00:00:00
This is Exactly Right. of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:36
In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.
00:00:43
You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct? I doctored the test once.
00:00:49
It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
00:00:56
Greg Gillespie and Michael Mancini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped.
00:01:02
Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
00:01:09
Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:15
When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
00:01:24
I vowed I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves.
00:01:30
We always say that, trust your girlfriends. Listen to The Girlfriends, Trust Me, Babe,
00:01:37
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello!
00:02:05
And welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hardstart. That's Karen Kilgariff.
00:02:10
And here we are, face to face. A couple of silver spoons. That's right. Still on fucking Zoom.
00:02:17
All of the things. I was thinking the other day about how difficult working, and this is, in this day and age,
00:02:28
you have to qualify everything with like, not harder than this. There's definitely worse things out there.
00:02:34
But there is this very specific type of mindfuck when you work from home on a Zoom,
00:02:40
but do a thing that's as dependent on like a timing and connection as podcasting.
00:02:48
Yeah. It fucks you up. And somehow we make it fucking look seamless. Literally, as you were saying that, you were glitching out on my Wi-Fi.
00:02:59
So that is how, like, it couldn't have been a better time for it to be like, it's easy to podcast from home.
00:03:05
Everyone try it. Oh, wait one second. Because my thing, my Google Nest got unplugged.
00:03:11
Sorry. Oh, okay. All right. We had tech diffs for a sec, but here we are again. Yeah, my Zoom, it kind of like rolled, it scrolled.
00:03:21
Then there was the face of the devil really fast. and then my face came back. And a little Max Hedrum
00:03:26
just to like do a deep cut there for us Gen Xers. Max Hedrum, if a demon was haunting Max Hedrum.
00:03:34
So what you're saying is it's spooky Halloween season. Oh, we start, are we kicking it off?
00:03:41
Like everyone else is, right? It's like already happening. Well, because the 12-foot skeleton army
00:03:48
is up and at them. That's right. We got a text from Stephen over the weekend of a sighting in the, not flesh, but, you know.
00:03:57
Wild. Wild, thank you. Of a 12-foot skeleton up in Adam. It's a trend that now, like, is about people see them
00:04:05
and go, I have to show this to Karen in Georgia. And then we get roped in. That's right.
00:04:10
People who have them go, this is taking up more basement space than I expected for, like, a one-time joke, but now I can't get rid of it.
00:04:17
What, are you going to put it on the curb and, like, hope someone takes it? No, they think it's decoration, so you can't get rid of it.
00:04:23
Yes. That's true. Further up, you try to set it from your garage. You're like, no, this is a large item pickup.
00:04:30
No. And it's like amazing decoration. Yeah. Or they're like, now you're threatening your neighbors.
00:04:35
Can you please stop putting the 10 foot, 12 foot skeleton. 12. Into the neighborhood.
00:04:41
I used to think it was a 20 foot skeleton. I kind of like that feel. They're just gigantic.
00:04:45
I mean, 12 is plenty. You think by now they'd have the technology. It's been what, three years?
00:04:50
And you can feel like they could get it together. to get a 20-foot skeleton at this point.
00:04:55
There's always room to go up. Always. To the moon. To the moon and back. To the fucking top.
00:05:04
Happy spooky Halloween season. I like the idea of just declaring it mid-September.
00:05:09
I feel like mid-August is when I first saw it. So I feel like we've been kind of,
00:05:13
we're like on the back end of it, really. Really? Is it time to put up our Christmas tree?
00:05:19
Yeah. our collective Christmas tree, you and me. Yeah, we technically have missed Halloween.
00:05:26
Really, if you want to be technical about it. Yeah, yeah. And I do. I always want to be technical.
00:05:31
You know that about me. That's why you went to ITT Technical Institute. That's right.
00:05:35
Can I read you a tweet that I got that's an update to my survival story that went out last week about Antonio Saina?
00:05:43
Yeah. Remember in the beginning of that story when I talked about how he had like eight to 10 rolls on him?
00:05:49
Marcella Jalbert I'm gonna put a little French pronunciation on that could be Jalbert
00:05:54
but I don think it is they wrote to me and said Brazilian American here with the intel on the rolls Antonio Sina had Wait rolls of toilet paper No no no Like I remember I said
00:06:05
what are those, dinner rolls? Why would you bring rolls with you? Got it. I thought I missed a key part of that story.
00:06:10
No. It was just a funny detail that then here comes Marcella and she's like, I have key information for you.
00:06:18
These are an absolute, all caps, absolute staple in a Brazilian home. They're breakfast,
00:06:23
a side, a snack with coffee or literally whatever. They have a hold on us. And it is not at all shocking that he had 12 on hand.
00:06:31
He had 12. And it's called Pau de Sal, which either means salt bread or there's also Pau Francaise, which is French bread.
00:06:40
And then there's a follow-up. Also, they translate to salt bread or French bread
00:06:44
and they're eaten most commonly room temp, not toasted with room temp butter. I mean, that is a follow-up.
00:06:51
That's what I'm looking for in a person listening to this and going, you wondered about a weird detail.
00:06:57
Here comes the weird detail patrol. Absolutely. Especially when it's carb-based.
00:07:04
Like any detail you can give us that's carb-based, I'm going to need to know about it, please.
00:07:09
Because you know what is going to happen next? I'm going to find a Brazilian bakery
00:07:13
and we're going to try these on the air. Yes. Right? Yes. Okay. So Marcella, you're a part of this.
00:07:21
I guess Venmo me $5. you're in this taste test with us. Everyone has to put in five dollars.
00:07:28
They can't be five bucks. They've got to be like 125, I would say. Yeah, but there's shipping and handling.
00:07:32
I'm going to keep a lot. I'm going to keep a lot of this. Right, the handling part is key.
00:07:37
I'm going to touch your rolls so much. And that costs. Everyone knows it costs a lot of money
00:07:41
to get Karen to handle your rolls. Here's how we warm up. We room temp that butter
00:07:47
is I just hold it between my hands. Don't be- That's right. Filthy. Oh, there's nothing I love more than to hold a foil butter pat until it's usable.
00:08:00
Until it's warmed up. Oh, yeah. Butter fist. That's what you got to have in your life.
00:08:04
Just a fistful of butter. You got to go through life with a fistful of butter. That's right.
00:08:09
And a poudé sal. Mmm. Carbs. So exciting. I read a—I listened to a book that's a memoir that I really loved that, like, made me remember that we wrote a memoir.
00:08:22
in that way. Remember our memoir? Vaguely. So this chick, Jeanette McCurdy, do you know her book,
00:08:32
I'm Glad My Mom Died? She just, it just came out. I fucking listened to it too. You did not.
00:08:37
Yes, I did. Oh my God. How good was it? It was fucking unbelievable. Oh, my heart was in my,
00:08:46
like I was about to cry most of the book. Yes. She writes about a lot, a little like about her struggle
00:08:51
and with so many things. Of course, I identified with the bulimia part. And she said this one thing that I really love
00:08:58
that her eating disorder therapist taught her, which was you can slip, but that doesn't mean you have to slide.
00:09:06
And I love that so much where you can fuck up with whatever your fuck up is, whatever the thing that you're always struggling with,
00:09:13
but that doesn't mean you have to just like do what I do and put a match in the whole thing,
00:09:17
burn it to the ground. You're a fucking loser and you screw it up. You just slipped.
00:09:22
You didn't slide. I mean, it's hard though if you have perfectionistic tendencies.
00:09:27
What I think is amazing, and if you guys don't know Jeanette McCurdy by name, she was on, what's the show called?
00:09:34
iCarly. We're both way too old for it, but it was a huge hit. Yeah, I never saw it.
00:09:40
And she had a butter sock. You just said the thing about Butterfist, but she had a butter sock.
00:09:44
That's what made me think of it. Yes, I was like butter. Speaking of butter. Her talking about that,
00:09:50
And I understood that it was like for the iCarly generation, that was like Fonzie's leather jacket.
00:09:57
But I had no clue what she was talking about the entire time. And it was still the most compelling thing I've heard in so long.
00:10:04
Yeah, it was really good. It's exactly what you think of when you're like stage moms and getting kids into acting too early.
00:10:10
And I bet it's harmful to them. And I wonder what it's like to go on auditions as a little kid.
00:10:15
And like, then you hit puberty. She explained it all in a way that I've been, it's so fascinating.
00:10:22
I'm so curious about, but also her own personal struggle and how she dealt with it.
00:10:27
And she's so raw and open. And it was just, I really enjoyed it. It's an amazing book.
00:10:32
She's such a good writer. And then she named her book, I'm Glad My Mom Died. She's also an amazing narrator
00:10:38
because it was like, it was no fat, no nothing. Unbelievable. That's ballsy and hilarious
00:10:45
and heartbreaking at the same time. and so good. And then you hear this story and you're like,
00:10:49
mm-hmm, yes, yes. Narcissistic mom, I see you. What's up? Yeah, hey. Hi. That's so weird
00:10:57
because I couldn't, I knew there was something I wanted to talk about and I couldn't remember
00:11:00
and that's what it was. Oh, wow. That's so weird. Yeah. I also, I don't know, are you watching The Patient
00:11:06
on Hulu, the new Steve Carell and Dom Hall Gleason TV show? Fuck, I totally forgot
00:11:11
to keep watching it because Vince couldn't watch it. That's how good it was, you know?
00:11:14
He doesn't like suspense. Yes. And he also was like, this is so twisted that I can't watch this.
00:11:21
So I watched it alone. And then he's been home from when he was out of town. So I haven't caught up.
00:11:26
Oh my God. The premise is so fucked up and good. It's so good. And it's so, and also those are 20 minute episodes, which is very strange.
00:11:36
Like when they end, you feel like the rug's been pulled out from under you. And it is like, I feel like I was going to say Steve Carell doesn't get enough
00:11:45
like praise for being a really good actor, but I actually think he does. Now that I think about it,
00:11:51
I'm like, no, I think he actually, he just makes great choices. He does Because his range is so wildly unbelievable And watching him play this psychiatrist who is in quite a predicament It just unbelievable and so intense
00:12:07
It's so intense. And then for one, what's the guy's name? One-on-one to play against Steve Carell like that.
00:12:12
Dom Hall Gleeson. Oh my God. How challenging and fun must that be? And to play a psychopath.
00:12:19
Right, I know. And how good. So do you remember, did you watch the first season of Black Mirror?
00:12:23
He's the guy that's the robot of the woman's dead husband that she, after a while, is like, it starts to bum her out.
00:12:33
That's him. And also, Brendan Gleeson is his father, who was the guy from In Bruges.
00:12:38
Yes. He's a very famous Irish actor. Yeah, I know the name very well. Okay. Yeah.
00:12:43
He's a real badass actor because he's from a family of actors. Yeah. Yeah, he's got this.
00:12:48
Yeah. Good for him. He's like, I'm about to show you what being around one of these people is actually like.
00:12:54
And it's so believable. And so like when there's this time when he's like, yes, dead face, but then also like heavy eyed.
00:13:01
It's so creepy. I think I only got to the end of one of the seasons when he starts talking to the person
00:13:06
who he can hear upstairs and then they cut away. And I have, so I have to catch up from there.
00:13:12
Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. Vince is gone tonight. I'm fucking doing it. It's happening.
00:13:17
It goes so fast. I think you're going to like it. There's a little bit of a, there's a pacing like two-man play element to it.
00:13:24
Yeah, yeah. Power through it. Because sometimes people get that construct and then they're like,
00:13:30
don't try to be highfalutin with me. It doesn't, it's not like that. You know I always say that.
00:13:35
That's my motto. Don't try to be highfalutin with me. Georgia gets really upset if people try to get highfalutin.
00:13:42
And then she does what I was just doing, which is, she kind of swings her arms back and forth like an old time cowboy.
00:13:48
It's a march and place, a lot of elbows. Don't get highfalutin' with me. Don't get highfalutin' with me.
00:13:53
Tattoo that on my back, because that's how much I need it. Yeah, a lot of great content.
00:13:58
A lot of great content around lately. Should we do some Exactly Right highlights
00:14:03
to tell people what's going on? Let's do it. I'm happy to talk about it on my other podcast,
00:14:08
Do You Need a Ride? We have the great Bridger Weininger from the podcast, I Said No Gifts,
00:14:14
which you can listen to every Thursday on the Exactly Right Podcast Network. He has a hilarious podcast.
00:14:20
If you haven't tried out I Said No Gifts because you're like, oh me, I don't, I'm a Seventh Day Adventist.
00:14:25
I don't like gifts. Or whatever your personal background story is, what I'm telling you is put that aside.
00:14:31
This is not about gifts. This is comedy, comedy, comedy. So comedy. It's the funniest show.
00:14:37
Bridgers had some of the best guests, Darcy Carden, Tony Hale. Tony Hale. I know.
00:14:43
Bowen Yang, Weird Al, Chris Fleming, There's so many amazing, hilarious comic artists
00:14:50
that go onto that show and play the, I Said No Gifts game with Bridger. And it's such a delight.
00:14:55
So give it a try if you haven't listened to it. It's a really great comedy talk show
00:14:59
that you just have to hear. And it'll take you away from all your misery that you have from all the highfalutin people
00:15:04
in the fucking world. That's right. Don't let the highfaluters get you down. Yeah, listen to I Said No Gifts.
00:15:09
And Do You Need a Ride? Okay. On September 28th, the next episode of MFM Animated by Nick Terry
00:15:15
will premiere. So don't miss Knife Bears on the Exactly Right Media YouTube channel.
00:15:20
Please subscribe or whatever you do on YouTube to the Exactly Right Media YouTube channel, please.
00:15:27
Thanks. And to follow up with that, if you're so moved because you like those cartoons so much that Nick Terry makes for us,
00:15:35
you can go over to the My Favorite Murder store, myfavoritemurder.com, and get MFM animated merch.
00:15:41
There's new MFM animated merch. And it's basically, if you want a lazy Halloween costume this Halloween,
00:15:49
there's one waiting for you over there. Oh, we've got some great new merch. You're going to love it.
00:15:54
All right. Is that it? I think it is. That's a quick start to get you going, to get you revving.
00:16:01
I could tell you the story about how there was a police helicopter over my head this week.
00:16:06
And then when I looked out my front window, there was a guy crouching behind a car.
00:16:10
Excuse me? But is that too much of a bummer? Will it bring you down? Are you legally allowed to say that?
00:16:18
Nothing happened and it turned out that the crime, they were, somebody shot themselves like in the leg
00:16:24
in like an encampment down by the river. So it was not, it was just a crime of a person
00:16:30
fucking up with a gun. But there's like all these, you know, cop cars and helicopters everywhere.
00:16:37
So of course it was after the fact, much less scary. Yeah. But while it was happening
00:16:42
and I saw the man crouch down. Was he crouched? Well, because I think he was hiding
00:16:47
from the helicopter. But he wasn't who they were looking. Okay, I'm so. I don't know.
00:16:52
Karen, I need all the answers. All I know is that here's what I did. I was standing there without my glasses on
00:16:57
looking in that and seeing that. And I'm like, well, whatever that is, the gate's unlocked.
00:17:01
So you better get down there right now. So I grabbed my keys and so fast and so quietly,
00:17:08
I run to the gate and lock it really fast and then run away and lock all the doors
00:17:13
and then just wait. And when I got back, the guy was gone. So it wasn't like eminent anything,
00:17:19
but it was that kind of thing that is just like, wow, that's uncomfortable. Maybe it's just the guy who's scared of helicopters.
00:17:27
That's what I was, you know what I said was, it could have been somebody walking a dog
00:17:31
leaning down to pick up shit right as I look out. And I'm like, oh my God, it could have been.
00:17:36
He's crouched. Right? It was just a weird, no, that's creepy. Jarring, jarring thing to see.
00:17:42
It's like if he was, if he wasn't doing anything wrong and he wasn't, like that's the most inconspicuous thing.
00:17:49
No, the most conspicuous thing he could possibly freaking do is crouch down when a helicopter's overhead, dude.
00:17:55
Yeah like what who else would crouch It like if somebody is on drugs and like they don understand what they looking at crouch down or they hiding
00:18:05
So it's just like that. It's like, it was just daytime chill. There's, you know, very few people in this neighborhood
00:18:10
and then a crouching guy where I was just like, here we go. It makes you ask, what's in a crouch?
00:18:16
Because a crouch can be so many things, you know? I also think there was, his hands were not,
00:18:25
It was not like he was crouched down doing something actively. I could tell his hands were up by his head.
00:18:30
Nefarious. So it looked like a very like stop, drop, and roll position. It just looked like an emergency.
00:18:36
That's a nefarious crouch for sure. I mean, there was guilt in there. There was guilt in there for sure.
00:18:43
All right. Well, I'm first. All right. Let's go for it. Okay. Let's do it. Joy is essential and it's also elusive.
00:18:53
But now, there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence.
00:18:58
Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotb. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats.
00:19:10
Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Joy 101, and listen now. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb is presented by CVS.
00:19:19
You know the famous author Roald Dahl. he thought up Willy Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy?
00:19:26
Neither did I. You can hear all about his wildlife story in the podcast The Secret World of Roald Dahl.
00:19:33
All episodes are out now. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been.
00:19:37
What? Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, the guy was a spy. Binge all 10 episodes of The Secret World of Roald Dahl
00:19:44
now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Anna Navarro and on my new podcast, Bleep with Anna Navarro,
00:19:53
I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest issues happening in your community and around the world.
00:19:59
Because I know deep down inside right now, we are all cursing and asking what the bleep is going on.
00:20:06
Every week I'm breaking down the biggest issues happening in our communities and around the world.
00:20:11
I'm talking to people like Julie K. Brown, who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein in 2018.
00:20:17
The Justice Department, through we counted four presidential administrations, failed these victims.
00:20:24
Listen to Bleep with Adam Navarro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:20:31
All right, so today I'm going to talk about serial killer Robert Garrow. But this case is about so much more than that.
00:20:39
It's kind of just a horrible serial killer story. but the story is also about what his case meant
00:20:45
for legal ethics and attorney-client privilege. And this is also known as the Buried Bodies case.
00:20:51
So the sources I used today, there's a 2016 Radiolab episode that covers this case about the legal aspects of it.
00:20:59
And so I listened to that and got a lot of info from there. I also used a Crime Library article by Mark Gatto,
00:21:05
a Post Standard article by Dick Case, a Buffalo Law Review article by Jeffrey Chamberlain,
00:21:11
a New York Times article by Mary Breasted, a bunch more. You can see them in the show notes.
00:21:16
So, Karen, let me tell you about the Adirondacks real quick. I wish you would. I love their chair.
00:21:20
That's right. The Adirondacks are the largest national park in the lower 48, and the total area is bigger than Yosemite,
00:21:27
Yellowstone, Glacier, Grand Canyon, and the Great Smoky National Parks all combined.
00:21:34
So it's fucking huge. I know. That's actually quite something. That was a ton of parks.
00:21:39
Right? I named a bunch. Along with lakes and waterfalls and hiking trails, the Adirondacks has lots of little small towns
00:21:46
and villages peppered throughout its wilderness. It's very popular with summer tourists,
00:21:52
as you I'm sure have heard. It's very beautiful. Think Dirty Dancing, where it took place.
00:21:57
I think that's the Adirondacks. Yeah. Maybe not. Isn't that in the... It's the Jewish...
00:22:02
Catskills? Catskills. Okay. I always get Catskills and the Adirondacks mixed up,
00:22:08
and I just did it. Okay. But it's like that kind of area. You know what I mean? Yes, totally.
00:22:13
So on July 14th, 1973, 23-year-old Danny Porter and his girlfriend, 20-year-old Susan Petz,
00:22:21
are camping for the weekend in the Adirondacks. Danny grew up in Mansfield, Ohio,
00:22:26
and was enrolled in Harvard's government studies program. He's a photographer for the Harvard Crimson.
00:22:32
Both these kids have their whole lives ahead of them. Susan comes from a Chicago suburb called Skokie.
00:22:38
She's a journalism senior at Boston University and writes for the East Boston Community News,
00:22:43
and they've been dating since the fall of 1972. So once the two arrive in the Adirondacks,
00:22:49
Danny and Susan set up camp about 28 miles east of a town called Speculator. However, before their camping trip is over,
00:22:57
Danny will be found tied to a tree, stabbed to death, and Susan will be gone without a trace.
00:23:02
Police quickly surmise who their likely suspect is as there's a serial sex offender
00:23:06
who had gone on the lam a month before after being arrested for first degree sodomy
00:23:11
involving a child when he sexually assaulted two preteen girls. So he had skipped bail
00:23:18
and headed deep into the Adirondacks to hide out. So he was just on bail for these.
00:23:22
He fucking left town. They know he's hiding out in the Adirondacks. And so a warrant is issued for his arrest.
00:23:28
His name's Robert Garrow with police reports describing him as white, five foot 11 inches tall,
00:23:33
weighing 210 to 220 pounds, baldish brown hair, blue eyes, and a tattoo on his left forearm consisting of the words mom and dad
00:23:42
and a heart. The police said he wore sunglasses and had a hat on most of the time. So everyone's
00:23:47
on the lookout for him. Let me tell you a little bit more about this man just to catch you up. It's
00:23:52
the basics we've heard a million times before and the story is about so much more than him.
00:23:57
And so I don't want to really get into it. But just to sum it up, Robert Francis Garrow is born in Dannemora in upstate New York on March 4th, 1936.
00:24:08
He spends a lot of his time in the Adirondacks. So he's really familiar with the area.
00:24:12
He's the second of six children, all of whom are severely physically abused as children,
00:24:17
being beaten constantly and sometimes so severely that they're beaten unconscious.
00:24:23
He doesn't attend school, so also has no friends because of that. At age 17, he joins the Air Force,
00:24:31
but he's bullied over bedwetting, which is something he's done his entire life. A year later, he's court-martialed
00:24:37
for stealing money from a superior officer and served six months in a military prison in Florida,
00:24:42
and he's eventually released. In 1957, now 21-year-old Robert returns to New York
00:24:48
where he marries and has two children, but he can't hold down a job and is fired from one after the other.
00:24:55
Around this time, this is just a weird little aside. He's said to become involved in an abusive sexual relationship with his lawyer,
00:25:04
who ties Robert up and whips him. But by this time, Robert is prowling the streets on his days off,
00:25:09
looking for young women. He's a big guy, as I said. In 1961, the 25-year-old pleads guilty to raping a teen girl and assaulting her boyfriend.
00:25:19
He's convicted and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison, but only serves about seven years.
00:25:24
And in August 1968, now 32-year-old Robert is paroled for good behavior. He gets a job as a mechanic at a Syracuse bakery where he maintains the machinery.
00:25:35
But he goes straight back to raping women, and now he also targets children. In 1972, the 36-year-old ties up two young college students.
00:25:45
He's arrested for unlawful imprisonment, but the young women declined to press charges.
00:25:49
And this brings us back to June 1973, when he's arrested for first-degree sodomy involving two preteen girls in the town of Geddes.
00:26:00
And this is when he skips bail and goes on the lam deep in the Adirondacks. And a warrant is issued for his arrest.
00:26:06
A month later, on July 11th, a 16-year-old girl named Alicia Hawk goes missing and is a suspected runaway.
00:26:13
And on July 14th, as I told you in the beginning, Danny and Susan leave Boston to go camping.
00:26:19
and Danny is tied to a tree before being stabbed to death with a hunting knight and Robert kidnaps Susan.
00:26:25
A man reports finding an abandoned car on a dirt road in the Adirondack and Danny's friends notify the police
00:26:32
that he hasn't returned so the cops head out to the area. Officers find Danny's car locked,
00:26:37
no signs of a struggle so they're not concerned but Danny's friends take matters
00:26:41
into their own hands and go out searching for them and on July 20th, they find Danny's body tied to the tree.
00:26:48
Oh, his own friends. His own friends found him because they could just tell something wasn't right.
00:26:52
Only 20 yards from his car. But Susan's still missing. So then on July 28th, 18-year-old Mount Pleasant High School graduate,
00:27:01
Philip Domblowski, and three of his high school friends go camping in the Adirondacks.
00:27:05
The group is from Schenectady, New York, where Philip is a member of the National Honor Society.
00:27:11
The group set up camp near Route 8, just outside of the village of Speculator. The next morning on July 29th,
00:27:18
Robert is driving northbound on Route 8. He sees the group's campsite off the side of the road and stops the car.
00:27:25
He takes out his .30 caliber rifle and a hunting knife. He unzips the tents and orders the teenagers to come out of the tents.
00:27:34
He forces the group to walk about 400 yards away from their campsite into the woods near the town of Wells
00:27:39
and instructs each one of them to tie the others up. Then, oh my God, this is so horrible.
00:27:44
Then Phillip's friends listen in horror as Robert stabs Phillip in the chest multiple times.
00:27:50
So they're all tied up far away from each other, but they can hear their friend being stabbed to death.
00:27:55
Horrible. Phillip's friends are so freaked out that they're able to get out of their restraints.
00:28:00
They all make a run for it. They escape and report the incident to locals who alert the police.
00:28:06
And the group identifies Robert who has fled in his car through police photographs.
00:28:10
So now they know this psycho is on the loose, this murderer. And Susan Petz is still missing.
00:28:18
Police now wonder if Danny Porter and Phillip's murders are linked. They obviously know someone dangerous is on the loose,
00:28:23
and these murders are probably linked. And they realize, too, that this murder scenes are only 25 miles apart,
00:28:29
and Robert's parents live close to where Danny is murdered. So they're hoping they can find Susan alive still and apprehend Robert.
00:28:37
So law enforcement launches the biggest manhunt in New York state history. And this becomes a huge story.
00:28:43
And people who are camping in the Adirondacks find out about it and just get in their cars and leave.
00:28:47
So all these campsites are abandoned, which means that Robert can use those campsites himself.
00:28:53
Ooh. So he has ample ways to survive. Supplies. Yeah. So for 12 days, over a hundred square foot mile area,
00:29:02
State police troopers and local police work around the clock using tracker dogs and helicopters to cover every inch of the Adirondacks.
00:29:09
Robert's wife and son are even brought in to record a message, which is broadcast from police cars pleading for him to give himself up.
00:29:17
Roadblocks are set up throughout the park where officers stop motorists and search their trunks.
00:29:22
Drivers are warned not to stop for anyone hitchhiking. Residents of the Lake Pleasant and Speculatory Area are locking their doors
00:29:29
and sleeping with loaded firearms under their pillow. And it's a normally busy tourist season,
00:29:35
but everyone leaves and it comes to a standstill in the Adirondacks. Robert continues being able to hide in the woods
00:29:42
because he knows the Adirondacks like the back of his hand. Having spent his formative years in the area,
00:29:47
he evades police every day for 12 days. but finally on August 10th Roberts apprehended
00:29:54
by officers in the woods near the hamlet of Witherby after being spotted and shot he shot in the arm foot and back but survives and is taken to the hospital
00:30:06
Wow. He's treated for his injuries and he claims he's now paralyzed from the shooting.
00:30:11
But doctors dismiss his complaint that he's insistent that he's paralyzed. And he files a $10 million civil suit
00:30:19
against the state of New York, alleging negligence in the medical treatment he receives.
00:30:24
Sure. Absolutely. There we go. If you're going to be a douchebag, go all the way with it.
00:30:29
You might as well. That's right. The idea that you would be insisting that you're paralyzed to doctors who are like,
00:30:36
dude, you're fine. You can tell. We went to school for it. For this specifically, we can tell.
00:30:43
Yeah. Even though he's captured and charged with the murder of Philip Domblowski,
00:30:47
investigators are still looking for Susan Petz and suspect Robert in the disappearance of Alicia Hawk as well.
00:30:54
So now in custody, he appoints his attorney. So he gets an attorney named Frank Armani to defend him.
00:31:00
Not the same attorney that he had been having a sexual, some kind of sexual relationship with.
00:31:05
Okay, good. Yeah. Great. Good, good first step. So Frank Armani, this attorney, who's not a criminal defense attorney,
00:31:12
he's known Robert since 1972 because he represented him in some minor legal matters.
00:31:18
And in this Radiolab episode, he's immediately like, I knew this guy was super dangerous.
00:31:22
I don't know why he wanted me to defend him, but he insisted on it. I tried to get out of it.
00:31:27
He's like, I had no experience in murder trials, but the only reason he takes it
00:31:33
is because the judge insists he takes it. He says he has to take it, take the case.
00:31:38
Oh no. Yeah, because, you know, right to an attorney. But it's like, if you're like,
00:31:43
I can't defend him to the best of my ability because I don't know how to do that,
00:31:48
then you probably shouldn't be the attorney, but he's forced to be, to represent this monster.
00:31:54
They're like, look, this is the Adirondacks. You don't have attorneys just falling off every deck
00:31:59
and off of every chair. Please do this job. That's right. And so this guy is, in 2016,
00:32:06
he's interviewed in Radiolab fully. He's in his 80s. And like remembers the whole fucking thing.
00:32:12
He sounds like Christopher Walken. It's wild. That's genius. Yeah. So he's like, all right, if I have to do this,
00:32:18
I'm going to recruit someone who I know can actually help me with this. So he recruits his friend, Francis Belgy, who has a lot of criminal trial experience.
00:32:27
He has to like beg his friend to do it because he's like, this is a high profile case.
00:32:31
And I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to be defending a murderer, known murderer, but he does it.
00:32:38
So the Hawk and Petz families want to know if Robert has killed their daughters.
00:32:42
So they think that the girls could still be alive, that he could have been keeping them somewhere that whole time.
00:32:47
And if so, if they are dead, they want to know where their daughter's bodies are, of course.
00:32:52
So Robert initially insists he knows nothing about the young women. But in late August, he confesses to his two attorneys
00:32:59
that he's raped and killed two women and hidden their bodies. So he confesses privately to his attorneys about this.
00:33:07
Robert says he picked up Alicia as she was walking along Glenwood Avenue in Syracuse
00:33:12
and raped her at the rear of an apartment block. And when she tried to escape, he stabbed her.
00:33:17
before hiding her body in Oakwood Cemetery nearby. He acts like he's insane, doesn't remember details,
00:33:24
says he has headaches and that's why he kills. He's kind of, you know, all over the place
00:33:30
and really evasive, even with his attorneys. So he draws a diagram showing where one of the bodies is.
00:33:35
Frank and Francis, these are the attorneys, want to know if Robert is telling the truth.
00:33:40
So they have reason to believe Susan could still be alive, but tied up. So they follow the diagram
00:33:45
and they don't tell the police about it. and they go searching for the bodies. And after several hours,
00:33:50
they find Susan's body in an abandoned coal mined air shaft at the base of a mountain in Mineville.
00:33:57
So then Frank lowers Francis down into the shaft by his feet to take a Polaroid photo
00:34:03
of Susan's leg as proof that they found her. Okay, so at this point, this is where like kind of everything turns.
00:34:10
Did they have a legal obligation to their client and attorney client privilege or did they have a legal obligation
00:34:16
or a moral more so obligation to let these families know that their daughter is dead
00:34:22
and here's where her body is so that they can have some peace. I mean, tough call.
00:34:30
What with the fact that I flunked out of state school, but why would you go and involve yourself
00:34:38
basically in the investigation as the defendant's lawyer, knowing you're going to fuck everything up?
00:34:44
If you find something, you now have like eight more problems on your hands. Right.
00:34:49
But you just go do it so you can see like, that doesn't seem like a smart plan. Yeah.
00:34:55
Because if you don't find anything, it doesn't prove anything. But if you do find something, which they did, then you're like, yeah, then I think you have
00:35:04
to turn it over to the authorities. Right. They're trying to find out what happened in this case.
00:35:09
But then the Sixth Amendment to client attorney privilege that you can tell your attorney anything
00:35:15
and it's a secret unless you're going to kill someone, essentially, then that's just gone to shit.
00:35:22
There's no point in it at all. However, I will say they were never going to argue
00:35:28
for his innocence. They were going to argue for his insanity defense. So they were never going to try to get him off totally.
00:35:38
They were just going to try to get him into a better facility and maybe less time because of insanity defense.
00:35:46
But they're doing it dishonestly though. Yeah, totally. Totally. Like call some people.
00:35:51
Call some people who come with you that wear uniforms and write things down on official paperwork Right So this is where the story becomes what it becomes They choose not to say anything at all They leave her body there and they don tell anyone
00:36:06
Oh, I thought you just meant they didn't inform the proper authorities. They literally keep it a secret?
00:36:12
Yeah. Because of patient, what do I keep calling it that? Because of attorney-client privilege.
00:36:17
God can see, all I have to say is God can see them. God can see you. What are you doing?
00:36:22
No. The next day, Francis, one of the attorneys, goes to the Oakwood Cemetery where he said he left one of the bodies
00:36:29
and finds Alicia Hawke's badly decomposed remains. So they find both women based on Robert's diagrams and admissions.
00:36:38
And they don't tell anyone. Both bodies. Yep. That's egregious and ridiculous. And no, that's a firm no on my side.
00:36:45
Yeah. I rest my case. They destroy the photographs and diagram. Destroying that diagram to me
00:36:51
seems like tampering with evidence for sure, right? Could they use the diagram if it's attorney-client privilege?
00:36:57
I don't think so. To me, it's more just simply the knowledge. Yeah. Here's two pieces of very important evidence
00:37:05
that you're hiding. Yeah, that you're not turning over to prosecution. Yeah. It's not a decision they take lightly
00:37:10
and they do both. It does trouble them both very deeply, but they think that they're doing the right thing.
00:37:17
I know. It should. They did the wrong thing. it. But as lawyers, they feel they have no choice under the professional ethical obligations to their
00:37:26
client. But they made the situation that way. Sorry to argue with you. Oh, no. But I mean,
00:37:31
you can't claim the excuse that you basically manufactured. You set it up that way so that
00:37:38
then you would have this excuse. That's total bullshit. At the same time, Alicia and Susan's
00:37:43
families are, of course, totally distraught. They think there's a possibility their daughters are
00:37:48
still out there alive, you know? And so Frank knows the Hawk family from bowling and church,
00:37:54
and Alicia's sister and Frank's daughter are even in the same class at school. So he,
00:37:59
this is a small town. He has personal connections with these families. Alicia's father, Bill,
00:38:04
makes a public plea for information while Susan Petz's father, Earl, flies to Syracuse
00:38:10
in a one-on-one meeting, pleads with Robert's lawyers, these two people who have seen her body,
00:38:15
have seen his daughter's body to give him any info Robert may have given them, but they say they have no information.
00:38:23
So how fucking heartbreaking. That is just chilling. He pleads with them, where is my daughter?
00:38:29
Do you know where my daughter is? Can I, if she's alive, I need to find her. If she's not, I need to find her.
00:38:34
Do you know anything? Has he told you anything? Like pleading with them human to human
00:38:38
and they don't tell him anything. And they just sat there staring at him and lying.
00:38:42
Yeah. In the lead up to Robert's trial, So Frank and Francis do one thing to try to get this information out.
00:38:48
They put a plea bargain to the prosecution saying, basically, we'll give you these two girls' bodies.
00:38:55
Like, we'll let you know where they are and admit that he killed them if Robert is sentenced to life in a psychiatric hospital instead of prison.
00:39:04
They don't specifically say we know where they are. They say we'll help you find them.
00:39:08
Meaning, like, maybe we do and maybe we don't. And the prosecution's like, fuck no, that's not happening.
00:39:14
because this is a huge trial at this point too. This guy is a monster. You know, everyone's following this trial.
00:39:20
This prosecutor can't just be like lenient on this murderer. You know, he dismisses it completely.
00:39:26
Yeah, you can't bargain that because... But he didn't know for sure if they even had the bodies too in the prosecution.
00:39:33
Well, but they did. The defense did. And that's that thing of like, they can say all day long after the fact
00:39:39
that they'd lost sleep over it or felt bad about it. Yeah, yeah. In the prosecution's defense,
00:39:43
It doesn't seem like he knew, he had any idea they actually knew where the bodies were.
00:39:48
So in December 1973, four months after Robert's confidential confession, some kids playing near the abandoned mine shaft find Susan's body.
00:39:57
And just a week later, a college student walking through Oakwood Cemetery finds Alicia's remains.
00:40:03
So a week apart, they're found. So that many more people have to be traumatized also.
00:40:08
Exactly, exactly. Robert's trial begins on June 10th, 1974. He pleads not guilty by reason of insanity.
00:40:16
He admits to murdering not only Philip and Danny, but he also admits on the stand
00:40:21
to murdering Susan and Alicia. So he's totally unemotional throughout the confession.
00:40:27
At times he says he can't remember certain details. He's evasive in his responses.
00:40:32
So at one point, Francis, one of the attorneys, asked Robert about Alicia and says something along the lines of,
00:40:39
is that the one I found? This would have probably never been found out if he hadn't accidentally slipped
00:40:45
and said that during the examination. In court? Is that the one I found? Oh. So everyone in court are fucking,
00:40:55
what the fuck, are shocked, right? His secret's now publicly exposed. Now everyone knows the attorneys
00:41:00
have been sitting on the information about Susan and Alicia's bodies the whole time.
00:41:04
Oh, God. The public and the media are totally fucking outraged by the whole thing that the attorneys knew
00:41:10
about the location of the bodies for months and didn't tell anyone. I mean, taking a photo, it's so disgusting.
00:41:17
I just don't see the excuse. It's their eyes were open the entire time. They made a very definitive decision,
00:41:23
a very, I think, bad decision, obviously. Like, there's no excuse for it. They can't later be like, I felt bad.
00:41:32
Let me play devil's advocate. Client in private said to them, yes, I killed them.
00:41:36
He's going to trial for a murder. Not their murder, though. Yes, I killed them. Here are their bodies.
00:41:43
No one's in imminent danger at that point. And the prosecution could then use that confession
00:41:50
and those bodies in this case that he's being tried on. So I just saying in their minds I could see I think they wrong I totally think they wrong and it totally immoral but I could see where they thought that that was their job
00:42:05
was to not tell anyone, at least until after the trial was over. Yeah. I don't agree with it.
00:42:11
I'm just saying that that's what their argument seems to be. Well, yes. And we can all like,
00:42:16
I think that's the whole thing of lawyers is like trying to figure out angles, right?
00:42:22
Trying to rationalize and do this. I'm just saying like, to me, what's very striking is what you said, which is they play,
00:42:31
they bowl with these people. These people whose child it is that's been murdered.
00:42:36
And it's like that information is informing the court about the person that they're representing.
00:42:43
I get that it's like bad strategy, but this isn't New York City. It's a small town where everyone knows each other.
00:42:50
So it's like, who are you actually protecting? Not strategy though. I think legally, they really thought they were not allowed to tell anyone about this.
00:42:58
Legally. I get it. But I feel like there must be, this must have happened before,
00:43:04
where someone who is representing a serial killer with a body count suddenly has to tell someone else, like tell the authorities, right?
00:43:14
Who knows? There's more going on. Yeah. I'm interested. I'm interested like what that privilege covers, I guess.
00:43:23
Yeah, legal people, let us know, please. But really short, like two sentences. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:43:27
Like a quick, like one little, one of those cute little paragraphs on Instagram that are like real short and to the point.
00:43:33
Two minute TikTok. That's right. The jury doesn't accept Robert's plea of insanity
00:43:38
because his escape attempts and concealment of Susan and Alicia's bodies prove he fully understood the difference
00:43:44
between right and wrong. So on June 27th, he's found guilty of first degree murder
00:43:49
and on July 1st, is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. So you're right. Him concealing these two other bodies,
00:43:57
it seems like it shouldn't have been allowed in this trial to begin with, but prove that he knows the difference
00:44:03
between right and wrong. So it is part of the trial. So maybe they did just want to save their asses
00:44:08
and get their insanity defense or their insanity plea in there and win the case in a sense as best they could.
00:44:15
Yeah, the thing I was just thinking is, I feel like if not reporting anything because you were like rationalizing,
00:44:21
I'm the lawyer, this is privilege, okay. But then you wouldn't go try to find the bodies
00:44:26
because that would implicate you. It would be like, I don't want to know. So- Yeah, is that the big mistake
00:44:33
that they went and inserted themselves in these cases? I mean, it seems like only based on television,
00:44:40
but it feels like that's when the lawyer's line is, I don't want to know, don't tell me,
00:44:44
it has nothing to do with our case. Right, totally. That's a separate thing. you're gonna have to talk to your other lawyer about that.
00:44:50
Instead, these guys are like, hey, we'll go, we'll get involved. Yeah, no, it's a really good point.
00:44:54
We'll go find answers. Like it's fucked up. That's a good point. It's fucked up.
00:44:58
So of course the Pets and Hawk families are still furious with Francis and Frank,
00:45:02
even though they got a guilty verdict. Almost overnight, both attorneys lose clients.
00:45:07
They're deserted by their friends and receive obscene phone calls and even death threats.
00:45:12
People are out for vigilante justice. They vandalize the attorney's homes, offices, and cars.
00:45:17
The public call for the removal of Frank and Francis's licenses to practice and even want
00:45:21
them prosecuted for obstructing justice or being accomplices after the fact. Onondaga County DA John Holcomb announces a grand jury will consider whether the attorney's
00:45:33
conduct meets the threshold of a criminal offense. Francis explains his actions to the New York Times saying, quote,
00:45:40
The information was so privileged I was bound by my lawyer's oath to keep it confidential
00:45:45
after I found the bodies. I spent many, many sleepless nights over my inability to reveal the information,
00:45:51
especially after Mr. Peds came in from Chicago and talked to me. So whatever. Yeah.
00:45:57
I mean, they painted themselves into a terrible corner. Yeah. You're right. They should not have looked for the fucking bodies.
00:46:03
But if they still had that information, did they have an obligation, a moral obligation to give that information
00:46:10
to the authorities? Probably. A moral obligation, not a legal obligation is what it feels like we're saying,
00:46:17
which is kind of sad. In February 1975, a grand jury indicts Francis for violating two aspects of the New York public health law.
00:46:26
One requires that the dead be given a decent burial, while the other requires anyone knowing
00:46:31
about the death of a person to report it to authorities. So he gets indicted by a grand jury.
00:46:36
Well, that's also an interesting thing to know that that's a law. Yeah, totally.
00:46:41
So you are actually breaking the law if you learn that and don't report it? I guess so.
00:46:45
As a lawyer? Well, I don't know. Hold on. He has some support in legal circles. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
00:46:54
provides a brief advocating for him. And they say if he's convicted, this will basically destroy attorney-client privilege
00:47:00
going forward. No client will ever be able to talk freely with their attorney without fear of violation
00:47:06
of the professional code of ethics. So slippery slope. Yeah. In August 1975, the court finds Francis did as he was ethically bound.
00:47:16
He protected Robert's Fifth Amendment rights to not incriminate himself. And their conversations about the location of the bodies were protected by client attorney privilege.
00:47:25
And the indictment is dismissed. But you're right. The conversation is protected.
00:47:30
Not him fucking going out Scooby-Doo style and finding. Why would you implicate yourself?
00:47:37
Why would you? Yeah. No, it's a great point. Why would you go learn information you cannot share?
00:47:43
That would drive you insane. It doesn't help anything. You have no intention of helping the investigation.
00:47:50
What is the value? But then when is he obligated to tell authorities about the location of these murder victims?
00:47:57
Is he ever at that point? If he doesn't find them, he's just told, by this obviously mentally ill, you know, lunatic,
00:48:04
then at what point is he obligated to give this information over? I guess if nobody, when the case was over
00:48:11
and if no one found them. I don't know. I guess is what their plan was. I'm confused by it.
00:48:16
Yeah. The appeals court holds up the decision. However, the judge comments that attorney-client privilege
00:48:21
shouldn't be considered some type of blanket free-for-all, saying attorneys must, quote,
00:48:26
observe basic human standards of decency. Hey. Susan Petz's parents filed a complaint with the New York State Bar Association.
00:48:34
But in February 1978, this is dismissed. The Bar Association states clients must be reassured of confidentiality
00:48:41
if they're to fully disclose all relevant facts. And even though both attorneys are absolved of any criminal or ethical responsibility,
00:48:48
their reputations are just totally ruined. Francis starts drinking heavily. He quits the law and moves to Florida.
00:48:55
Frank has a heart attack, but stays in law and works to rebuild the business he once had.
00:49:01
So both of their reputations are ruined. And their whole lives, like friends would not talk to them anymore.
00:49:07
You know, family members. Yeah, the loss, the losses seems so not, like they didn't think that part through.
00:49:15
What would people think of us if we did this? Right, right. It's just like, by the book only.
00:49:21
Could they have gone to the judge and been like, we have this, I'm sure this is like me being community college dropout being like,
00:49:27
couldn't they go to the judge and be like, we have this information that we can't keep to
00:49:30
ourselves as attorney-client privilege, but this is big and we don't know what to do with it. Can
00:49:34
you replace us so we can? No, they couldn't have, obviously. Well, and also it sounds like if the
00:49:39
Bar Association backed them, then technically they did what was right. But like they involved
00:49:46
themselves to a degree where then they were the bad guy now. It spread right on.
00:49:53
to them. Definitely. Like, just ostracized by your town. Yeah. It's horrible. Yeah. In March 1975,
00:50:00
Robert pleads guilty to murdering Alicia Hawk, Danny Porter, and Susan Petz and is sentenced
00:50:05
to 15 years to life for each count. Robert demands to be moved to a minimum security facility,
00:50:11
claiming it's the only place appropriate for him given his paralysis. Remember that?
00:50:16
Prosecutors strike a deal with him saying that if he drops the negligence lawsuit against the
00:50:20
state, they'll move him. So he agrees and is transferred to the, quote, elderly and handicapped
00:50:26
section at Fishkill Correctional Facility in New York. Here's a surprise to nobody. On September 9th,
00:50:33
1978, guards at the low security, elderly and handicapped building at Fishkill notice he isn't
00:50:39
in his cell. They don't think much of it because remember, he's paralyzed. Where is he going to go?
00:50:45
But he isn't paralyzed and he has escaped. The night before, he walked out of the door of the
00:50:50
facility, scaled a 15-foot high prison fence, and he has a .32 caliber pistol with him, which his son
00:50:57
had snuck into the prison concealed inside a bucket of chicken during a visit. Jesus Christ.
00:51:02
I know. Also, think about that fence is three feet higher than a 12-foot skeleton. That's high.
00:51:09
To be fake paralyzed and climb a fence like that. Yeah, that's a really high fucking fence.
00:51:14
That's no joke. That's some parkour shit right there. Authorities search his cell and they find
00:51:19
a hit list that includes Frank and Francis's name on it. So for whatever reason, he's still pissed off at these guys.
00:51:25
Those guys are fucking losing, coming and going. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to them.
00:51:31
I know. Officers, tracker dogs, and helicopters converge on the area and then spread out in the belief
00:51:37
that he again is on his way to the Adirondacks. They're all freaking out. When actually he's hiding out in a nearby wooded area only a few hundred yards away from the
00:51:45
western edge of the prison, watching everything going on. He's there for three days,
00:51:50
concealing himself in a hole covered with foliage. And then on September 11th, Robert emerges from his hideout.
00:51:57
He's spotted by guards. A shootout ensues. He's shot three times and finally falls dead on the spot.
00:52:04
Following his death, his son is sentenced to four years in prison for his role in the great chicken bucket escape.
00:52:11
The case is a, okay, so this is the crazy thing about this. This case is a watershed moment
00:52:15
for the way ethics is taught across law schools in the U.S. So this case specifically is taught
00:52:21
in all ethics classes in law school. In 2002, the American Bar Association amends a confidentiality rule.
00:52:30
This now means that in some states, lawyers may reveal information the client provides
00:52:35
if it's believed someone's life is at risk. So they did the right thing legally.
00:52:40
Yes, I see that. Yeah. Where it's like that nobody, both women were dead. It would have implicated their client.
00:52:49
It's unfortunate. Here's the thing. They should have stopped when he confessed. Yeah.
00:52:54
And been like, don't tell us about shit like that. It'll fuck you up. Yeah. And us.
00:53:00
But instead they did, I just think that part is weird. It is. That they went and got information
00:53:05
they couldn't tell anybody on purpose. Why did they want to be involved so badly in this?
00:53:10
I completely agree with you. However, it's crazy that it's taught as the correct thing to do.
00:53:16
There's no moral. Like, what about the morals? Right, because you have to, it's about the attorney-client relationship.
00:53:26
And that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me. It's such a hard case. Susan Petz is awarded her journalism degree posthumously at Boston University.
00:53:36
But her mother, Roberta, remains unhappy. The case is taught in all legal ethics courses.
00:53:40
in the 2016 Radiolab episode, she says, quote, I'm pretty horrified to think that this is what's
00:53:46
considered correct because I don't think it's ethical at all. And to think that it's being
00:53:50
taught as the right way to do things in an ethical class is totally incomprehensible to me And that is the story of serial killer Robert Garrow and the legal ethics and attorney client privilege fight Wow That was a borderline roundtable discussion that we just had Two people
00:54:07
who don't know what they're talking about, thoroughly discussing modern law. And we were
00:54:13
both right and we were both wrong completely. And we're both as wrong as we are right. Yeah.
00:54:19
I mean, God, that truly is like a great example of it's about this, not that. Yeah.
00:54:25
When you're like, how can that be? Yeah. Or like, don't become a lawyer because it's hard morally.
00:54:32
And there's so much memorization. So much. Oh my God. Ew, like tort reform. Please.
00:54:38
The way you read, like they're reading constant. There's no audio books. Boring.
00:54:44
Yeah. And it's not fun memoirs. It's fucking torts. Although, what if for people who want to be lawyers, torts are like our true crime, where they're like, this is the detail I'm looking for on exactly how to do this, how to rule and regulate.
00:55:02
Different minds, man. Different minds. Different upbringings. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall.
00:55:12
In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security.
00:55:18
one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS
00:55:25
and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app,
00:55:33
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bailey Taylor, and this is It Girl.
00:55:40
This podcast is all about going deeper with the women shaping culture right now.
00:55:44
Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work behind it all.
00:55:52
As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard in a way that doesn't compromise who you are and your integrity.
00:56:00
You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:56:10
Before NXIVM, Nancy Solzman wanted to help people. Being able to help somebody, it's probably the biggest motivator of my entire life.
00:56:18
She trained in something called neuro-linguistic programming. People loved our training.
00:56:23
Then everything changed. Yeah, and they called it a cult. How does a method designed to improve lives end up in a cult?
00:56:31
A knife in the hands of a surgeon is an amazing tool. A knife in the hands of a murderer is a weapon.
00:56:38
Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:56:43
So we have never covered this story, which is kind of crazy because it's one that we like.
00:56:54
But I think it's because long ago, last podcast on the left covered it. And it was that kind of thing where it's just like they did.
00:57:01
Marcus Parks did such comprehensive, amazing research. The whole presentation was so monumental that I think I've always been like,
00:57:09
No, they did it. If you want to know the down and dirty details of this horrifying cult,
00:57:16
please listen to the last podcast on the left's episode about it. Today I'm covering Aum Shinrikyo.
00:57:23
Okay. The doomsday cult of Japan. The main sources used for today's episode are the episode The Aum Shinrikyo Death Cult by last podcast on the left,
00:57:35
Destroying the World to Save It by Robert J. Lifton, which is a book, Um, Shoko Asahara and the Cult at the End of the World by David Kaplan and Andrew Marshall for Wired.
00:57:45
That was a 1996 article. And a book called Underground, the Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami.
00:57:56
Oh, I love Haruki Murakami. He's such an incredible author. Yeah. And then there's other sources that you can find in our show notes.
00:58:04
Please forgive my pronunciations. I will do my very best. But man, it's just that kind of thing.
00:58:10
I think I'm good and then I'm like rechecking things and going, wait, I actually did that wrong.
00:58:16
But I'll do my best. So starting out, it's 8 a.m. on March 20th, 1995. Put yourself there.
00:58:23
Chokers. I am. Okay. Chokers, black tights, plaid skirts. Yep. Right? Very specific baby bangs.
00:58:32
It was a real specific time. It really was. This is morning rush hour in Tokyo, Japan.
00:58:38
The city's subway stations are teaming with people on their way to work. In March of 95, around 6 million people use the Tokyo subway system daily.
00:58:46
That's double the amount of people who ride the New York City subway system at the same era, at the same time period.
00:58:55
So that's kind of like wild to consider. Kind of wildly too many people. One of these Tokyo commuters is a man named Dr. Aikawa Hayashi, and he's a brilliant heart surgeon with an impressive medical background.
00:59:10
But as Dr. Hayashi boards a front train car on the Chiyota subway line, holding an umbrella and a few liquid-filled plastic bags, he is not the same man who took an oath to do no harm.
00:59:23
The Dr. Hayashi of today has a mission, and that is to bring about the end of the world.
00:59:30
So just as Dr. Hayashi's train approaches the next station, he drops the plastic bags to the train car floor
00:59:35
and uses the sharpened tip of his umbrella to poke holes in them. And then once he's done, he steps off the train,
00:59:43
exits the station, and gets into a car that's waiting for him outside. And meanwhile, the doors close and it continues along its route,
00:59:51
carrying the punctured plastic bags. So within minutes of Dr Hayashi leaving the train Everyone on board is coughing Eyes are red and burning They choking An eyewitness named Kiyoah Izumi
01:00:05
describes the scene this way. She says, when I took a deep breath, I got this sudden pain.
01:00:12
It was like I'd been shot. And all of a sudden, my breathing completely stopped.
01:00:16
It felt like if I inhaled anymore, all my guts would come spilling right out of my mouth.
01:00:21
Oh my God. All around her, commuters fall to the ground. Some are seizing, some are foaming at the mouth. At the next stop, she pushes herself
01:00:30
off the train. She's not exactly sure where she's going and nowhere seems safe to her.
01:00:36
And she would later say, quote, I took a good look around, but what I saw was, how shall I put it?
01:00:43
Hell describes it perfectly. Three men were laid on the ground and spoons had been stuck in their
01:00:48
mouths as a precaution against them, choking on their tongues. I was at a loss for words.
01:00:53
I didn't have a clue what was happening. And may I break in as a person with seizure disorder to say,
01:00:59
don't put anything in the mouth of anyone having a seizure. That's a misnomer. Neither spoons nor anything.
01:01:05
Don't put anything in anyone's mouth if they're having a seizure. Interesting. Okay.
01:01:09
Good to know. Meanwhile, Dr. Hayashi is in his getaway car. And the second he gets in, he's injected with an antidote
01:01:16
against the deadly effects of the sarin nerve gas that he's just exposed himself to.
01:01:21
Just a pinhead-sized drop of sarin is enough to kill a healthy human being. Dr. Hayashi has just left a liter on the train, and he's not acting alone.
01:01:32
He's part of a five-man team, which includes three physicists and an electrical engineer.
01:01:37
Oh, my God. So all five of these men have left several liters of liquid sarin in separate cars on three separate subway lines.
01:01:46
And they've timed these sarin drops so that at 8.15 in the morning, all of these trains that they were on will converge into the Kasum-Igiseki station.
01:01:57
They picked that station for all the cars to meet in because it's the closest to all the government buildings in Tokyo.
01:02:03
So the hope is that basically a bunch of sarin will get evaporated into the air and basically just cause mass destruction and kill tons and tons of people near the government center.
01:02:17
The Tokyo subway to Sarin attack on March 20th, 1995, remains one of the worst terrorist attacks in Japanese history.
01:02:24
It leaves 13 people dead, over 5,000 injured, and it brings to light a disturbing cult.
01:02:31
Because Dr. Hayashi and his group of terrorists are not the end of the story, they're merely puppets, disciples of Aum Shinrikyo,
01:02:39
the most notorious death cult in Japanese history, led by a psychopath named Shoko Ashahara.
01:02:46
Of course, Shoko Asshahara isn't his real name. He's born in Kyoshu, which is in the most southern of Japan's four largest islands.
01:02:55
He's the fourth of five children in a very poor family. And he is born with a condition that leaves him with limited vision.
01:03:02
So because of this, he's eligible to go to a boarding school for blind children free of charge with guaranteed meals.
01:03:09
And so his parents enroll him at a young age because that's the only kind of opportunity he would have.
01:03:15
One of his teachers would later say, quote, if Matsumoto had gone to a regular school,
01:03:20
he would have been picked on. But in a blind school, because he could see to some degree,
01:03:25
he was very special. And I think that word special is questionable or the usage is like, could be.
01:03:33
They didn't mean it in the way that we would interpret it. Not Montessori special, not an individual.
01:03:39
Got it. So in school, Matsuma, you're like, I get it. That's fine. In school, Matsumoto uses his partial vision to his advantage, of course.
01:03:49
Like this makes him the king of his classmates. He acts like if they go out into the city, he acts as a guide.
01:03:56
He basically does anything he can to make his classmates dependent on him. And then he uses that as an opportunity to dominate, to bully, even scam them.
01:04:05
He's described as imposing and manipulative, but he also is someone who might be willing to guide his peers
01:04:10
to off-campus restaurants or coffee shops as long as they buy him like a meal too.
01:04:17
Wow. So like right off the bat, he's showing cult leader tendencies. Or yeah, or just like what's good for me.
01:04:24
Yeah. No matter the situation. Yeah. Not a lot of like just generosity of the heart.
01:04:29
Right. So yeah, even as a kid, it's clear that he wants power. He becomes the kind of like
01:04:34
Urzat's leader of a gang of his misfit peers because they all see him as the authority figure.
01:04:41
But his aggressive personality scares many of his fellow students. He repeatedly ran for and lost student elections,
01:04:49
which made him terribly depressed, apparently. Oh, I got it. Been there. Haven't we all?
01:04:56
He also does this, which is kind of the same as constantly running for student elections,
01:05:02
which is that he arranges fights between his classmates and he calls it pro wrestling.
01:05:07
At one point, he even threatens his teachers. One of the school's guidance counselors remember him saying,
01:05:12
I'll shoot you to death before clarifying and saying, quote, as long as I don't really shoot you, it's not against the law.
01:05:18
I can say whatever I like. Damn. So again, getting off on a technicality. Troubled youth.
01:05:24
So when Matsumoto is 20 years old, he moves to the nearby city of Kumamoto, where he gets a job as an acupuncturist and a masseur,
01:05:33
or perhaps a massage therapist in the modern day. but it was the 70s. He can't stay out of trouble, of course, though,
01:05:40
because that's his personality. So in 1976, he's criminally charged for injuring another person.
01:05:46
There aren't really any details about what that means, but we do know that he's fined 15,000 yen,
01:05:52
which is about $100. And the following year he moves to Tokyo because of that incident to basically get out of town By 1978 Matsumoto seems to be getting his life on track He marries a woman who comes from a wealthy family
01:06:07
and they also port him as he opens a pharmacy that specializes in Chinese herbal medicine.
01:06:12
So his business becomes very successful, and he begins exploring his spiritual side.
01:06:20
So in 1981, he joins a new religion at the time called Agon Shu, which combines Hindu and Buddhist teachings.
01:06:28
He's also getting into mystical forms of yoga, reading up on the American New Age movement and big red flag.
01:06:35
He's also becoming obsessed with the book of Revelation, which is the scariest book in the Christian Bible.
01:06:42
The one that makes the least amount of sense. And he also is reading the writings of Nostradamus, the 16th century astrologer.
01:06:51
Red flags right there. Right? You know, just a lot of negativity. So around 1980, Matsumoto moves on from Agonshu, along with his pharmacy that's very successful.
01:07:04
He opens a yoga school and a cafe called Aum. And by all accounts, he's an excellent instructor.
01:07:11
But even as he makes conscious steps to transform himself into a guru, he still can't stay out of trouble.
01:07:17
So in 1982, he's arrested for selling, quote, fake medicines at his pharmacy. He gets a light prison sentence.
01:07:25
He's humiliated and financially devastated by this, but he seizes the shakeup in his life as an opportunity to reinvent himself and kind of dive deeper into the spiritual side of things.
01:07:37
So in 1984, Matsumoto starts going by the name Shoko Asahara, which partially translates to bright light.
01:07:44
And basically that's what he's known as for the, you know, until that sarin attack.
01:07:49
Yeah. And he's now dedicated to, he's got this successful yoga school, like a yoga practice.
01:07:55
And then he also has his ambitions beyond just teaching yoga, which is evident in the flowing purple robes he's begun to wear.
01:08:04
Ooh, here we go. Now we're in the outfit era of when he's starting to believe his own bullshit.
01:08:10
Yeah. He travels to India and Nepal to meet with high-ranking Tibetan lamas, including the Dalai Lama himself.
01:08:18
Back in Japan, his yoga teachings become a hodgepodge of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, modern psychology, and like just a general self-help.
01:08:27
All right. 1987, he decides to name his religious sect. He calls it Aum Shinrikyo, which means teaching of the supreme truth.
01:08:37
And he starts recruiting followers. And he's really good at marketing. So what he does, he gets radio airtime in Russia and Japan.
01:08:46
He becomes a recurring zany figure on Japanese talk shows. He basically normalizes himself.
01:08:52
Does this sound familiar at all? He starts popping up at universities where he basically is there to speak.
01:08:59
And he seeks out math and science students. Anytime he goes out to recruit for Aum Shinrikyo, he brings along his most beautiful current members to entice people into joining and being interested.
01:09:11
Smart. Right? He knows that the ideal recruit is a disaffected, alienated, but highly intelligent young person who longs for an alternative to the structured, conformity-minded Japanese culture.
01:09:23
Hey. So he's just kind of, right? He's just playing people against their own upbringing and their own kind of rebellious tendencies.
01:09:31
Right. Asha Haritz sells that alternative. Basically, he leans into fantasy and science fiction,
01:09:38
and he gives interviews to sci-fi magazines like one called Twilight Zone, which is not related to the American TV show,
01:09:44
where in 1985, he stages a now-famous photograph that appears to show him levitating.
01:09:51
I don't know if you remember that one, but it's like he's sitting cross-legged, and that's what it looks like, but it's fake.
01:09:57
Yeah. So in his many interviews and media appearances, As Asahara talks about all the time, travel, exciting new gadgets, and one of his favorite
01:10:06
topics, the apocalypse. Yay! For your fun, funny, zany talk show. He's aware that many young Japanese people have grown up glued to manga and anime about
01:10:17
heroes and villains, world destruction, and nuclear fallout. So before long, Asahara has attracted thousands of followers, and they're not just students
01:10:27
and loners like he started out with. Now, many of Japan's best and brightest, including scientists, engineers, physicists, chemists, and doctors are joining this cult.
01:10:38
The all-membership eventually reaches 40,000 people worldwide. Right. I didn't realize it was that big.
01:10:44
With members living in at least six different countries, but the majority are in Russia and Japan.
01:10:50
So as his popularity grows, Ashahara starts corporatizing his public image. he launches a publishing company
01:10:56
that puts out magazines, manga, and books, including one book called Declaring Myself the Christ,
01:11:03
where he, you guessed it, declares himself the Christ. He even starts selling liters of his own bath water
01:11:11
for $500 US. Oh no, what's up, OnlyFans? Yeah, it's so specifically disgusting. And also he sells his own blood for $10,000 US.
01:11:27
No, no. He promises followers that both of these things will give them magical powers.
01:11:33
Then take the bathwater. Don't buy the blood. Yeah, I... Meanwhile, people are flocking to Aum Shinrikyo facilities
01:11:40
to begin practicing under Ashahara. To begin, they have to turn over all their money,
01:11:45
property, and assets to the cult. Then they're given new names. Its peak, they had around 1,500 live-in followers on their cult properties.
01:11:55
Wow. A lot of other people lived at home and just were in a cult. from their house, but I thought that was kind of a crazy, like, that's a serious campus.
01:12:06
Yeah. Totally. In this environment, Ashahara is able to control almost every single aspect of his followers' lives,
01:12:12
and many of Alm's activities seem to be specifically geared at breaking them down,
01:12:17
which is how cults work. So some examples of those are the followers are forced to fast for
01:12:23
long hours. Then when they do eat, they're only given two tiny portions of rice and vegetables a
01:12:28
day. They're only allowed to sleep for a couple hours at a time in cramped, uncomfortable rooms.
01:12:33
They have to practice celibacy and their discipline for having sexual urges. Not having sex,
01:12:41
just having the vibe, just having good vibes. Just don't tell anyone. That's not right.
01:12:47
Of course, this does not apply to the leader who forces new female members to sleep with him as
01:12:53
part of their initiation. Come on. Yeah, not very Hindu. No. Not very Buddhist. No.
01:12:58
They're also required to practice a difficult cleansing exercises for hours on end as a form
01:13:05
of meditation. So all of those things, as we have talked about in other episodes about cults,
01:13:11
add up to basically depleting people's bodies of energy and health and exhausting them and then
01:13:20
not letting them sleep. And that is how you break someone's mind. That's how you brainwash someone.
01:13:25
Right. You're in survival mode. So you're not thinking clearly and thinking straight and
01:13:30
making rash decisions. And yeah. And you're losing who you are. Your name has been changed.
01:13:37
You're just doing whatever this guy tells you. And the more you're abused and treated terribly,
01:13:43
the more you're rationalizing it. And then you're just in and you're starving and you're exhausted
01:13:48
and you're in this totally new world. So of course, things get, it's a cult. Things escalate.
01:13:56
They always do. So in 1988, Ashahara orders an Aum member to be hung upside down and repeatedly plunged
01:14:04
into extremely cold water as one of these cleansing rituals that they need to do.
01:14:09
He had decided this guy needed this specific one. The man who's already exhausted from a lack of food
01:14:15
and a lack of sleep, basically dies because he goes through this experience. Oh my God.
01:14:21
So on top of all that, ALM members also provide free labor for the cult's many side hustles.
01:14:27
They build and sell computers. They operate ALM-affiliated gymnasiums and restaurants and travel agencies.
01:14:35
Oh my God. Yeah, he's like a small businessman all over the map. And they even start buying small businesses and properties overseas.
01:14:45
They have a cattle ranch in Australia. And then Maren wrote a note that said, one book I read says that OM members
01:14:52
even ran a cult-filiated dating service. But then she couldn't find anything else about that.
01:14:59
So she didn't want to put it in officially. But I'm like, that is actually interesting.
01:15:04
Like, are you kidding me? Before long, OM Shinrikyo and of course, Asahara have amassed a fortune.
01:15:11
I mean, that's that many businesses and that many people who are giving over their high-performing people before they join.
01:15:18
And they sign everything over to the cults. By 1995, some estimates put the group's net worth
01:15:24
at a billion dollars. 1995 money, which I think is two billion in today's money.
01:15:31
So it's probably clear by this point that Aum Shinrikyo is a cult, specifically a doomsday cult,
01:15:38
because he's, Ashahar has never stopped talking about the apocalypse. this whole time, whether he's doing yoga or computers or whatever he's doing, the message
01:15:49
remains. He, not only being obsessed with the book of Revelation and Nostradamus, he's also
01:15:55
positioned Shiva, the Hindu god associated with salvation through destruction at the center of this
01:16:02
belief system. And Ashahara's teachings now are starting to get really dark. For example,
01:16:10
he teaches a distorted version of the Buddhist principle called POA, where he claims killing someone
01:16:16
is an act of altruistic kindness because it allows that person to rid themselves of bad karma
01:16:21
and start over with a clean slate. So he basically, this is like that ultimate sign of brainwashing
01:16:28
and somebody that has total control over his followers, he basically convinces his followers
01:16:35
that this is the truth, that when you kill someone, you're actually doing them a favor.
01:16:39
And therefore, he now has all these people who are basically hit men for him whenever he wants to.
01:16:47
Because that's all been accepted as basically killing in the name of spiritual cleansing.
01:16:54
So the man who was dunked repeatedly being hung upside down and died in 1988, he had a friend who was also in the cult named Shuji Taguchi.
01:17:03
and he was, Shuji was so devastated when his friend died that he threatened to leave.
01:17:10
So this gets back to Ashahara. Ashahara gets paranoid that Taguchi will go to the authorities
01:17:15
and basically rat on him. So Ashahara orders his followers that to poa this man in the name of spiritual cleansing.
01:17:25
And Shuji Taguchi is strangled to death by three of his Aum Shinrikyo fellow cult members.
01:17:32
Oh my God. So now there's just like straight up murder. Now they're just murdering people like to cover and for convenience.
01:17:39
And if Om wants them to. So of course, this is that thing where people, when they hear stories about cults,
01:17:48
like go, well, I would never do that. Or that could never happen to me. Or I would never join an organization like this.
01:17:53
Or if they started doing stuff like that I would leave You know if you know anything about cults you know that people get into them because they have an emptiness or they looking to fulfill something
01:18:06
And Ashahara targeted his marketing strategies at a very vulnerable demographic,
01:18:11
young people who believe themselves to not fit in to regular society. A 1995 New York Times article
01:18:19
quotes a professor named Susuma Oda, who says that Aum Shinrikyo has a particular appeal to young people
01:18:25
looking for a father figure whose own dads might have prioritized work over family time.
01:18:31
Oda also suggests that, quote, religious sex in Japan are to some extent the equivalent of the drug culture in America,
01:18:39
offering people relief from stress and the opportunity to develop creative powers.
01:18:45
Wow. So speaking of drugs, there are drugs everywhere in Aum Shinrikyo. They're all over the properties.
01:18:55
Many people involved in this story are basically on never-ending acid trips. They do a ton of LSD.
01:19:02
Oh, God. A nightmare. Yes. They do LSD. They do meth. They make their own barbiturates.
01:19:09
Oh, my God. Because they have so many doctors and chemists that are in the cult.
01:19:14
Right. So they make their own drugs, basically. Oh, my shit. I bet there's some good drugs.
01:19:19
Right? To the point where they start kind of like doing a little business with the Japanese Yakuza.
01:19:26
Because they're like, oh, we're drug dealers. We're also drug makers. Yeah. It's how Breaking Bad was conceived.
01:19:36
So a cult where everyone is on drugs is not unique to Aum Shinrikyo. This, coupled with Ashihara's obsession with the end of the world, often draws comparisons to the Manson family, of course.
01:19:47
and although there is some overlap, Shinrikyo is like on a whole different level.
01:19:54
You have to remember that there are tons of math and science nerds in this cult.
01:19:58
Smart people. Yes, and there's a ton of money around. These cult members are very willing to sink that money
01:20:05
into these far out experiments. So Dr. Hayashi, who was the person I was talking about
01:20:11
at the beginning of the story, he's one of the cult's senior most mad scientists.
01:20:16
He goes so far as to put electrode caps on insubordinate cult members and deliver such intense shocks that in some cases, people's short-term memory is wiped.
01:20:27
So they're experimenting on themselves and they're on their own. Meanwhile, another senior OM member, someone named Hideo Murai, they have a background in astrophysics.
01:20:40
so they they try to develop laser weapons using Soviet technology and at one point
01:20:48
they managed to make a laser that can slice through an iron plate what the fuck what is the end game here
01:20:54
there's so many like twists and turns and like so many facets of their it's like they have
01:20:58
ADD as a whole and can't concentrate they have LSD so they're just kind of like I don't know
01:21:05
I wanna I've always wanted to it'd be cool if we do more drugs and we could kill somebody
01:21:10
from far away. Oh my God. Yeah. So they're basically are, they're making lasers,
01:21:16
they're studying missiles, rockets, all sorts of explosives. They actually are working
01:21:21
on a death ray. That's like the, that's the idea behind that laser that they're making.
01:21:27
They're also casually trying to enrich uranium at their Australian farm in the hopes of making
01:21:33
a dirty nuclear bomb. So they're going full on like, we are going to start the end of the world.
01:21:40
Yeah, there's some balls to the wall Armageddon shit going on. So by 1990, police know that the Aum Shinrikyo cult and its members are up to some incredibly illegal shit.
01:21:51
And on top of that, the families of the cult members have been begging authorities to do something about it.
01:21:57
But when no action is taken, a lot of people begin to believe that the cult has infiltrated the Japanese government, the military, the legal system.
01:22:06
And basically, there are people acting on behalf of the cult. to protect it. And a deep dive in Wired Magazine notes that a regional judge once donated a million
01:22:17
yen, which is almost $10,000 to the cult. So the theory of people being on the inside is very
01:22:23
possible. But the cult also uses intimidation to stay under the radar. Journalists talk about
01:22:29
receiving threats if they gave Om any sort of bad press. So now the heat is on. Ashahara is
01:22:35
getting increasingly paranoid. The drugs aren't helping. He decides he needs to do something to
01:22:41
protect the cult. So he runs several ALM members, including himself, as candidates in the 1990
01:22:47
Japanese elections. Oh, no. Because his plan is some of them are going to win and then they're
01:22:53
going to go into all these different offices and places in government and then shut down any
01:22:59
investigations about the cult from the inside. Makes sense. It's a massive failure. Every single
01:23:05
one of his candidates, loses by huge margins. Ashahara himself only gets 1,700 votes out of
01:23:11
500,000 that are cast. He, again, these losses humiliate him. It's the student elections all
01:23:19
over again. Oh, shit. Life is a horrifying flat circle. Will it ever end? So many people who are
01:23:26
experts on this cult and what they did say that this basically perceived insult is the final
01:23:35
turning point. And this is when Ashahara starts ramping up his militant vision of doomsday.
01:23:41
And instead of a plan to survive the apocalypse, he starts paving a way for his followers to
01:23:48
usher the apocalypse in. Shit. So after the election Ashahara gathers his disciples near Okinawa for a so Armageddon seminar Hmm So he tells his followers that he is the blind savior from the book of Revelation that Aum Shinrikyo is officially in a war against evil
01:24:08
and that their group is the only one capable of surviving the apocalypse. And after everything is destroyed,
01:24:14
they're going to start anew in the vein of Shiva and that'll be their salvation.
01:24:20
And Ashahara's big idea is to carry out an attack on Tokyo so big that Japan will think that the United States did it.
01:24:27
And then that will usher in World War III, which will then usher in the end of the world.
01:24:33
That's the plan. But first they have to prepare. So the members, all members try to build up
01:24:40
a weapons arsenal to varying degrees of success. They still don't have the nuclear bomb figured out.
01:24:47
They try to plan to manufacture automatic rifles. That falls apart. So they do try to create anthrax.
01:24:55
They even travel to Zaire in Africa to try to get an Ebola sample so that they can figure out how to weaponize Ebola.
01:25:03
But that doesn't work either because you have to remember, they're on tons of drugs.
01:25:09
So they go try to do these kind of like things. Like they never leave the fucking Hudson bookstore.
01:25:18
They can't get to their gate. They try to check their Ebola bag and the airline loses it.
01:25:24
They just start staring at all those different kinds of peanuts on the wall. They're just like, I love it here.
01:25:30
So in 1993, at their facility at the base of Mount Fuji, talk about cartoon, the cartoon villain,
01:25:39
they finally figure out how to make sarin. And so sarin is among the most toxic chemical agents known to man.
01:25:46
It's 500 times more deadly than cyanide. And it was first developed in, yep, you guessed it, Nazi Germany.
01:25:54
It was used at all the death camps. And of course, Ashahara becomes obsessed with Saren.
01:26:00
He talks about it all the time in his speeches and in his sermons. And later, police even find own pamphlets that contain two parodies of popular Japanese television theme songs reimagined to be about Saren.
01:26:15
Ugh, twisted. Maren actually included the lyrics. They're just, it's the weirdest.
01:26:21
Yeah, it's just the weirdest thing you've ever seen. It's that kind of thing where I don't care if it's an obsession with murdering people
01:26:31
or an obsession with like arrested development. You got to stop doing one thing over and over.
01:26:38
And you got to like fold other people into the conversation so that they can go,
01:26:43
hey, you're talking about that too much. Yeah, but what if all the people around you are talking about it too?
01:26:48
If you've put yourself in the position where we only are ever going to talk about
01:26:52
Nostradamus and the book of Revelation, then of course, anything you think that comes up
01:26:58
is like, well, this is really bad. This is the end of it. You're asking for it. Like you have to open the window a little bit more.
01:27:04
Take like a week off of LSD every now and then. Please. Also meth. Oh God. That drug, you can make people do anything
01:27:14
if they're on meth. Can you imagine how pure that meth was too? Like that shit will fucking just pop your brain cells.
01:27:22
Like audibly pop your brain cells. Oh God, I was so smart when I was on meth. Like you think you know everything.
01:27:31
Yeah, you gotta make a plan. The plan usually involves digging or building something to go up.
01:27:36
Opening a restaurant, I'm always telling everyone. While OM scientists are tinkering
01:27:41
with all these weapons of mass destruction, it's getting harder and harder for the police
01:27:45
to ignore the police from family members and the complaints made by people who live near the Alm properties,
01:27:53
some of whom have had to file lawsuits against the cult. And of course, those lawsuits piss Ashihara off.
01:28:00
And in June of 1994, in Matsumoto, Alm members target the homes of judges overseeing these cases
01:28:08
of the lawsuits that people had against them. Can't do that. These basically, this became a test run
01:28:15
of what they were going to end up doing in the Tokyo subway system. They released sarin gas from slow-moving trucks
01:28:23
in front of the judge's house, basically to attack the judges. Oh my God. It ends up killing eight people and injuring hundreds.
01:28:32
Holy shit. So basically, they've been killing people for a while now. Everyone has adopted this idea that it's actually good.
01:28:41
What they're doing is good for people, killing them off and letting them start over.
01:28:44
Some estimates put Aum Shinrikyo's body count at 80 people. Most of these killings involve either dissenters,
01:28:52
people actively investigating the cult, going back as far as 1989. In one of their more high-profile murders,
01:28:59
Aum Shinrikyo members targeted a lawyer named Susumi Sakamoto. They were working to disprove Ashihara's claim
01:29:07
that his $10,000 blood gave people magical powers. But before he could bring the case to court,
01:29:13
cult members broke into Sakamoto's home, murdered him, murdered his wife, and murdered their young child.
01:29:21
Oh my God. So even though people pretty much immediately knew that Aum Shinrikyo are the ones who did it,
01:29:29
this murder wouldn't be conclusively connected to them for years. It isn't until February 1995
01:29:34
when one of their killings has consequences because they go after a wealthy Aum Shinrikyo member
01:29:41
who's donated hundreds of thousands of her own money to the cult, and she decides to leave.
01:29:48
Ashahara obviously wants to keep getting her money, so he enlists his disciples to find her
01:29:54
and bring her back But she gone so far off the grid that instead of tracking her down because they can find her they bring in her elderly brother who had nothing to do with this cult
01:30:05
to get information. But they end up bungling the whole mission because they're on drugs and killing this brother.
01:30:14
Oh my God. So in the wake of this murder, investigators finally start to scrutinize the cult and its activity.
01:30:20
and they start to link a bunch of Aum-affiliated dummy companies to suspiciously large orders
01:30:27
of dangerous raw chemicals. So they're just starting to kind of link it all together.
01:30:33
They know about what happened at the judges' houses in Matsumoto. So a case connecting the Aum Shinrikyo cult
01:30:39
to that is starting to build quickly. Ashokhar knows that a police raid at Aum facilities is imminent
01:30:45
and that could unravel his entire enterprise. So he makes a Hail Mary move to deflect attention.
01:30:52
And he decides that Aum Shinrikyo is going to attack Tokyo ahead of schedule, which basically brings us back to the beginning of the story.
01:31:01
So his long-term plan of kicking off the apocalypse by, you know, kicking off World War III,
01:31:08
it gets moved up to March 20th, 1995. And the deadly Sarin attack on multiple train lines in Tokyo's incredibly busy subway system
01:31:17
kills 13 people, injures thousands, and of course, deeply traumatizes many who will live with what
01:31:26
they saw that day for the rest of their lives. Chemists who later analyze their sarin found that
01:31:33
the sarin had about 30% purity. A Federation of American Scientists report says that, quote,
01:31:39
had the chemical mixture and delivery system been slightly different, the resulting tragedy
01:31:44
would be unprecedented, if not beyond comprehension. So basically, the chemists at Ocean Rikio,
01:31:52
they basically made very specific mistakes. And if they hadn't made those, if they hadn't been on drugs, basically,
01:32:00
tens of thousands more people would have died that day. I wonder if there's anyone on that team
01:32:05
who is making those chemicals who purposely fucked with them to make it less deadly.
01:32:10
I love that idea. I mean, that's me being... taking it down from the inside. But that's very possible
01:32:17
because at this point, at this point, they're killing their own. So there's got to be people in there
01:32:21
who don't know what else to do, but are kind of going through the day to day. Right.
01:32:27
Yeah. Oh, I like that idea. That kind of gives you a little hope of like- It does, but-
01:32:31
Yeah. I mean, otherwise it's like these brilliant scientists fucking up that bad seems impossible
01:32:38
unless they're on tons of drugs or did it on purpose. Yeah. Right. Why not both?
01:32:44
Why not both? Let's have it be both. So police quickly piece together evidence that Aum Shinrikyo is behind the attack.
01:32:51
Two days later, police raid the headquarters at the base of Mount Fuji. They don't find Ashahara, who's now on the lam.
01:32:57
They do find a Russian military helicopter, gobs of LSD and meth, millions of dollars.
01:33:04
Gobs of LSD is... It's so evil and awful, like that actual attack and how alarming.
01:33:13
But the idea that behind it are cult members with pupils the size of fucking pizza trays.
01:33:21
Yeah. They have the worst intentions and they can't execute. Yeah. That's terrible.
01:33:26
It's insane. And also just like, so you're going to run and leave millions of dollars behind?
01:33:32
Yeah. You didn't get like a side suitcase just to get that? Well, they thought they'd get away with it probably and like come back home.
01:33:40
Or they were just like, oh my God, my hand is purple and my other hand is orange.
01:33:44
Like, okay. So gobs of LSD, meth, millions of dollars, and the supplies to make enough sarin to kill 4 million people.
01:33:54
Holy shit. So over the next several months, Japanese police conduct more than 500 raids, make dozens of arrests, including Ashahara himself, who's been hiding out for two months.
01:34:06
He's charged with 17 different crimes, including murder. before these horrible attacks,
01:34:12
many people in Japan knew of Aum Shinrikyo as kind of just a weird, kooky religious sect, right?
01:34:19
That the leader would be on TV every once in a while. People are shocked to learn that this is the group
01:34:25
behind one of the country's worst terrorist attacks. Well, you know, my uncle lived there at the time
01:34:30
and I think he did a hometown once where he rented out his room to one of the killers.
01:34:36
He was like not in Tokyo. He wasn't in Tokyo at the time and he rented out either his room
01:34:41
or a room in his apartment. And it turned out they were there in town to do the sarin attacks.
01:34:47
Holy shit. Yeah, and like the cops came and questioned him. Of course, he had nothing to do with it.
01:34:51
That's amazing. So the prosecution paints Ashahara as a twisted evil cult leader
01:34:58
who pulls all the strings, but his defense argues he's pure of heart and his disciples are the ones acting independently
01:35:06
and trying to kill everybody. In the trial, Ashahara never speaks for himself. And when he does, the few times he does,
01:35:13
he gives these weird, meandering, incoherent answers. And because of this, it's all anyone's talking about.
01:35:20
And after a while, it just starts to feel tedious and drawn out and people don't want to watch it anymore.
01:35:25
So finally, in February of 2004, the Tokyo District Court finds Ashahara guilty of orchestrating the subway attack.
01:35:34
Along with several other Aum Shinrikyo members, he's sentenced to death. Reports say that when he's read his charges, he, quote, crossed his arms,
01:35:43
smiled, openly yawned, snorted, scratched his head, smelled his fingers, and mumbled incoherently.
01:35:49
Whoa. So even after Ashahara's capture and prosecution, Amshin Rikyo didn't go away, which I find so weird.
01:35:58
The sect's plaza, It's into two different organizations that actually still exist.
01:36:04
One is called Hekari Noa, and the other one's called Aolev. And both have tried to distance themselves from Onshin Rikyo's violence,
01:36:15
but they still have some things in common. For many years, Aolev was under constant government surveillance,
01:36:24
and one of the main reasons was they targeted lonely, alienated college students
01:36:28
who felt isolated by the pandemic. Both organizations have a smaller but sizable membership.
01:36:35
They still target people in the fields of math, science, and technology. So just to wrap up, psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton,
01:36:42
who wrote the book Ending the World to Save It, is referenced heavily in the research for this story.
01:36:48
He published a paper in the 80s that establishes three hallmarks of dangerous religious cults.
01:36:53
And I always love to talk about these. number one a charismatic leader who quote increasingly becomes an object of worship
01:37:02
and the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority
01:37:08
so that's the first sign the second one is a coercive process of indoctrination or education
01:37:14
which leads to members working in the best interest of the group and the leader but not
01:37:19
for themselves. And lastly, this is a quote from this book. Economic, sexual, and other exploitation
01:37:27
of group members by the group leader and the other cult leadership. Trump! Sound familiar?
01:37:35
That's Donald Trump's whole thing. Everybody! Buy a Trump bear. Buy a flag. Yeah.
01:37:41
Grab and buy the pussy. Donate. Fucking give us all your money. You don't have any
01:37:47
and I already have all the money. But you will if you give us all your money If there someone in your life that you worry about that perhaps is getting tied up in a group that seems dangerous or manipulative experts say that you should work hard
01:37:59
to maintain a warm, supportive, trusting relationship with that person if it is safe for you.
01:38:05
If that is even possible. For many people, it's not possible. But if you can, what you should do is try to keep in contact.
01:38:13
You should try to provide them with an access to media and other perspectives, just to give, just to keep other information in their life.
01:38:22
And whenever you're with the person, just remind them who they are as an individual,
01:38:28
who they were before they got into the group and maybe help that person restore their sense of self,
01:38:33
which is what they have lost. When you join a cult, that's what you lose. But do not do that at your own expense
01:38:40
because cults are powerful and people make their own decisions. So you can only control what you can control.
01:38:48
Yeah. And boundaries are important too. That's right. And it's becoming more and more common these days,
01:38:55
whether it's like multi-level marketing that's high pressure and gets into like social things
01:39:02
or all the way up to straight up like cults where people online, it's always the same story.
01:39:09
I told you that podcast, The Opportunist, where it's like that woman who started a cult
01:39:14
online basically saying they're fighting the devil coming back to earth. And she went from
01:39:22
being the person telling the story to being God. And like, I mean, like so many people are out there
01:39:29
trying to manipulate people. Yeah, for sure. Be smart. Keep your eyes open. Totally. And that is
01:39:34
the horrible story of the Om Shinrikyo Doomsday cult Wow Great job That a hard one With a And I in the dark You are in the dark right now I can literally barely I could see like a white outline of your face I didn even see that That really funny
01:39:53
Yeah. It's very funny. Wow, great job. That was a hard one to do a quickie on and you did a good job of it.
01:40:00
Thank you. Thank you, right? I didn't know a lot of details about that one, especially not the drug part.
01:40:05
That's fucking wild. Yes, for real. And I listened to this whole story. I mean, I've heard this story, you know,
01:40:12
from multiple places. But I really, Maren McGlashan, who's my researcher, really synopsized it well
01:40:20
in that way where how do you talk about all these things at once? Because it went on
01:40:24
for years and years. Totally. There's so much more to it. I know that Haruki Murakami's book
01:40:29
really, really gets into a lot of that stuff and he's such an incredible writer.
01:40:33
I'm sure that's a good resource. Yeah. All right. All right. All right. We fucking did a two hour almost.
01:40:39
We did it. We've done it once again. Once again. Thank you all for listening. Thank you all for being here in our little cult with us.
01:40:47
Yeah, that's right. Don't quit this one. We appreciate you. We love you. We love you.
01:40:53
And don't go to sleep. Don't go to sleep. Ever, ever. Never, ever. Just never go to sleep.
01:41:02
Keep your eyes open. Never go to sleep. That's our only rule. Oh, there's one more rule.
01:41:06
Stay sexy. Oh, and don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production.
01:41:22
Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
01:41:30
Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Gemma Harris. Email your hometowns and fucking hoorays to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
01:41:37
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder and Twitter at MyFaveMurder Goodbye
01:41:52
Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was.
01:41:57
Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Dani Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring
01:42:05
on the 14th season of Family Secrets. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move.
01:42:10
And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him.
01:42:15
Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:42:22
How much do you weigh, Wanda? Right now, I'm about 130. I'm at 183. We should race.
01:42:26
No, I want to leave here with my original hips. On the podcast to match up with Lalia,
01:42:31
I pair prominent female athletes with unexpected guests. On a recent episode, I sat down with undisputed boxing champ Clarissa Shields and comedian Wanda Sykes to talk about Wanda's new movie, Undercard, the art of trash talk and what it really means to be ladylike.
01:42:43
Open your free iHeartRadio app, search the matchup with Aaliyah and listen now. Brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports Network.
01:42:53
Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.
01:43:02
I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Risa's Book Club from Hello Sunshine and
01:43:11
iHeart Podcast, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off.
01:43:17
Each week, I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations
01:43:22
that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Risa's Book Club on the iHeart Radio app,
01:43:30
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Cotton, the fabric of our lives.