. She's a kind, quiet, very upstanding lady. And what would her motive
01:07:32
be? It didn't make sense to them. It didn't add up. But since La Manion is the boss, they have to
01:07:39
follow his theory. So beginning Monday, September 14th, 1981, La Munion sets up a 24 hour surveillance
01:07:48
on the Finleys with officers trading off 12 hour shifts in a van two blocks away from the Finleys
01:07:54
house at the Eastgate Mall, this time without the Finleys knowing. So three days later at 830 in the
01:08:03
morning on September 17th, the surveilling police capture photos of Ed driving Ruth up to the
01:08:09
mailbox at the Eastgate Mall and depositing several pieces of mail. So they run over and
01:08:16
basically it takes them until 1.30 to get the postal inspector to open that mailbox.
01:08:23
And inside they find two letters from the poet. But too much time has passed between when Ruth
01:08:29
dropped the mail off and when they were finally able to get it open. So technically someone else
01:08:35
could have mailed those letters. Like they don't know for a fact those are the letters she put in.
01:08:40
So basically nine days later, they get another opportunity. Once more, Ed drives their car up to
01:08:47
the same mailbox. Ruth leans out the passenger side to drop the mail in. But this time an undercover
01:08:52
cop pulls up right after them, blocks the mailbox, pretending to have car trouble. So no one else can
01:08:59
use this mailbox until they get the postal inspector down there to open it up. Right.
01:09:05
So this time they're mixed in with the Finley's regular mail is another letter from the poet.
01:09:12
Once this is confirmed, they reseal the envelope and they let the mail carrier deliver that
01:09:18
letter to the Finley's home. Oh, sneaky, sneaky. So the next day, which is Sunday, September 27th, Ed brings the poet letter to the police
01:09:27
as he does with all of the poet letters they receive. But then the police launch a search for more of the Finley's mail everywhere.
01:09:34
Businesses they sent payments to, like mail at her work. And they basically inspect all the envelopes and they're able to match the edges of the stamps
01:09:44
because stamps used to get pulled out of books of stamps. And you would tear, there would be perforated little holes where you pull the stamps apart.
01:09:53
They match the tear the tearaways and they see that all of these stamps are from the same book.
01:10:01
They can put them all back in. So police gain permission to search Ruth's office at work.
01:10:06
And there they find a book of poetry, paper with the poet's handwriting on it and a red bandana concealed in a tissue in Ruth's desk.
01:10:16
All of this is enough to warrant a search of the Finley's house. So on September 28th, while the Finleys are away, they search the house, but they actually find no hard evidence inside the house.
01:10:28
Come on. But then two days later, on Wednesday, September 30th, Chief LaMunion and his wife Sharon get another letter from the poet.
01:10:36
And at the bottom of the page, the page is torn off. So through microscopic fracture analysis, they are able to determine that the torn off piece from Ruth's trash can at work matches the piece at the bottom of the letter that LaMoneyon received.
01:10:54
Yeah, I got it. Yeah, I got it. This solidifies the case. So the next day on October 1st, 1981, the police ask Ed to come into the station to pick up the latest batch of poet letters, which is what usually happens.
01:11:08
But when he gets there, Captain Hill and Detective Jack Leon take Ed into an interrogation room and they start asking him questions.
01:11:17
Now, Ed's confused, but he cooperates. Basically, the officer spent two hours asking Ed about his life, his upbringing, all the way up until the beginning of the harassment in 1977.
01:11:29
And to get the idea of basically, is Ed complicit in his wife's plan? Is he? Oh, my God. Finally, Captain Hill tells Ed that he knows who the poet is.
01:11:43
And Ed says, well, I hope the hell you do. Let's go get him. But then Hill shows Ed pictures of his wife dropping letters in the mailbox at the mall and explains that they can confirm that Ruth is, in fact, the letter writer.
01:11:55
Ed is in utter shock. Hill asks if he'll agree to a polygraph test. So he can be eliminated as a suspect.
01:12:02
Ed agrees. He passes the test. He was never involved. It was all Ruth by herself.
01:12:08
Eddie, I got bad news for you. I know. So at five o'clock that same afternoon, Hill calls Ruth and has her come down to the station to look at mug shots to see if she can identify the poet, which is a common practice for her at this point.
01:12:22
Yeah. She agrees. Hill walks her through the same interrogation procedure that he walked Ed through.
01:12:27
and he finally asks Ruth if she wrote any of the poet's letters. She says no, but when he shows her the surveillance photos of herself mailing the letters
01:12:36
and says that he can prove she did, she finally admits. She says she has a vague memory of sitting in her basement writing letters,
01:12:46
but when she thinks back, she can't tell what's a dream and what's reality. Oh dear, I was hoping you were going to say they'd show her a mugshot lineup and hers was in it
01:12:55
and that's how she knows. And she's like, there he is right there. Oh, yeah. Basically, he asked he then asked he switches his tone and gets mean and asks her if the attack went from when she was 16 years old, if that even really happened.
01:13:14
She swears it did. But she gets starts to get really upset. He switches back to a gentle tone and basically says, quote, Ruthie, why?
01:13:23
It's time. It's time to tell me why. I'm not mad at you, Ruth. I want to know why you're doing this.
01:13:30
So after some prodding, Ruth eventually admits to everything, the letters, the calls,
01:13:35
the odd objects left at her house, even her own stabbing. But she says it wasn't a deliberate
01:13:41
plan as much as it was kind of this fuzzy memory that she can barely recall. Basically,
01:13:48
she's really ashamed and she's almost, she's confused, but she's really ashamed. And when
01:13:54
And when Hill says to her, there's no hard feelings between you and me, Ruth says, quote, there should be.
01:14:00
I wish I was dead. Oh, my God. So she confirms that Ed was not involved at all, but she makes it clear she needs medical help.
01:14:09
She says she thinks she's crazy. And then she says, quote, I tried to figure out what was wrong, but I couldn't stop it.
01:14:16
So that night she's taken to the psychiatric ward of St. Joseph's Hospital for treatment.
01:14:20
After much debate, the Wichita police make the controversial decision not to press charges against Ruth, citing that she was suffering from severe mental distress and had no malicious intent.
01:14:34
She did, however, cost the department almost $400,000 for all their investigative efforts over the past four years.
01:14:41
And Chief LeMagnon does not agree with this decision not to press charges. He considers her a dangerous criminal.
01:14:49
Wow. So basically, Ruth goes into therapy with a Dr. Andrew Pickens. And this goes on for the next seven years.
01:14:59
And she's finally able to uncover the source of her issues, which takes her a while to get to and then takes her years to process afterwards.
01:15:10
But in a sense, what's interesting and kind of fascinating about it is she does it using the same technique that the poet does.
01:15:18
she begins writing poetry about it. And she finally unwinds like all of those things that
01:15:25
she was writing in the poet's poems. They all kind of pulled into her reality. And what she
01:15:32
she basically had faced a long buried childhood trauma of sexual abuse by a neighbor when she was
01:15:38
only four years old. Like it was a man who had used red bandanas to tie her up. So oh my god,
01:15:47
So like there was actual symbolism in her. Wow. So she basically says that when that happened to her and it went on for a couple of months that she would remember, quote unquote, floating off to heaven, which is a common dissociative tactic that the brain uses in times of severe trauma.
01:16:11
So it's a defense tactic. Her doctors theorize that allowed her to develop this kind of separate identity as the poet. And then in 1977, when Ed has his heart attack and she is alone for the first time in her life, while the BTK is basically killing people around town and no one knows who he is.
01:16:31
Yeah. Basically, her brain switches back into this dissociative mode and the stress. She basically it's like this cry for help.
01:16:41
Wait, so did the teenage attack happen? Yeah. OK, so that probably that's like, yeah, as far as we know, as far as we know.
01:16:51
And yeah, yeah. And basically, it seems like the the police in that town believe.
01:16:56
I feel like that attack alone as a teenager would have triggered that reaction from BTK, too, because that's a similar thing.
01:17:05
He was breaking into women's houses and murder, tying up murder. It's like either of those could have.
01:17:11
All of it. Yes. It's all it's all horrible parallels to her life. And if she was repressing it and then that attack, you know, she was kind of able to come back and then she has this marriage that's really solid for her.
01:17:27
And, you know, it's this really strong, great marriage relationship family she builds for 30 years.
01:17:33
Everything is like going great. Yeah. And then this thing happens that's like shock after shock.
01:17:40
Yeah. You know, so peas and rice. The only person who doesn't believe this theory is Chief LaMunion, who would later say, quote, I think she's lying.
01:17:51
She knew everything she was doing, unquote. Wow. But no one in Ruth family or friendship circle believes that at all In fact Ed stands by her Their marriage lasts through this horrible experience
01:18:06
And she was quoted as saying it's been hard on Ed, but he's the kindest person I know.
01:18:11
And he's been very supportive. But also her friends and neighbors rallied by her side.
01:18:18
Her neighbor, Emma Dillinger, is quoted in that People magazine article saying, Ruth told me her story and gave me the option of cutting off our friendship.
01:18:27
But all I wanted to do was comfort her. Oh, my God. And all of Ruth's loved ones like basically had that same reaction.
01:18:36
And after five years in treatment, she feels strong enough to talk about her story on a local news station.
01:18:43
And after she basically tells her side of the story, the station starts getting calls and 98% of them were compassionate and loving and completely supportive of her.
01:18:58
Like an overwhelming majority were just like, this is unbelievable. So it turns out that the poet of Wichita was not a violent madman, but a woman who didn't even know herself how much she needed to be heard.
01:19:13
On May 30th, 2019, Ruth Finley passed away at the age of 89. And that is the fascinating story of Ruth Finley, also known as the poet of Wichita.
01:19:25
What the sweet baby angle. What the sweet baby angle. Give the credit to the person who suggested it to you again, because brilliant.
01:19:34
Sweetly sarcastic. Read that article by Corey Mead first on Medium.com and sent it along to me.
01:19:43
I mean, I also think that part of me hesitated. And I think I felt like I may have begun to read this story one time when we were on the road.
01:19:53
But but I hate the idea of talking about going this far into a story where a female victim is lying because it does.
01:20:03
Yes, it doesn't happen that often. Yeah. And that kind of thing of like these false reports.
01:20:08
I think it's one of the reasons that it's not a very well-known story. That makes it because it's this is it's as crazy as a serial killer.
01:20:17
It's as unlikely. Yeah, it's as you know, it's very common for women to be stalked.
01:20:23
It's very common for women to be raped. It's very common for women to be attacked and abused.
01:20:28
So this is a true anomaly that then kind of grew into a whole other crazy. I mean, Wichita, it almost it's I don't know.
01:20:43
It's fascinating. So many layers. There's so many layers to it. That's a really good point.
01:20:48
But that doesn't mean a story shouldn't be told. And we tell a huge amount of different types of stories on this podcast.
01:20:56
And this is one of those examples. But it's not it's not a rule. So I think it's it deserves a place in this podcast.
01:21:05
and that was an incredible job telling the story. The medium writer did an incredible job.
01:21:11
Yeah, it happened. It happened. Here's the thing. It happened and it didn't end in a pitchforks and torches mob.
01:21:20
You know what I mean? It ended with people going, why would someone do this? This is baffling.
01:21:29
Because she was the only victim and Ed. And then the wasted time. But it's like, what was she doing?
01:21:37
It doesn't make sense. It doesn't add up. And then it's like, but everybody has their reasons.
01:21:43
And, you know. Holy flipping shirt. Crazy. Great job. Thank you. Yeah, I know. It's crazy.
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Quince.com slash MFM. Goodbye. All right. I had an epiphany this week that although it feels like this story is part of the folklore that is my favorite murder,
01:24:21
it's a tale as old as time in our lives. We actually don't know the full story of the cocaine
01:24:30
bear. Oh, we don't. We know a snippet from the Minnesota, Minnesota 101. Thank you, Stephen.
01:24:37
But who? Why? What? Where? Let's find out today. I thought you did this story. I asked Stephen,
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did I do it when we were in Kentucky have we been have we been to Kentucky yeah we have
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I thought okay well great let's hear it when I was halfway through and that's why I text
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Steven and he said no so don't tell me I don't care doing it today yeah if you figure
01:25:08
out otherwise you can go ahead and let Steven know at personal Steven email at earthlink.gov.
01:25:18
That's right. All right. So I got info from a Rolling Stone article by E.J. Dixon,
01:25:23
a Slate article by Matthew Dessim, the Kentucky for Kentucky website by Coleman Larkin,
01:25:31
and the IFL Science article by James Felton. So here we go, Karen. I'm going to tell you the tale.
01:25:41
I want to know the truth about the cocaine bear before I see the movie. It's truth. It's legend. It's truly a legend. Okay. On the morning of September 11th, 1985, Mr. Fred M. Myers of Knoxville, Tennessee, woke up, walked out of his home on Island Home Pike in South Knoxville and found a dead man in his backyard.
01:26:03
Yep. So Mr. Myers recalled hearing a crash around midnight the night before, and it turned out the crash he had heard had been that of the dead man falling from the sky and landing in his backyard.
01:26:16
Oh, my God. Yeah. Horrible. It is a horrible start. so the body of the man was dressed in khaki and it was sprawled out on his back over an unopened
01:26:28
parachute there was no obvious injuries aside from a trickle of dried blood from each of his
01:26:35
nostrils but other than that he looked fine authorities arrived and found that the dead
01:26:39
man was wearing a bulletproof vest and night vision goggles and was carrying two different
01:26:46
pistols, ammunition, a stiletto knife, freeze dried food and six cougarands, which are gold coins.
01:26:54
Yes, I love cougarands. That's my favorite reference. $4,500 cash, IDs and multiple names, a membership card to the Miami Jockey Club and several
01:27:05
inspirational epigrams, which I know you love. Epigrams? Epigrams. Yeah, like you mean like keep soar high like a mighty bird?
01:27:14
That's right. Keep on trucking. Those times. Are those epigrams? I don't know. I don't either. Let me read you one. That's definitely an epigram because this is one of the ones he had on him. Wait a second. Is an epigram the same thing forward and backwards? No. Mine wouldn't work. No. Fly high like a mighty eagle won't work. Let me spell that backwards and try to. No, you're right. Okay. This is one. This one read. There is only one tactical principle not subject to change.
01:27:42
It is to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time.
01:27:49
It sounds like a Chuck Norris type of like thing that they like that they live by.
01:27:53
You know, like here's where I live by. It sounds like the kind of shirt that you'd be right up against in line at 7-Eleven.
01:28:00
And then once you read that epigram or whatever the farm you're claiming it to be, then you back way up and you're just like, oh, I didn't realize you're here to do the most damage.
01:28:11
in the shortest amount of time. Hey, mister, can I touch your nunchucks? Hey! Are those nunchucks in your pocket?
01:28:18
That's right. So, he had that on him, poetry. And he had a duffel bag with about 75 pounds of cocaine
01:28:27
that was 95% pure. And I wanted to, like, in my head, picture 75 pounds of cocaine, which is hard
01:28:35
to do with powder, right? So then I looked up, like, how many pounds of chocolate bars would that be?
01:28:40
But then I thought, OK, well, how much what kid weighs 75 pounds? And so I looked it up and an average 10 year old female weighs 75 pounds.
01:28:50
So that's how much cocaine. If you held an average 10 year old female in one hand and cocaine in the other that weighed the same.
01:28:58
You could also do it basically if you're doing five pound bags of sugar. Oh, but but cocaine, there would be about 14 bags of sugar.
01:29:08
Oh, that's a lot. No wonder his parachute didn't open. And if it's 95% pure, you can get some baby laxative and cut it in there.
01:29:17
And then you can have like, then you have like 35 pounds of cocaine. And you just get all the kids at the junior college to buy it.
01:29:24
And you're in Cabo, baby. 90s Karen just snuck up on this podcast and was like, hey, I have an idea.
01:29:32
Hey, man. Look, man. Be cool. All right. So police came and were like, what is this scene?
01:29:40
It was like baffling to everyone, of course. Narcotics agents came. DEA customs were very baffled by this innocent looking backyard scene.
01:29:51
I guess it wasn't innocent looking. Not innocent with the Krugerrands. I telling you anytime Krugerrands are involved this is an international issue that we have Or it a spy movie starring Brad Pitt Either way
01:30:05
Either way. You're fiercely private. So police by afternoon are able to identify the body.
01:30:12
And even then, they still had few theories as to what the hell did happen. But they do identify him as Andrew Carter Thornton, the second of Kentucky.
01:30:21
So let me tell you about Andrew Carter Thornton II. As you can tell by his name, yes, he came from a wealthy family.
01:30:30
He's royalty. That's right. So he's born on October 30th, 1944 to Carter and Peggy Thornton in southern Bourbon County, Kentucky.
01:30:41
Carter and Peggy had a grand old time being wealthy and breeding horses at their stud farm.
01:30:48
Lucky. So Andrew grew up living a privileged life in Lexington, Kentucky. He attended prestigious private schools, along with other Lexington Blue Bloods.
01:30:58
He went to the military academy, Sewanee Military Academy, and then joined the Army as a paratrooper.
01:31:07
Then he became an Air Force officer. He earns a Purple Heart. You know, he's on his way up.
01:31:12
And next in his illustrious career, he becomes a police officer in the Lexington, Kentucky Police Force Narcotics Division.
01:31:20
So here he is. But then in 1977, he resigns because he now wants to practice law.
01:31:26
So he goes to the University of Kentucky Law School. And apparently the law applied to everyone but himself, because as a 1980 federal indictment alleges, he was part of a drug and weapons smuggling ring called The Company.
01:31:40
Oh, yeah. And it also reportedly involved other former Kentucky police officers as well. So maybe he went to law school to be like, I'm going to keep this business going and like not for good reasons.
01:31:53
So in 1981, he's arrested along with 25 other men. They were attempting to steal guns from a naval base in Fresno, California. Risky. And for attempting to traffic 1000 pounds of marijuana into the county.
01:32:10
Into San Diego? Fresno. Oh, yeah. I thought drugs lived in Fresno. Why do they have to smuggle them in?
01:32:18
Yeah, especially from like Kentucky. Yeah. No one in Cali wants that KY weed. No thanks.
01:32:26
Keep it for yourselves and your stud horses. We're good over here. So DEA agent Robert Brightwell, who says he worked with Thornton on narcotics investigations
01:32:37
in the early 70s described him as a, quote, 007 paramilitary type personality, an adventurer
01:32:43
driven by adrenaline rushes who became bored with being a cop. So we got this guy who thinks he's James Bond or Chuck Norris.
01:32:54
It seems like a cross between the two. And he's bored with even being a narcotics cop, which sounds pretty entertaining and fun,
01:33:03
if you ask. And stressful and stressful. Yeah. Like, what more do you need? And legal. So not enough for some people.
01:33:11
Never enough. Never. Initially, Andrew was given two felony charges of conspiracy to import and distribute a controlled substance to which he pled not guilty.
01:33:21
But he fled the state and then it was found heavily armed in North Carolina and brought back to California to face reduced misdemeanor drug charges.
01:33:28
So he got his charges super duper reduced. Let's go back and talk about how he was wealthy.
01:33:34
That's how it probably happened. and hoity hoity toity he pleaded no contest to the charges was sentenced to six months in prison
01:33:43
and fined five hundred dollars and he also had his law license revoked so karen this last brush
01:33:50
with the law was all it took for andrew to see the error of his ways straighten up find jesus
01:33:55
and not cause the death of a black bear right lie no turns out no find jesus is how i knew
01:34:06
So a woman named Betty Zaring was his former wife. And she said about him, quote, he was a he was a son of a crab.
01:34:15
He was a son of a crab. And then she shot two pistols in the air. This son of a crab.
01:34:21
That nasty. Kentucky weed. Always trying to give me that weed. No, she said he was a philosophical, incredibly disciplined, extremely spiritual and loyal warrior.
01:34:33
with his own code of ethics who thrived on excitement. And then she lit a candle
01:34:39
under his headshot. Okay. Yeah, she was into that guy. Yeah, I think she still liked him.
01:34:48
She likes that guy. Did your dog just bilch? No, she growled at me because I just realized
01:34:55
I didn't feed her dinner. But I did give her two cheese sticks. You want to go feed her dinner?
01:35:00
No, no, no. She can make it. it sounded like that song bow bow boo yeah she went
01:35:08
wow you have to just give me half an hour you got it on September 9th 1985 Andrew is now 40
01:35:17
he enlists the help of his don't be too surprised by this karate instructor turned bodyguard
01:35:24
what's up a man named Bill Leonard so the pair along with a third man who is a Colombian man that Bill
01:35:33
had apparently never met, they get on a Cessna 404 airplane. So Bill alleges that he just got on the plane, he didn't
01:35:41
know what they were doing, and while en route, according to Bill, in a 1990 interview with former Knoxville
01:35:48
News Sentinel managing editor Tom Chester, Leonard said that while he knew of Andrew's
01:35:53
shady, drug-fueled past and reputation, he had not known that this flight was to involve
01:36:00
drugs he didn't know wasn't me officer and insisted that andrew had sprung the plot on him
01:36:06
mid-flight as the plane flew over the bahamas it was raining and dark um and i guess he hadn't asked
01:36:13
hey who's this colombian stranger on board with us too he hadn't asked that when they were getting
01:36:18
no yeah no he was like whatever yeah just um a bunch of strangers on a cessna it'll be fine
01:36:23
I'm sure nothing will happen. Andrew, no. Andrew told Leonard the plan that they would pick up 400 kilograms of cocaine in Colombia and smuggle it into the U.S.
01:36:35
Although I can see the logic of being like, don't forking. Tell Andrew on the tarmac.
01:36:41
We have to be in the air. He's going to have one of his classic freak outs. He'll just do it.
01:36:47
He always goes along with any plan. Andrew is the main guy. Bill is the foil. Whatever.
01:36:59
It doesn't matter. Who's got the cougar ants? Andrew. Andrew's got the cougar. Bill is karate.
01:37:06
Bill is the karate guy. This whole thing sounds like Danny McBride and James Franco got stoned together and wrote this up.
01:37:16
This doesn't seem real. Does it now not surprise you that Elizabeth Banks is part of it?
01:37:21
Everyone's like, how are you going to make this music? I think you just cast it.
01:37:25
Yeah, there it is. OK, Bill said if he had told me, hey, Bill, we're going to Columbia to smuggle 400 kilos
01:37:31
of cocaine to America, I would have gone. Yeah, right. That would have been the end of it right there.
01:37:37
He tricked me. There is no way. Holy heck. I mean, anybody that knows me in Lexington knows there's no way I would do anything like
01:37:45
this. I was a nobody. and then he winked at the reporter nudge nudge nudge gave him a bag of cocaine and walked away
01:37:53
tightened up his brown belt karate chops him to the face then stole the bag of cocaine and ran in the opposite direction to his jojo to his dojo and
01:38:04
good luck all was well then he said about andrew when he told him about this plan he said the look
01:38:11
on his face was hard to explain he was smiling but he had a very intense look in his eyes and
01:38:15
he was watching me very closely in my heart. Okay. In my heart, I would love if Bill actually
01:38:23
was just a spoil who had no clue about it at all. It was just like this local Lexington dude that he
01:38:28
really liked. He just thought Andrew was the coolest. And I was like, come along, even though
01:38:32
he knew Bill was fake that somehow and he did. Yeah. Okay. But Bill hating to be someone who
01:38:39
cancels plans, apparently, they move on with their mission and picked up the freight that was in
01:38:44
Columbia and were somewhere over Florida when Bill claimed that they heard federal agents talking over the radio
01:38:50
about following their plane. Breaker, breaker. So Bill, who picture this, Bill had been
01:38:58
vomiting over an open door out in the plane because that's how inexperienced he was on planes. Poor Bill.
01:39:04
He had like a Hawaiian shirt on because he thought they were going to the Bahamas and now it's just flattery
01:39:08
barf. No, but you still can't tell that's the Tommy Bahama promise. You can puke on yourself and no one will know.
01:39:17
Oh, my God. So he hears this. He freaks out. He stops vomiting. And he opened a door and kicked three bags of cocaine out.
01:39:27
No, let's get rid of this cocaine. Then we're being followed. Andrew, of course, being a businessman, freaks out and is like he hates a party foul.
01:39:35
So he's like, what the Fred Willard are you doing? And the two of them start to argue.
01:39:40
Please note this podcast does not condone the illegal use or distribution of alcohol,
01:39:46
controlled substances or illegal drugs. Please be advised. OK, Bill says, quote, right at that time when it looks like we're going to rip each other's
01:39:54
throats out, he just starts laughing. I don't know what happened. I started laughing.
01:39:58
The next thing I know, we're both rolling around in the plane laughing. That's probably the safety hazard, right?
01:40:05
Tears coming out of our eyes. He turned around and said, I'm really sorry for getting you involved in this.
01:40:10
I can see this is not your thing. You're a family man. Just do what I tell you and I'll get you out.
01:40:17
That's a quote. I didn't just blaming. Make that up. This is I'm sorry, but this is also if you've ever seen the filthy Peter Falk movie and
01:40:26
Ellen Markin movie, The In-Laws. This is the very similar plot to The In-Laws. This is like we thought the cocaine bear aspect of this story was the best part of the story.
01:40:36
So we never bothered looking it up. I completely in my mind connected it to a totally different story.
01:40:42
You did the full version of. Yeah. And just in my mind was like, oh, yeah, that must be connected to that thing.
01:40:48
I know. How did we not know a story with an ended with a bear dying on cocaine was going to be even better?
01:40:55
I think it got it was like surmised perfectly in that email, the original email where they were just like this thing happened.
01:41:02
But what's important is this. Yeah. We're going to boil it down. I meant to give credit to the first person, the person whose hometown we read, because they like really brought it into our lives and deserve full credit.
01:41:13
But I forgot to do that. And I'm sure it's impossible to find at this point. It's impossible.
01:41:18
It's impossible. All right. I have it. Stephen Impossible. That's your new name.
01:41:25
It's from Sam. So there's no other details, but it's just Sam. Sam in Lexington.
01:41:32
I know you were screaming your name out there and we heard it. So thank you, Sam.
01:41:35
Well, because it was about my mother's ex-boyfriend, the cocaine cowboy. So I think she dated one of the people.
01:41:42
Wow. Okay. She dated Andrew probably. Andrew or Bill. I'll look up the original email.
01:41:46
Yeah. Okay. What if she dated Bill? Bill's not the cocaine cowboy. He threw three huge bags out.
01:41:52
He's cowboy adjacent. Here's the thing. He is a cowboy entrapment A And B if there a plane following you don throw anything out of your plane They can see you They are going to go after it Essentially is he yes or no a cowboy caricature
01:42:09
Andrew's a real thing. He's got a little tiny hat. He's got a tiny hat. Tiny horse.
01:42:14
And a tiny horse. Big head, tiny hat, tiny horse. Cougar. Yes. So Sam's mother dated Andrew Carter Thornton, the second.
01:42:24
Holy squad gourds. Squad gourds. Sam. Is he your dad's secret? Like your secret?
01:42:30
If only we knew. Yeah. That's it? Okay. Sam, how big is your head? How small is your hat?
01:42:36
Sam. All right. So Andrew tells Bill to cut loose three duffel bags of cocaine from their parachute and dump
01:42:47
them from the plane. Okay. Okay. So then Thornton is like, I'm going to help you out, man.
01:42:52
I'm going to get you out of this. I'm sorry. I even got you into it. You're not really good at this anyways.
01:42:56
So he gives Bill a four-minute lesson in skydiving. He essentially is like, here's how you do this.
01:43:02
Here's how you do this. Put this on, clip that. Can I just really quickly, with great rage, say that's not shucking.
01:43:12
cool as someone as someone who is taught to snorkel by being in a bay in Hawaii with my stuff on
01:43:24
and my ex being like no no you have to like suction it to your face and just being like
01:43:28
you don't mention any of this at any time before like you don't you're now waiting until
01:43:34
I'm treading in 30 foot water before you start to tell me the things I need to know
01:43:39
you're already scared because you're in the shark tank essentially i hate here's the thing i really resent people who are bad teachers because they
01:43:48
if they already know it then you in their mind you know exactly or you should understand take it
01:43:54
like they don't even understand that you won't understand the words that are connected to it
01:43:58
that are like you know part of it i get what you mean yeah it's like it bill who didn't want to be
01:44:04
involved in a drug trafficking situation in the first place now has to learn yeah how to
01:44:08
skydive under pressure he's like first of all what is a cougar ant and i first of all what is an epigram let's start at the very beginning is it a poster is it just
01:44:23
is it on a hat is there oh we gotta get we gotta get an old school like inspirational photo of a
01:44:30
skydiver and get that quote so a murderina is already making it as we're talking get that
01:44:37
terrible epictet and put it over epigram whatever you want is it like a hologram but just two-sided
01:44:46
get a hologram get a hologram let Bill tell the story himself a hologram of Bill
01:44:51
at the next My Favorite Murder Live show we got Bill on stage and then Robert Kardashian
01:44:58
to close so basically Andrew ties the remaining duffel bag of cocaine to his body with a nylon
01:45:06
bag containing his whole kit that he later found dead with. Spoiler alert. So they prepare to jump as the plane on autopilot now flies over Knoxville.
01:45:19
So poor Bill jumps first. He landed, and the word hard is always in there. He lands hard near Knoxville downtown Island Home Airport, about three miles from downtown.
01:45:32
Thornton had told him to walk to a grocery store, call a cab, and then gave him the address where he was going to meet Thornton's girlfriend at the Hyatt Hotel.
01:45:42
I wonder if it's Sam's mom. Yeah, perhaps. So they go to the Hyatt Hotel with his girlfriend to wait for Andrew to show up, but he never shows up.
01:45:53
So let's go back to the morning where the guy finds the dead body in his backyard that is identified as Andrew.
01:46:01
in Andrew's pocket is a key. And they were able to match the key, the tail number on the key to
01:46:08
the wreckage of a plane, which had crashed into a mountain in Clay County, Carolina.
01:46:13
They had found it on autopilot and it had landed about 60 miles away from where they jumped.
01:46:20
That's dangerous. So dangerous. Just to let the plane go off by itself. Totally irresponsible, especially if they're over Knoxville. That's like human,
01:46:28
And humans live there. So when the cops or the investigators had found Andrew's body, of course, they found all that cocaine on him.
01:46:35
And they were like, there's got to be more cocaine than like in the plane. And they searched the surrounding areas and found 220 pounds of cocaine hanging from a parachute in a tree in Fannin County, Georgia.
01:46:49
They found maps, clothes, food and all that stuff. A couple of days later, more duffel bags of cocaine were found months later.
01:46:58
in northern Georgia. So cocaine everywhere. Everywhere. It's like a confetti cocaine plane.
01:47:05
Cocaine Easter egg hunt. But all through the mountains. So they were found months later
01:47:10
but before that a black bear stumbled upon the cocaine. Enter our friend cocaine bear.
01:47:20
Spotlight hat cane. Okay now it's the solo. Hello my baby. Lights go down. spotlight on cocaine bear.
01:47:29
I'm just a little cocaine bear. Wandering around the forest not high or wired. What will my
01:47:41
day bring? What's this? What's this? A pile of powdered sugar? No! Well, a local hunter
01:47:52
who sadly has never been identified because Hero had found the dead bear and told his friends about it but none of them reported it to authorities because they hunters in Georgia and they don I think mingle with authorities
01:48:06
They're like, mind your business. Exactly. So it took three weeks for the story to finally trickle down to a game and fish agent who then told the agents at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
01:48:18
And they discovered the bear's body on December 20th. 20th. So that bear, you know, as much as it's lived in our hearts and minds, it essentially
01:48:28
snorted up a bunch of coke and died kind of on the spot. Sounds like just immediately OD.
01:48:34
It's so no, listen, let's keep it our hearts and minds. And in Terry's incredible animation that he
01:48:40
did of this, that's forking the classic, one of everyone's favorites, that they had a grand old
01:48:46
time. It was so much fun. All the woodland creatures came together and got wired. That's right.
01:48:54
A medical examiner conducted an autopsy on the bear and found every telltale sign of a massive
01:49:00
overdose. Let's all sing it together. Cerebral hemorrhaging, respiratory failure, hypothermia,
01:49:07
renal failure, stroke and heart failure. Oh no! Yeah, like it died, died. And then
01:49:14
I wrote, it's unclear if the detailed plans to open a restaurant card called Bear Essentials
01:49:19
were ever located. Because of course I did. Because you had to. Because I had to get it in there.
01:49:26
George, quiet. Tonight, the part of the bear is being played by George. Kill Gareth.
01:49:31
By George, who hasn't eaten yet. Say it. I get that. But that medical examiner was so impressed with the bear
01:49:42
and its state. And that despite everything, the bear's body was actually in good shape.
01:49:50
So he was like, you know, it'd be a pity just to throw this in the cremator and calls up a buddy, a hunting buddy who was a taxidermist, taxidermist.
01:50:00
And so the bears taxidermy taxidermized. That's a word. And put on display at the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Georgia.
01:50:11
But it doesn't have like a plaque saying what it is. It's just like a stuffing taxidermied bear.
01:50:16
So it doesn't get its full glory just yet. But so there's an approaching wildfire that forces the employees of that place to load up some of their artifacts into a storage unit.
01:50:30
Someone breaks into the storage unit, steals a bunch of artifacts and cocaine bear.
01:50:36
Twisted friendly. Turns, man. So sorry, a forest fire is coming. And they're like, grab the important stuff.
01:50:46
Dan, you, Jerry, Rick and TJ. Grab that gigantic taxidermy bear that died five ways.
01:50:54
And Chris is like, oh, I'll go get the arrowheads. I'll get the precious, precious arrowheads.
01:51:02
I'll get the precious feathers and the arrowheads while you guys lug the cocaine bear.
01:51:08
The fully taxidermied and stuffed with sawdust. Yeah. Hurry up, guys. Okay. Then some creeper creeps into them.
01:51:17
So some college students find out that the cocaine bear is at the storage unit. Uh-huh.
01:51:25
At the Georgia storage unit on I-5. Where I-5 meets. The 210. The 210. That's Glendale.
01:51:33
Okay. nearly three decker okay so it's stolen goodbye gone forever so we think no yeah almost 30 years
01:51:44
later after the bear's death the eccentric they're described as an eccentric retailer
01:51:50
Kentucky for Kentucky which you can go online and find their website they seem like a lot of
01:51:56
real fun people because yeah they do some digging and investigating they contact local pawn shops
01:52:04
where the storage unit had been and are like hey do you remember 30 some odd years ago getting a bear
01:52:11
a taxidermy bear and the shop owner's like yeah that came in at the same time that some like
01:52:18
some like uh feathers and feathers and arrowheads had came in and we found out they were stolen so
01:52:24
we returned those but the bear was never claimed so we sold it Kentucky for Kentucky we're like
01:52:30
well where did that bear go and they're like let us look up our records they find the records
01:52:34
and it turns out that the bear had somehow through some changes fallen into the hands of country
01:52:40
legend Waylon Jennings good luck no no Waylon Jennings here here on this we blind. We have Waylon Jennings.
01:52:51
Looking back to Waylon and Willie and the boys. There you go. So it turns out that Waylon Jennings
01:52:59
has a huge private collection of preserved animals. He's like a big animal head head.
01:53:05
He's a big dead animal head head. Exactly. So he actually, Waylon Jennings, Kentucky for
01:53:11
Kentucky Found Out, has relationships with pawn shop owners throughout the South to let him know whenever
01:53:17
they get like a really good taxidermy or preserved bear. Me too. So they had contacted him
01:53:27
and had gone with Waylon Jennings to Nevada to live with Waylon Jennings in Las Vegas.
01:53:32
This bear is living now more than ever. This bear has had a more exciting life than any of us.
01:53:39
Oh, I wish. Except for Karen in the 90s. Okay. That's true. 90s Karen can't compete with cocaine
01:53:47
So they trace it further and it illustrious journey and they find that its current owner and its current resting place was a traditional Chinese medicine shop in Reno And it owned by the now deceased man named Zhu Tang And it had been used there as decoration
01:54:07
So Kentucky for Kentucky contacts this man's widow, Mr. Tang's widow. And she tells them that her husband, quote, was always bringing home junk from auctions and estate sales and things like that.
01:54:19
The bear was one of his favorite things. He just loved it for some reason. At first, he had great promo code murder.
01:54:26
At first, he wanted to keep it in our living room, but I wouldn't have it. It scared me.
01:54:31
I made him take it to the store. You knew there was going to be an irritated wife somewhere along the line, whether it was Mrs. Jennings or Mrs. Tang here, where it's somebody going, are you flipping kidding?
01:54:47
You're not keeping that near the children. No full size bears in the TV room. I come home from an estate sale with a pair of matching vintage lamps.
01:54:58
Mr. Tang comes home with a flaming full size with cocaine. The full on cocaine. White powder underneath its nose.
01:55:06
So Kentucky for Kentucky in their forking. Infinite glory tells her the whole story.
01:55:12
And she's like, they said she almost didn't believe us. But she said that if you've gone to that much trouble, we could just have, quote, the happy thing.
01:55:21
Just to get it out of her sight. Do you know what she charged them? Shipping? Yes.
01:55:27
Shipping handling? Yes. For real? She didn't charge them a penny. She said, get it out of my sight.
01:55:33
It was $200 to ship it home to Kentucky. And they shucking did it. No, sorry. Can I just ask a clarifying question?
01:55:39
Yeah. Kentucky for Kentucky is like basically a cool store. Is that correct? They have a mall now.
01:55:46
Let me see. Hold on. Let me look up, Stephen. Hold on. It's like an artist collective type of thing.
01:55:50
It's a great question. Let's find out. Okay. I just want details on these obviously cool, fun people.
01:55:57
Because they're clearly our new best friends. Like Preservation Society or something.
01:56:01
Oh, yeah. Oh, that makes sense. So we're talking, there's a lot of, like, calf tattoos. We're talking
01:56:09
about a lot of interesting glasses. I'm seeing. Their website is KY for KY. Oh, and they have the Fun Mall.
01:56:19
Okay, you know, there's a commercial online It looks like just like a like a cool shop of like Kentucky gear.
01:56:29
It says a kick. Bang. Commonwealth since 19. Oh, a kick. Wham. Commonwealth since 1792.
01:56:37
That's about the actual state of Kentucky they're talking about. Got it. Oh, got it.
01:56:43
OK. They look like a wacky bunch. I'm looking at their about site. There's a lot.
01:56:46
There's a Kentucky fried chicken bucket hat. Let's see. Did you see the shirt? It looks like a like a Yale sweatshirt, but it says y'all.
01:56:55
Oh, that's amazing. OK, I want one of those real bad. Here's their mission. Our mission is to engage and inform the world by promoting Kentucky people, places and products and to kick Mothman for the Commonwealth.
01:57:09
All right. Nice. I love them. OK, they'll be invited to our next show and invited to give me a Kentucky Fried Chicken hat, please.
01:57:16
KY for KY presents the never ending pandemic warehouse sale. they also have a commercial for their fun mall that like is super kitschy and funny so
01:57:25
look them up online uh yeah they these shirts oh my god you know how the cicadas or cicadas
01:57:31
however you pronounce it there's a thing where they're coming back this year after 28 years
01:57:36
and they're all gonna there's a they have a picture on the ky for ky whip it's ky4ky.com
01:57:43
and it's a cicadas t-shirt and it says let me hear y'all make some noise so they're a fun bunch they're funny they're funny and fun and love to have fun and buy bears
01:57:57
so they bought it that makes it even better they bought the fuck they tracked down single-handedly
01:58:02
and bought the cocaine bear because they thought it was i bet they were drinking one night and
01:58:07
we're like you know it'd be so funny and what we need here the cocaine bear and they're like what
01:58:10
happened to it and then they found it really quick they have a t-shirt that says i'm not a cat i'm
01:58:16
I'm here live. I'm not a cat from when that guy was in court and the cat face. They have a t-shirt. I'm here live. I'm not a cat.
01:58:25
Yeah. These guys are on the ball. I'm Kentucky style on trend. Okay. And there's a cocaine beard. They have their own cocaine beard.
01:58:34
Don't say it. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Part of it. What? You don't want me looking at their website while you're trying to tell your story.
01:58:41
I don't know what the problem is. Let me read this. So the bear is now on display at the Kentucky for Kentucky Fun Mall in Lexington.
01:58:48
They sell a line of merchandise based on the bear, including T-shirts, which you've seen me wearing before.
01:58:54
Someone at our Kentucky show gave me one. Hats, hoodies, mugs, stickers and snow globes that they call blow globes.
01:59:02
Sense of humor. Yeah. OK. As we all read in Variety recently, Elizabeth Banks has signed on to direct the Cocaine Bear film produced by the dudes who made the Lego movies.
01:59:13
And they haven't released a lot of details, but the movie has been described as a, quote, character driven thriller inspired by truth events that took place in Kentucky in 1985.
01:59:24
So I hope. Oh, period piece. Period piece. It could be great. Thriller. It could be great.
01:59:29
It's going to be great. And then I wrote, hopefully they'll include the quote that was included in Thornton's obituary.
01:59:35
So Andrew Thornton's obituary, one line read, quote, I'm glad his parachute didn't open.
01:59:41
Someone hated him You make some enemies when you're Jesus It reminds me of I curse you with my dying breath
01:59:51
I'm glad his parachute didn't open That can't have been in his obituary It was in his obituary
01:59:57
I swear to God that doesn't make sense. Steven, will you look it up and put it on Instagram?
02:00:04
They usually don't let ships like that through. Was it in the guest book? No, it says obituary.
02:00:09
I swear. Wow, that's intense. The last line I'll tell you is that according to his friends,
02:00:17
Andrew Carter Thornton II died a millionaire. And according to us, the cocaine bear died happy.
02:00:24
And that's the real story of cocaine bear. There's also a book which has the entire story of Thornton's smuggling operation as far as anyone's aware of it.
02:00:34
It's called The Bluegrass Conspiracy by Sally Denton from 1990. So check that out if you're into sleeping crazy stories.
02:00:42
I mean, it's so much cocaine. That's a crazy, fabulous story. That is nuts. Also, the idea that someone drops from the sky
02:00:58
and dies in your backyard. I bet he was dead before he hit the ground, though. Absolutely.
02:01:03
He had a heart attack. First of all, because you know he was probably on some cocaine.
02:01:07
And then he jumps out in a parachute and that parachute doesn't open. At least unconscious, you gotta hope.
02:01:15
Please. Well, also, because that just means he's falling straight down. So, yeah, that's gonna...
02:01:21
Just this whole... It's so extreme. It like it the most like Flipping Red Bull story of all time It just nuts It like the 80s 1980s Red Bull story I bet the movie is going to be sponsored by Red Bull
02:01:37
And you can get like... You should be required to like chug three Red Bulls before you watch that.
02:01:42
Or what about a Jolt Cola? Can we bring that back for this movie? The OG? Or just cocaine.
02:01:49
Or just some plain old cocaine in a nice popcorn bucket. I mean, that was great.
02:01:54
Should we let that story be our friendly hooray? Maybe? Yes, I think that was a friendly hooray.
02:02:00
Right. Hold on. Epigram. A pithy saying or remark expressing an idea in a clever and amusing way.
02:02:07
Okay, what that guy read, that's not an epigram. You're thinking of obituary. An epigram is like, you know what I'm saying?
02:02:15
The epigram was the word used. Got it. And then it's like the point of battle is to inflict as much pain in the shortest amount of time.
02:02:25
That's not an epigram is like, don't let the screen door hit you on the way out.
02:02:29
I believe you mean more like the screen door hit you where the good Lord split you like that or any number of epigrams.
02:02:37
Stephen, did you find the obituary? Yes. So in the Rolling Stone article, it says the district attorney who prosecuted Andrew said, I'm glad his parachute didn't open.
02:02:46
I hope he got a half hour high out of it out of that what a no I mean unless what he was saying
02:02:54
is I love him so much he such my good friend that he got the big final high he didn even want the parachute to open is what he was saying It just sounds different when you say I glad his parachute It does It didn
02:03:05
It does. Very bad. Yeah. Maybe he was like he got the ultimate high. I'm glad. Oh, I loved him.
02:03:12
I'm glad his parachute didn't open. It's what he would have wanted. That makes that sounds way better.
02:03:17
No one wants their parachute not to open. Sorry. Here's the here's the first example of an epigram.
02:03:23
And OK, it is better to look at the top. light a candle then curse the darkness Eleanor Roosevelt and then she says
02:03:29
kill all your enemies and let God sort them out Eleanor Roosevelt Eleanor Roosevelt
02:03:38
Wow alright well this story is full of misinformation let us know if you know any other stories
02:03:47
that we should cover full of misinformation I think that's our specialty yeah thanks for listening you guys are a treat
02:03:54
and a treasure and we appreciate all of your hard work and not so hard work. Yeah, we appreciate it when you
02:04:02
relax. We appreciate you at all times. Resting, in motion, whatever. Stay saved.
02:04:11
And do God's mission. Goodbye! Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production.
02:04:24
Our producer is Alejandra Keck Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton This episode was edited by Liana Squilacci Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder Goodbye
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