00:00:00
This is exactly right. Isn't some far off concept? It's already here. Next starts now.
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Own the dream. Hello. Hello. And welcome. That was the longest pause to my favorite murder.
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I thought me putting my head down was going to indicate that I was going to go. Oh, I thought you talking was going to indicate you were going to go.
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Yeah. No, but it didn't. That's Karen Kilgarib, everyone. Welcome to podcasting.
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Have you heard of it? Is this your first time? Because that's highly unfortunate.
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They're not usually like this. No, if you're starting here day one, apologies. Head your ass over to this whatever life.
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This is the Queen of England and someone, your granddaughters finally hipped you to,
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does she have a granddaughter? No, great granddaughters finally hipped you to podcasts.
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Yeah. And you're starting here, dear old Queen. Sorry. Sorry. They brought you into the side room, into the, I can't think of what it would be called.
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Chambers. Into the greenhouse. Into the greenhouse chambers. And she's like, oh, I knew Jack the Ripper.
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She's like, faith in Begora. It turns out the queen is Irish. Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
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She's really into true crime, but mostly comedy and excellent podcasting. So here we are.
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and mostly royalty. Anyway, none of those topics are what we're going to be talking about today.
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But what are we going to be talking about today, Karen? We're going to do what everyone in LA is doing. We're going to be talking about how hot it is,
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how hard it is when it's hot outside. Why is it this hot? This is scary. Yeah. My car overheated and it's not an old car. Well, it's not new, but it's not old. And it was
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like, hey, pull the fuck over because you can't blast your air conditioning like that when it's
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104 outside. Holy shit. Was it low on oil or something? No. I want to go ahead and say, whenever anything goes wrong with life things, why is the water
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heater doing a thing? Why did the electricity go out? Why is my car overheating? We just
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immediately text Vince's brother because he's our handyman and knows everything.
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Because he's a firefighter, so he just knows everything. Sure. So he had us check the oil. He had us check the whatever the fluid thing is.
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Water? Yeah. The water, all the things. Fluent. Fluent. Air conditioning. Fluent? No. Febreze.
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Antifreeze is probably not involved. No. Is it involved? I don't know. We should text him.
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Coolant. Coolant. Coolant. So shout out to Vince's brother for helping us. So you literally pulled over on the side of the road, you called him?
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Yeah. Yeah. Oh, shit. And it worked? Yeah. Well, the car just unoverheated. You waited it out. Yeah. Yeah.
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That's a fascinating story that I bet the Queen of England can relate to. Aye, matey. You know when you're driving in that Land Rover all across your Scottish Highland?
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I know too much about the Royals, I think. You too. Oh, you know why? I watch The Queen. It's a wonderful show.
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Still haven't. I still haven't gotten there yet. You don't have to care that much about that specific topic.
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Good. It's shot really beautifully. Okay. And you've got, for most of it, Olivia Colman
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kicking ass. Oh, right. Okay. Maybe next time Vince is out of town because I'm sure he's not
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interested in that. I'll watch it. Right. No, I think it's pretty good. What's up with
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you and your car? Oh my God, thank you. It's pretty reliable. It's got time I asked, right?
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Yeah, I've been waiting. No, I almost never get into my car to go anywhere. Like Steven and I were just saying,
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Steven was like, I just don't want to leave the house. It's that thing where you, in LA,
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you get it perfectly air conditioned and then you're like, we're set. Yeah. The thing about LA heat,
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because I know everyone's like, oh, you're so sad, it's 90 or whatever. But it's like, the thing about LA heat
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is getting in and out of a car is a nightmare The thing where you burn yourself on the steering wheel every single time Yeah I an old man and I put the windshield thing cover in Oh you take the time Yeah And then I just start sweating because I have to wrestle it out of the windshield every
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fucking time. Yeah. You have a whole task in 150 degree heat before things really kick off for you.
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This is Car Talk with Karen and Georgia. This is for if you have problems with sleeping, this is one of the better parts of the podcast
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for you. Oh, I have a sleeping thing. Something I've been watching instead of staying in bed,
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thinking, thinking, thinking when I can't fall asleep. So I've been going upstairs and watching
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the amazing older Australian sitcom, Kath and Kim. Oh, yeah. Did you watch that?
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Oh, yeah. Yeah. So funny. It's so good. Yeah. It's really hilarious. Then I eat Ritz crackers with cream cheese and jam, which is my new favorite snack.
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Highly recommend. That sounds like an 80s special. Did you used to eat that as a kid?
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No, we never were allowed to have like Ritz or cream cheese. Too expensive? Yeah.
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Too much of a delicacy? The only delicacy we were allowed was real maple syrup. That was one thing my mom would never
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compromise on. Oh, did your mom do hippie stuff? I think we've talked about this before.
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Yeah. She was like oil topped peanut butter. Yeah. Brand, bread, instead of like anything good that kids want.
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Yeah. Same. I think we've talked about this, but yeah. It's the most eating disorder inducing mentality where just like, so food is a distant,
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wonderful dream. What are you doing? Why would you do this? There's no pleasure in food at all, ever? Okay.
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Until you start sneaking or you start hiding. Like, yeah. Right. And then when you do finally come upon the really amazing food, you binge it.
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Yes, you do. And then you're like, what is this feeling of being full? I don't like it.
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I'm in pain. And then you purge it. And then your 20s are just a mess. Looking back now, we see what we've done.
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We do. We see what our parents have done to us. Yeah. Speaking of, I'll do my TikTok corner now because I can't.
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Yes, please. I'm so addicted. So addicted to it. We're all relying on Karen. All of us older folks are relying on Karen to tell us what's
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the haps with TikTok these days. Older folks. And I mean, literally, if you're 22 or up. No, here's why I love TikTok. And it's a lot of different things to a lot of
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different people, obviously. And you can get down your own algorithm thing where you're just having
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people just like you talk to you all the time. But what's very cool on it is there's so many people
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who are so smart trying to tell people, here's what I need you to know. So many good teachers,
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smart people, experienced people, whether they're doctors, this and that. TikTok gets a lot of shit
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for the dumb trends, which of course people look at because it's like you're making your spaghetti
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on the counter or whatever. Oh God, I hate those so much. What is it called? Slop recipes or something? I don't know, but there's a Reddit account called
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stupid food porn that just basically shows all of those. And I heard that it's actually a secret
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fetish video that they use that to get into TikTok. Otherwise, it'd have to be on OnlyFans
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because there's a fetish of women with beautiful hands and nails making a mess of food.
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Oh, that makes perfect sense. Doesn't it? And then the fact that those videos are all... What's that porn when they call it
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first person when it's like the person is where it's like they're looking at the cinema verite
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yes yes Serge Gainsbourg uh where it's like the can't so the person who's holding the camera is
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the one doing the porn pov pov thank you steven i was like steven's gotta know but i didn't want
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to be insulting pov point of view porn did you hear the noise oh yeah that was a trap steven
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We tricked you. We tricked you, Stephen, you're fired. So there's always a guy, supposedly the husband recording it,
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pointing at the food, being like, oh, and what do you do with that? Oh, so you just put the egg right inside the steak?
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It's porn. Can I just tell you this really quick? So one of my favorite people, and I found him almost immediately,
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it's called Chef Reactions. So he's a real chef in a restaurant, and he watches those videos.
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Yes, I love it. He's super monotone, and that's part of it. But there's a couple of those videos and it's, of course, a garbage recipe.
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It always involves raw macaroni. Yes. Yes. And a chunk of cheese and nothing that looks good.
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And nothing that's easier than actually making the actual thing. Yes. It's never.
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Right. I heard Gordon Ramsay has one of those too, a Chef Reaction video. That makes sense.
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But this original Chef Reactions guy is hilarious. Oh, good. Okay. He has no affect whatsoever.
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And he's just like, no, disgusting. And then he has a rating system of some kind at the end.
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But there are some of his videos where it's just like, yeah, this isn't like he's like, this is ridiculous.
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And so that kind of like fetish thing makes perfect sense. Yeah, right. So horrible.
00:11:16
But the thing that I was going to talk about that I've watched recently is the Predator prequel on Hulu, Prey.
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Oh. And I was like, so to me, much like salami and taking out the garbage, Predator is for boys.
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And I'm from the 80s, right? Like grandma time. Sure. So obviously anyone can do, anyone can take out the garbage if they want to.
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And eat salami. Can I have salami, please? We all know this. You can do anything you want.
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I believe in you. Go for it. I'm just saying that Predator movies, I'm like, this is the same six plants.
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Yes. That some dudes that are super jacked are walking in circles around trying to kill this alien that just seems really good at killing people Okay
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That's pretty much as deep and as romantic as that movie gets. That's like, yeah, that's a Vince go ahead and go to the movies that day without me movie.
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Yeah. There's not, it's a different thing. It does different things for different people, not gender based.
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So this new Predator prequel is basically the story of a native girl and the Predator lands in her time.
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It's a great movie. We watched it, Jacob from Canada and I. We watched it and I was like, this movie is amazing.
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It's not just good and it's not just like passing. It's good for what it is. It's a great film.
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But then on top of that, I couldn't stop talking about what I called the street level acting
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performance of the girl's dog, where I was like, this dog is the best dog actor I've ever seen.
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It's always looking in the right direction. It's always focusing on the right thing.
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It's right there with her. It felt like the dog was acting with the main actress who was
00:13:04
amazing herself. Oh my God. Okay. Well, now you just sold it to me completely. I was like, okay, that sounds fun. Now I'm like, I got to watch this. Now I'm like,
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Could Cookie get into dog acting? Well, let me tell you this. I bet you she could because this dog actor is a dog named Coco
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who was from the Fulton County Animal Services. She was an adopted dog. A rescue?
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A rescue dog. She was a rescue dog. Has now truly topped Benji, topped Rin Tin Tin.
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Yeah. And in my heart has become the greatest animal performer of all time. Oh my God.
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You guys adopt, don't shop, and then also get your dog into acting. I mean, but only if the dog has the natural ability as Coco does.
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Sure. Watch this movie. You will see what I'm talking about where I was just like, that dog is as worried as
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she is right now. So good. What if it was just a human in a dog costume the whole time?
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But it's also like such a bad job that you're like, Karen, how did you? That was like, it's like Snuffleupagus.
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Yes. Karen. Level puppeteering. How did you not know? I should give credit. Someone named Alexa Farrell is the one who tweeted the story of Coco being
00:14:19
like an adopted dog or from the pound, yeah, which is the cutest. So credit to them for
00:14:27
that information. Someone else said the type of dog is like an American dingo or a Carolina dingo.
00:14:34
Oh. So it's a real like old looking dog. Like a scruffy friend? But kind of like the pointy ears and the real kind of beady clear alert eyes.
00:14:46
Oh, yeah. I can't explain it. It's just like... I'll watch. Yeah. I don't have to explain it. You could just watch it.
00:14:52
I don't explain it. I'll watch it. Should we do a little true crime story updates?
00:14:58
Sure. Go for it. So there's an update on the Austin yogurt shop murders cold case. Unfortunately, it's not that they've solved the case yet,
00:15:06
but I covered the Austin yogurt shop murders in episode 70 when we were live at the Moon Tower
00:15:11
Comedy Festival. It's one of those stories I go back to all the time and think about all those
00:15:16
times when I like my core true crime cases that I'm just obsessed with. It's so horrifying.
00:15:22
But earlier this month, President Biden signed the Homicide Victims Families Rights Act,
00:15:28
and the law allows family members of murder victims to request a review of cold cases by federal agencies.
00:15:34
We'll then reanalyze these cases. And it was inspired by the still unsolved 1991
00:15:39
yogurt shop killings where four teens were killed. So check out that episode. And there's also a book called
00:15:46
Who Killed These Girls by Beverly Lowry that just tells you everything and it's fascinating.
00:15:51
That's a good thing that you can, instead of just the state crime lab looking into it,
00:15:55
you can get the federal lab into it. Yeah, that could make all the difference for some cases.
00:15:59
That's huge. Yeah. If a federal agency suddenly looks into it, maybe they have different information.
00:16:04
They obviously have more resources. I hope this leads to even more cold cases being solved.
00:16:09
And it also reminds me of when we talked to Jerry Williams on our special episode of the FBI.
00:16:15
She was amazing. And her talking about people often say to her, why won't the FBI get involved in such and such a case?
00:16:23
And she was explaining why and exactly what the jurisdictions and how they actually work.
00:16:28
So she was talking to us about that a little bit. Yeah. Sounds like they're going to change that in these circumstances where it's these horrible murder cases.
00:16:35
Yeah. Cool. Well, this isn't actually true crime news, but it's good news, which is really needed these days.
00:16:41
Yeah. So there's a bunch of stories about public libraries across the country getting attacked because some of them host drag queen reading hours or something.
00:16:50
And there's this very strange kind of like attack on that. And it's very much of the bizarre political scene we see today.
00:17:01
And there have been small town libraries that have had to close because people get in there and say, we don't want any library if it's going to have that.
00:17:09
Which is truly like step seven of a fascist takeover is when you take public information and the ability to learn away from the public in that way.
00:17:19
It's just so ignorant. It's like the plot of Fahrenheit 451. Like, let's go burn down a fucking library.
00:17:26
And let's make the librarians have to move away because they're getting death. Like, librarians are getting fucking death threats.
00:17:32
That is just so insane and awful. Yeah. So, but the good news is, so in this small Western Michigan town,
00:17:40
they voted earlier this month to defund the local Patmos Library over its inclusion of LGBTQ content.
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And the residents who live there have now raised $100,000 to make sure that the library stays open.
00:17:54
So basically the library annual budget is a year And they already raised half of it because the citizens of this town are like no we not doing this This is crazy extreme
00:18:08
ill-advised. Fucking religious fundamental bullshit. So go to the GoFundMe. It's the Fund Patmos Library in Jamestown, Michigan. And if you have
00:18:18
any money to give at this difficult time in almost everyone's life, give it to either this library,
00:18:25
or look up if this is happening near you. Yeah. Because this is this, it's a strange trend that needs to be fought.
00:18:32
Librarians have been talking about it on social media, but it doesn't take more than really one click
00:18:37
to find out what's going on and how to help either this library or anywhere. Yeah.
00:18:43
So let's do exactly right highlights real quick over on That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast.
00:18:49
Cara and Lisa's guest is actor Laura Gomez, who starred as Blanca Flores In Orange is the New Black, they discuss the SVU episode Undercover Mother from season 16.
00:19:00
And I don't know if you're looking for a puzzle lately, but we just released a brand new puzzle
00:19:05
by artist Alex Ray. It's got like a vintage horror movie poster vibe to it. And it's pretty cool.
00:19:12
Check it out at the MFM store. And also I think Steven has Alex Ray's Instagram handle.
00:19:19
Yes, it's at AlexRay1029. October 29th. Alex Ray, October 29th. We've just always wanted this and Alex Ray nailed it.
00:19:29
We love it so much. I hate puzzles. It makes me want to do a puzzle is how much I love this design.
00:19:34
So check it out. My favorite murder. You can't hate puzzles. You do? Yes, I can.
00:19:38
They make me frustrated and angry like a little toddler who's upset and flips a table.
00:19:45
That's hate. Really? That's hate. I hate puzzles. Okay. Okay. Interesting. You know, like I just don't have it in me.
00:19:54
That's not my personality is to sit patiently and slowly put things together. No.
00:19:59
Okay. I'll wet them all down and then mash them into a pulp and then put them together.
00:20:03
And then I did the puzzle. How about that? And that's my picture. Yeah. Can I just tell you about this one moment when you have the puzzle set up and you only have the frame of it?
00:20:13
And you're kind of just staring for a really long time. And then all of a sudden you look over and you're like, this goes here.
00:20:21
And it does. Now, it doesn't happen often, but within the job of a puzzle, which we give ourselves over to like, we got to put this thing together.
00:20:33
We got to do it. But then suddenly there's a point where it feels like your, what's it called?
00:20:39
Spatial awareness goes next level. And you can put things in places where you don't realize, like you're looking over and just like that goes here.
00:20:47
Yeah. Yeah. It's like that one meme where it's like suddenly all the numbers make sense and they're
00:20:52
in the air and they come together to form the math equation. I don't have that kind of brain.
00:20:57
I'd rather go to a bar and play Uno. The end. This is Kristen Davis from Are You a Charlotte? Forget everything you know about hair color,
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00:22:03
Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn, host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
00:22:09
This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Will Wheaton, who played Gordy Lachance in Stand By Me 40 years ago,
00:22:16
and now narrates Stephen King's The Body, the novella that inspired it all. We talk about what it's like to return to a story that shaped his life, channeling his memories of River Phoenix and the recording booth,
00:22:28
and why the friendships you have at 12 might be the most important ones you'll ever have.
00:22:34
I know Gordy Lachance. I am Gordy Lachance. Like, I mean, even when I was a little kid, I was Gordy Lachance when I didn't know it.
00:22:43
Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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00:23:21
Okay, today I'm going to tell you about the 2019 disappearance of Jennifer Dulos, which led to the implement of new laws targeting perpetrators of domestic violence in the state of Connecticut.
00:23:33
Now, this is one of those stories where the victim and the perpetrator are affluent.
00:23:38
They have that perfect seeming life on the outside. But this kind of story reminds you that this kind of thing can happen to anyone.
00:23:45
And domestic violence is not a socioeconomic... There's no barriers around it. It can happen to anyone.
00:23:52
No. Yes. And does happen to everyone. So the sources used in today's episodes are a heavily used van.
00:24:00
A Fair article by Vanessa Briori-Gottis, a Town and Country magazine article by Lena Kim,
00:24:06
a People magazine article by Casey Baker, and a ton of other articles. You can check them out on the show notes.
00:24:12
So on September 27th, 1968, Jennifer Rebecca Farber is born to her parents, Hillard and Gloria in New York City.
00:24:22
The Farbers are a very wealthy family. The father's a successful banking executive.
00:24:27
The mother, an educational philanthropist. and they have charitable foundations. That's the kind of wealth they are.
00:24:34
Like insane beyond anyone's ever heard of wealth. Yeah, like generational wealth.
00:24:41
The John T. and Catherine D. style wealth. That's Rockefeller, right. So during high school, Jennifer is into sports like competitive squash
00:24:50
and running. She's known as a gentle, introverted, soft-spoken person, kind, compassionate, witty,
00:24:57
extremely intelligent. She has all the, what is it called in the world? When she has all the possibilities.
00:25:06
Best qualities? No, when she has all the- Potential? Yeah, she has all the potential in the world also, including the means to go and achieve those dreams of hers.
00:25:16
So following high school, graduation in 1987, she enrolls at Brown University on Rhode Island,
00:25:22
graduates with honors, with an arts degree, moves to NYC in the hopes of becoming a writer.
00:25:28
She immerses herself in the New York literary scene. She gets a reputation as a gifted writer
00:25:34
and she writes journalism, essays, plays, screenplays. She's just super talented.
00:25:40
She then goes on to earn a master's in writing from New York's Tisch School of the Arts,
00:25:45
which is like Philip Seymour Hoffman went there and Lady Gaga went there and Martin Scorsese went there.
00:25:50
It's just a very well-known place. Big deal. Well, I mean, NYU. Yeah. I went to Los Angeles City College for a while.
00:25:58
I went to the School of Mediocre Stand-Up Comedy for quite some time. By 2003, 34-year-old Jennifer is living in Colorado, and she started writing her first novel.
00:26:13
One day at the Aspen Airport, she runs into an old friend from Brown. His name is Fotis Dulos.
00:26:19
So Fotis is born on August 6, 1967 in Istanbul, Turkey. He grows up in Athens, Greece.
00:26:27
He comes from a large Greek family. And then he moves to the United States in 1986.
00:26:33
So he is very attractive. He's athletic, ambitious. He's outgoing. He's got those Greek dark eye features that are so sexy.
00:26:44
Turkish and Greek, you cannot go wrong. That's the ultimate in swarthy manliness.
00:26:51
He's charismatic and charming in that way that we don't like. You know what I mean?
00:26:56
Yeah, there's a couple gold necklaces. Maybe his shirt's buttoned, weighed unbuttoned.
00:27:01
Yeah, and maybe he's just a little too much. You know what I mean? This is pure speculation.
00:27:07
He's also very smart. And in 1989, he graduates from Brown as well with a degree in applied math and economics.
00:27:15
They had been friends. He and Jennifer had kind of known each other at Brown, but not well.
00:27:19
Then he gets a fucking MBA in finance from the Columbia Business School. And now when he runs into Jennifer in 2003,
00:27:27
he's working as a management consultant with like big fancy companies. So making a lot of money.
00:27:33
He's also been married for three years to an attorney named Hillary. Fotis and Jennifer stay in contact.
00:27:38
July 2004, Fotis and his wife divorce. and a month later on August 28th, he and Jennifer get married.
00:27:46
Whoa. Make of that what you will. But see, okay, let's try to be fair and say maybe,
00:27:52
it says they divorced amicably. Who knows what that means? Maybe they were divorcing for like two years as far as we know.
00:27:58
Oh, entirely. Yes. Did your divorce take years and years? Oh, yeah. The therapist said that where she's like,
00:28:04
if you're talking about it out loud now, that means you've been wanting to talk about it for three years.
00:28:10
It's like there's all that stuff with when you've actually married. Well, what about the legal stuff though?
00:28:17
Isn't that like, doesn't that take forever? Oh, yeah. So it just depends. Well, it just depends because like there's sometimes people delay signing paperwork just because they're not okay.
00:28:27
Yeah. So that can take a really long time or people like insist. You know what I mean?
00:28:31
Like I won't sign. I know you're going to marry her, whatever. So any number of things can be happening.
00:28:37
I guess I was just saying, I was being judgy at first. And then I was like, yeah, that's true.
00:28:41
It's like, they could have gotten married and then been like, this is not right in month three.
00:28:46
Yeah. So they get married in New York City. They're in the New York Times marriage area paper thing that everyone tries to get on.
00:28:54
Like that's how well-to-do they are is they're in that magazine. Got it. Or they're in that part of the newspaper.
00:29:01
That part of the newspaper. It's a big deal to some people. It is. It really is.
00:29:04
And it's really hard to get into, right? Yeah, I think you have to be kind of in the New York society.
00:29:11
Yeah, you have to be a philanthropist. Or just super rich or maybe, I don't know.
00:29:18
I wonder how that actually works. If you can just, if you write up a good one. Yeah, will someone email us who's been in it and tell us what it takes for a hometown, please?
00:29:27
And then tell us how, if you were a bridezilla. I was going to say if you were Godzilla.
00:29:33
I'm tired. Godzilla's marrying so-and-so. I'm so jealous. Did you hear? So then they moved to an affluent area of where all the affluent New Yorkers move, Connecticut.
00:29:44
Connecticut. That's up, Connecticut. I knew that one. In 2004, Fotis establishes a real estate development firm.
00:29:51
He the CEO and president of this firm specializing in luxury home construction Jeez Which is like yeah Jennifer parents loan him around 2 million to assist with expanding his business So it seems like they live in these homes while they built which sounds like a nightmare
00:30:10
and then sell them for millions and millions of dollars. Oh. Just living on a construction site all the time.
00:30:16
Can you fucking imagine? Yeah, that just makes me think of Arrested Development when they're in the model home.
00:30:21
The model home that's sinking into the ground. I love it. In 2006, 37-year-old Jennifer gives birth to twin boys, followed quickly by a twin boy and twin girl in 2008, then another girl in 2010.
00:30:34
So they have five kids real quick. Wow. So she becomes a stay-at-home mom. There's five kids under the age of six.
00:30:41
It's just insane. So she can't really do her writing as much as she wants. She just kind of devotes herself completely to being a stay-at-home mom.
00:30:48
She's totally devoted to her kids. Two sets of twins. I can't imagine that she can watch TV.
00:30:54
No. Everything is hard. Oh my God. And imagine how many times you hear the song Baby Shark every day.
00:31:00
Oh, yeah. How many years? Or just kind of like one starts crying and then another one starts crying.
00:31:07
Nice. Man, hard work. All day. It's hard work, but it's easier when you're wealthy and have nannies upon nannies upon nannies.
00:31:15
For real. So they did. So she has some support? They have support. There's babysitters.
00:31:22
There's nannies. there's people who cook and clean. However, she does finally start writing again when she does
00:31:28
Karen's favorite pastime, blogging. Morning pages, aka blogging. She starts a blog.
00:31:37
It's called 5 plus 2 equals 7. And she also writes on a blogging platform called patch.com.
00:31:42
And then the writing serves as a distraction for how unhappy she actually has become in marriage.
00:31:48
In 2012, the now 43-year-old Jennifer Bloggs, quote, don't be number two to anybody. That's
00:31:55
what my father always told me. It's hard for girls, now women, wives, mothers. I wish I were
00:32:00
a strong person and that confrontation did not both scare and appall me. I just need quiet,
00:32:05
peace, and calm. So some foreshadowing that things aren't going well. And by now, Fotis has really
00:32:12
come out as a temperamental, possessive, domineering husband and father. The family
00:32:18
moves into a 5 million, 15,000 square foot colonial mansion in the town of Farmington.
00:32:25
But Fotis is always leaving. He's really into water skiing. And so he goes on like competitions
00:32:29
like out of the country. And he's also going home to Greece a lot because his extended family is
00:32:34
there. So he's kind of just all over the place leaving Jennifer at home. She's socially isolated
00:32:39
because she doesn't really know anyone there. And he does the thing that so many possessive partners do
00:32:45
where they isolate the spouse. Yeah. But also she's busy raising five kids. She doesn't really have time to make friends.
00:32:53
Right. So she feels more and more alone and unsupported. In the meantime, he's moody and critical of his wife.
00:33:00
And he wants to always be the center of her life. Her parents are also troubled and see his aggressive behavior.
00:33:05
According to Vanity Fair, on one occasion, Fotis punched a parking lot attendant at the parents' apartment building.
00:33:12
Wow. You can't go around punching strangers when you're not happy with them, people.
00:33:16
Also, that it's such an indicator of a lack of self-control. Sure, yeah. I mean, I feel like a hypocrite because I've talked a lot about enjoying a bar fight and
00:33:26
stuff like that. But it's one thing when somebody mouths off and somebody, you know what I mean?
00:33:33
Hey, fuck you. I'll take you outside. The idea that you're basically a millionaire punching a
00:33:39
parking attendant. Totally. You're a useless prick. I mean, what are you doing with your life?
00:33:45
Truly. He also is really hard on the kids and makes them train long hours to become competitive
00:33:51
water skiers as well. His passion has to be their passion, that kind of controlling
00:33:55
behavior. In late May 2017, now 48-year-old Jennifer finds something in her house,
00:34:02
which is deeply troubling to her. Despite the couple agreeing to not ever have firearms in the home
00:34:07
while the children are young, Jennifer discovers a receipt for a nine millimeter Glock pistol.
00:34:14
She confronts Fotis about it. He explodes in a rage and later claims he had the gun for protection,
00:34:20
which is like, everyone says that. Well, and also just discuss it. Like if you're gonna change the rules,
00:34:25
suddenly discuss it. But if you're gonna punch the guy that brought you your car,
00:34:30
Right. Don't go ahead and buy that gun. Right. You got issues. So in June 2017, Jennifer has had enough of this behavior. She takes the
00:34:40
kids and moves into a rental property in New Canaan, about 70 miles southwest of Farmington.
00:34:47
So I went and looked on our Gmail account to see if anyone had emailed us about this story.
00:34:52
And a lot of people did. And a lot of people are from New Canaan. And here's a couple of things
00:34:57
people said about it. A murderino named Leigh Ann said, quote, lots of money and blonde ponytails,
00:35:03
but not exactly a hotbed of felonious deeds. So it's a safe place. A listener named Shannon wrote,
00:35:10
where children walk around unsupervised and the worst crime committed is an occasional car theft.
00:35:14
So it's a safe, affluent neighborhood. Jennifer enrolls the kids in New Canaan Country School and
00:35:20
starts to make her own friends. So she starts to try to have a life finally. But she's always
00:35:24
looking over her shoulder. She is really wary of what Fotis might be plotting to do to get back at
00:35:30
her for leaving him. She files for divorce and seeks emergency custody of the kids. She says that
00:35:37
she's afraid that Fotis will retaliate saying, quote, I am afraid of my husband. I know that
00:35:42
filing for divorce will enrage him. He has the attitude that he must always win at all costs.
00:35:47
I know he will retaliate, but by trying to harm me in some way, he is dangerous and ruthless when
00:35:52
he believes he has been wronged. And then she goes on to say quote during our marriage he told me about sickening revenge fantasies and plans to cause physical harm to others who have wronged him Goddamn Have you watched Barry the new season of Barry
00:36:07
I have not. There's this one scene in it that reminds me of this that's so creepy where Barry really calmly and plainly explains to Sally how to scare someone, not hurt them, but scare them.
00:36:17
And he tells her in a way and Sally's face is just horrified because it's so normal to him.
00:36:23
And one of the things that Jennifer said about Fotis is that he wanted to fly a plane over an ex-client's house and drop a brick on the house.
00:36:33
Just to like maybe harm someone, maybe just scare them. She said she's terrified of her family's safety, especially since discovering the gun.
00:36:42
And then it turns out that Jennifer had found out that Fotis was also having an affair with a colleague, 42-year-old Michelle Traconis.
00:36:50
So he had been having an affair. He moves in with this person he'd been having an affair with.
00:36:55
And at the hearing for custody of the kids, Fotis attempts to discredit Jennifer by claiming she's psychologically unstable.
00:37:01
And Jennifer is, of course, afraid that he's going to take their kids and go out of the country.
00:37:07
The judge denies Jennifer's motion for sole custody, saying there's insufficient evidence of immediate and present risk of danger to the children,
00:37:16
totally disregarding Jennifer's concerns. And the couple is granted temporary joint custody.
00:37:22
So then Jennifer finds out early the same year that Fotis had lied about not bringing the kids around his mistress, Michelle.
00:37:30
And so she is awarded finally sole custody. But Fotis is allowed to supervise the visitation, which of course enrages him.
00:37:38
Yeah. And things intensify on May 17th, 2019 as they're nearing their divorce court date.
00:37:45
When the judge dismisses a custody motion submitted by Fotis. And so now Fotis realizes he might lose his kids permanently.
00:37:53
So we get to a week later at 8 a.m. on May 24th, 50-year-old Jennifer drops the kids off at school,
00:37:59
returns home around 8.05 a.m. And at 11.30 a.m., the nanny, Lauren, arrives and sees Jennifer isn't there,
00:38:06
but knows she has some doctor's appointments in New York. And Lauren realizes that Jennifer had taken one of her cars,
00:38:12
but then also noticed that her purse is in the doorway of the kitchen. So like laying on the ground.
00:38:18
But she doesn't find it suspicious, I guess. So Jennifer doesn't return home all day.
00:38:24
Lauren repeatedly tries to reach her. There's no response. And Lauren gets the kids from school and takes them to their grandmothers in Manhattan.
00:38:31
It's extremely out of character, of course, for Jennifer to leave home for so long and not make contact with anyone.
00:38:36
So around 7 p.m., Lauren and another friend of Jennifer's report her missing. Oh.
00:38:43
Yeah. So the New Canaan police arrive to search the house. And in the garage, there's blood spatter on the outside of the driver's side of the Range Rover that's in the garage.
00:38:54
There's blood spatter on the car's hood, bumper, and rear fender, the garage floor, a wall, and the interior door leading into the house.
00:39:03
So it sounds like a struggle ensued. Blood is also present on the kitchen faucet and a cabinet door.
00:39:09
When the officers make further inquiries, they discover Jennifer had missed both her doctor's appointments that she had had that day in the city.
00:39:16
and her Suburban that had been taken from the house is captured on the neighbor's security camera,
00:39:24
leaving the home around 5.25 a.m. that morning, which would have been too late for her to make it to New York City
00:39:29
for her 11 a.m. appointment. So something happened before she left the house. Connecticut State Police dispatch a canine unit,
00:39:36
dive teams, and helicopters to search the new Canaan area. And so just after 8 p.m. that night, the day she went missing,
00:39:43
Her suburban is found abandoned about three miles from her house. And there's bloodstains on the passenger side of the door and police issue an alert for the missing woman.
00:39:52
So they, of course, want to speak to Fotis. Also, the nanny, Lauren, tells police she's seen the couple have physical altercations and that on one occasion, Fotis had tried to run Jennifer over with his car in their driveway.
00:40:05
At home. At home. At home in front of five children. So Jennifer's mom gets temporary custody of the kids.
00:40:12
The kids are also, by the way, between 8 and 13 at this point. Police searched the former home where they had lived, along with properties that Fotis is redeveloping.
00:40:21
So he's a developer of properties. So he could, you know, in my mind, it's like you bury a body under foundation, right?
00:40:29
Sure, like it's the construction, the contractor, construction worker, anyone that gets to have access to cement being laid down.
00:40:38
Yeah, that's very scary. Right. They search dumpsters, incinerators, parks, anywhere Fotis takes his kids, they search as well.
00:40:47
They seize his car, phones, laptops. And he says he has no idea where Jennifer is, refuses to cooperate with the investigation.
00:40:57
And his girlfriend, Michelle, tells police that on the morning that Jennifer went missing, she woke up at Fotis' house and they had sex, which around the time she went missing, giving him an alibi.
00:41:10
Mm-hmm. DNA tests conclude that the blood found in Jennifer's home is mostly hers,
00:41:17
but the blood found in the kitchen faucet is a combination belonging to both hers and Fotis.
00:41:22
And he wasn't allowed in the house at all. So that is obviously very suspicious.
00:41:27
They get Fotis' phone records and a security camera footage from nearby suburbs,
00:41:31
and then they get a break. Fotis and Michelle, the girlfriend, are captured on video around 7.30
00:41:37
p.m. on May 24th, dumping garbage bags and several trash cans in the city of Hartford.
00:41:45
Five days later, the couple take a red Toyota Tacoma, which isn't owned by either of them,
00:41:51
to a car wash in Avon to have it extensively cleaned Biggest red flag car wash extensive car wash always Entirely Plus I like God this new girlfriend is already all the way in with this guy
00:42:06
Yeah. Like, talk about a ramped up kind of situation where it's just like, first you're having an affair and that's so exciting. And then suddenly it's like,
00:42:15
now you have to help me with this murder. Right. Or maybe he's convinced her that the ex-wife is going to take everything and is
00:42:23
abuse. Who knows what he convinced her of. Correct. Or maybe she just fucking is in on it too. Women
00:42:28
can be murderers also. They often are. It's true. But the timeline, I'm just like, it takes so long
00:42:38
to even talk to people. They later confirm that there's blood on the passenger seat of the Tacoma
00:42:44
and it matches Jennifer's blood. So like, fucking come on guys. Yeah. When officers retrieve and
00:42:51
check the trash bags that they had disposed of, they recover a bloodstained kitchen sponge,
00:42:55
bloodstained mop handle, black gloves, used zip ties, duct tape, bloodstained ponchos,
00:43:01
and a bloodstained bra and shirt similar to what Jennifer was last wearing. And Fotis has also discarded a bloody camping pillow matching one missing from Jennifer's
00:43:10
garage as well as a bike. And he disposes of altered license plates from one of his vehicles
00:43:16
by putting them in an envelope, which he places in a storm drain. So they find everything
00:43:20
immediately, dude, you're not as smart as you fucking think you are. No. Although that one, man, that's investigating that you would actually
00:43:30
be able to find that. I wonder if somebody saw it or something. Well, you think of wealthy neighborhoods, everyone has cameras everywhere probably,
00:43:39
right? So they just go and get footage and they're like, there they were, there they were.
00:43:42
What did he just do right there? It's kind of like being bit on your ass by your own technology.
00:43:46
Well, and just that idea that these days you think you can get away with anything because of the amount of cameras that are just in our lives.
00:43:55
Totally. Don't even know about, man. Yeah. And of course, the items in the trash bag that are stained with blood are all Jennifer's blood.
00:44:03
But Fotis' DNA is also found on one of the bags and on the inside of a glove. The medical examiner's office concludes that based on the items recovered and the amount of blood loss, Jennifer sustained blunt force and or stabbing injuries.
00:44:16
which would have been fatal without medical intervention. So she's most certainly dead.
00:44:22
On June 1st, 2019, 50-year-old Fotis and 44-year-old Michelle are arrested and charged
00:44:28
with tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution. They're each released on a $500,000
00:44:34
bail and must-wear ankle monitors. So they just throw money at the problem and get out of jail.
00:44:39
Of course. Unfortunately, the evidence against Fotis, at least, is entirely circumstantial,
00:44:46
and the prosecution doesn't even have a murder weapon, let alone a body, which would necessitate more serious charges.
00:44:53
And meanwhile, investigators are still searching Fotis' house and office, and they find handwritten notes.
00:44:59
And the contents are highly incriminating because they're detailed written versions
00:45:03
of the alibi Michelle ends up giving police. So like they practiced it by writing down
00:45:08
and then didn't throw them away. Sorry to insult like about something that stupid,
00:45:14
but Jesus Christ. Yeah, for real. The evidence becomes known as the alibi scripts.
00:45:20
And Michelle explains away by saying she made notes so she could get her account straight for the cops.
00:45:25
The notes also mentioned Fotis' close friend, Kent Mawinney. So this dude's a lawyer representing Fotis in the civil matter against the mother of Jennifer,
00:45:37
who had been suing them for that money that they had given them in the beginning of the marriage.
00:45:40
Oh, yeah. So this lawyer, Kent, tells police he doesn't know why his name is in any of the notes,
00:45:46
but they pull his phone records and look further into his movements. And in the meantime, Fotis and Michelle both plead not guilty to tampering with evidence.
00:45:55
And then, of course, Fotis' criminal attorney suggests that perhaps Jennifer staged her own disappearance.
00:46:04
Because you got a victim blame. With her own blood? I don't think so. With blood everywhere, with leaving her entire family and five children behind after having left an unhappy marriage and finally getting out of it.
00:46:18
Obviously, her friends and family are like, fuck you. Then it turns out that in August 2019, two men had been hunting out at this gun club area, like this open field area where a gun club hangs out.
00:46:33
And they had come across a patch of disturbed earth. and when they inspected it, they found a hole measuring two feet wide, six feet long,
00:46:41
and three feet deep, and inside are two bags of lime and a blue tarp. So obviously waiting to be
00:46:48
a grave. When one of them goes back to check out the hole two days before Jennifer's disappearance,
00:46:53
the bags of lime are gone. They check out the hole again and find that it's concealed with
00:46:57
branches and leaves. And so they know that at this point that Jennifer is missing, and so they
00:47:02
reported to the police. But what's interesting about this discovery, this grave, how does it
00:47:07
tie back to Fotis? Well, it turns out that a few months before Jennifer disappeared, this lawyer,
00:47:12
Kent Mawinney, had inquired about joining that same gun club where the hole is later found.
00:47:18
So that's how he's tied to it. And then in the days on either side of Jennifer's disappearance,
00:47:23
Kent is seen on surveillance footage at the club and his phone pings off a tower in the area of
00:47:29
that same day in question. And it shows that Kent spoke to Fotis on the day of the disappearance,
00:47:34
but he denies it, which is like, don't deny fucking phone records. Right, exactly. But also, I'm confused. The lawyer representing her parents trying to get
00:47:48
that $2.5 million back? No, the lawyer representing him against her parents. So he's like a buddy of theirs.
00:47:57
Sorry. So sorry. But however, there's no indication that human remains were ever found.
00:48:03
They must have known that someone found the hole. Yeah. In September 2019, Fotis and Michelle are arrested again for tampering with evidence.
00:48:11
They plead not guilty. And then Fotis finds himself a new girlfriend, which is a problem, a big problem for Michelle,
00:48:19
because she's like, oh, yeah, well, I have a different story to tell then. Yeah.
00:48:23
Always the way, guys. She now tells police that the night before Jennifer disappeared, Fotis spent the night
00:48:29
at one of his company properties, not with her. And she admits to helping him clean out the Tacoma
00:48:35
later in the day of Jennifer's disappearance, saying that Fotis told her he'd spilled coffee in the vehicle.
00:48:43
And she is adamant. She had no idea what was inside the trash bags, which she did help dump.
00:48:48
So she's basically saying, yes, I did all these things, but I had no idea about Jennifer being missing or dead.
00:48:54
But can I just say one thing? Yeah. As a casual listener of this show. Yeah. You said that there were two ponchos covered in blood that were in the garbage.
00:49:04
Right. So. Yeah. But maybe the other guy did it. Maybe it was the lawyer. The lawyer?
00:49:09
Yeah. Ooh, thank you. Okay. Yeah. All right. Maybe she's lying. Maybe she's not.
00:49:15
God, that's a tough one. Yeah. On January 7th, 2020, Fotis is charged with capital murder and kidnapping of Jennifer.
00:49:24
His bail is set at $6 million and he's released. Yes, of course. Uh-huh. And Michelle and Kent are also charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
00:49:33
On January 28th, 2020, Fotis is getting ready to head to court for a bail hearing.
00:49:39
And he says to his girlfriend, Anna, let's take separate cars. Anna drives and realizes that Fotis isn't on his way.
00:49:47
And so the lawyer realizes that his ankle monitor hasn't left his house yet. Police arrive at his house to find the 52-year-old unresponsive in his vehicle in the garage.
00:49:57
Oh. Fotis has tried to take his own life by carbon monoxide poisoning. In his vehicle, police find a note saying, quote,
00:50:05
If you are reading this, I am no more. I refuse to spend even an hour in jail for something I had, all caps, nothing to do with.
00:50:13
Enough is enough. If it takes my head to end this, so be it. Please let my children know that I love them.
00:50:19
I would do anything to be with them. But unfortunately, we all have our limits. So to the very end, he's saying he's playing a victim.
00:50:27
Hmm. First responders, they resuscitate him. So first responders resuscitate him at the scene.
00:50:36
He's unconscious. Basically, nothing can be done for him. A few weeks later, his kids visit him in the hospital to say their goodbyes, and then he's taken off life support.
00:50:46
So basically, obviously, he can't be tried now that he's dead, but this is what detectives think
00:50:52
happen. They think around 5.30 a.m. on May 24th, 2019, Fotis drives the Tacoma to a park near
00:51:01
Jennifer's home in New Canaan. And in the back of the vehicle, he has a bicycle, which he rides from
00:51:07
the park to Jennifer's, arriving around 7.30 a.m. He brought with him black tape, gloves, and a
00:51:13
poncho. And he gains access to the home, hides out, waiting for his wife to come home after dropping
00:51:19
the kids off at school. So he's laying in wait. And as Jennifer gets out of the car,
00:51:25
Fotis accosts her in the garage. A violent struggle ensues. He restrains Jennifer's hands
00:51:30
and feet with the zip ties and then stabs her to death in the garage. I know. He uses items in the
00:51:36
garage to clean up, including 10 rolls of paper towel from the kitchen. And he then puts Jennifer's
00:51:42
body, the murder weapon, and the bicycle in the Suburban. And he leaves at 10.50 a.m. and drives
00:51:48
back to the park where he transfers everything into the Tacoma that was waiting there for him.
00:51:54
We don't know what happens next or what happens to Jennifer's body. Whatever Fotis does, he's home
00:52:00
by 1.37 p.m. to welcome Michelle home. So it is possible she doesn't know about what happened
00:52:07
and wasn't involved. Yeah. I mean, if your boyfriend, let me just say this. If your boyfriend
00:52:12
said, hey, I have some trash bags I need to discard of around town. And then you find out
00:52:18
later that day or the next morning that his ex-wife is missing. You go to the cops.
00:52:22
Don't give an alibi. Yes, exactly. You go to the cops. There would be one way you would do it.
00:52:26
Yeah. Yes, that's very true. Also, I was just trying to think if that was the note that he left,
00:52:34
that idea that he's trying to play that card, the spine-chilling idea that what if this somehow
00:52:41
was entirely a setup? But it's like, so essentially, are you trying to say that your lawyer
00:52:46
is the one who wanted to kill your ex-wife, not you. And so even though you're the abusive husband,
00:52:53
you've been publicly violent and you've been publicly violent toward your wife. But even then, your lawyer basically sandbagged you.
00:53:06
Yeah. It's just wild. It's a wild denial that's just so pretentious of him. Right. It's that kind of thing where it's like the ego of a person who thinks they're masterminding a situation all the way up until they take their own life because they didn't mastermind that situation.
00:53:24
They got caught. And then are still blaming other people for them having to take the quote, having to take their own lives because they got put in that situation somehow.
00:53:32
It's so fucking pretentious. Right. So police allege that later that evening, Fotis and Michelle dispose of the trash bags.
00:53:39
And a week after the killing, Fotis gets the Tacoma professionally cleaned and arranges to replace the seats.
00:53:45
Despite the fact that the prime suspect is now dead, police continue with their case against Michelle.
00:53:50
And in May 2020, she maintained she has no idea what happened to Jennifer or where she could be On January 19th 2021 investigators excavate the yard of a Farmington property owned by FOTUS property development company They stay tight about anything they may have found and no further information is released
00:54:08
As of the time of this recording, Michelle is currently free on bond and awaiting trial, as is Ken Mawinney.
00:54:16
The same year Jennifer disappears, 13 more Connecticut women are killed by an intimate partner.
00:54:22
On June 28, 2021, a bill named Jennifer's Law is signed in Connecticut. The legislation is named after both Jennifer and a 42-year-old woman named Jennifer Magnano,
00:54:34
who in 2007 was murdered by her husband Scott in Terryville in front of their three kids.
00:54:42
So this new legislation named after these two incredible women mandates a broader definition
00:54:47
of family violence to include nonviolent coercive control. This is defined under the statute as a, quote, pattern of behavior that in purpose or effect unreasonably interferes with a person's free will and personal liberty, which is so important because abuse isn't, it isn't always a black eye and bruises.
00:55:08
It can be so much more than that. And it can be so subtle and so invisible. And we're finally all learning that.
00:55:15
And this law is one step in that direction. Yeah. And this law covers behavior like isolation, monitoring, threats, and financial abuse.
00:55:24
To mark the occasion, the Farber family releases a statement saying, quote, It is our hope that changing the legal definition can help change the outcomes for people in abusive relationships.
00:55:34
Intimate partner violence cuts across the socioeconomic spectrum and affects people of all genders.
00:55:40
Jennifer's case has received a great deal of attention, but the stories of most people affected by partner violence are never told.
00:55:47
Our hearts are with all of the victims and survivors, their families, children, and loved ones.
00:55:52
And that is the story of Jennifer Rebecca Farber. God. I know. Yeah, I've been following that one.
00:56:00
It's just so dark and shocking. Yeah. And like, yeah, you can't, if these are the problems, it does not matter how much money you have.
00:56:11
And sometimes it makes it worse if the abuser, whoever it is, husband or wife, or whoever, partner, constantly is used to the privilege of basically buying their way
00:56:22
out of everything. Right. Accountability becomes a huge problem. Right. And even, yeah, that's, yeah.
00:56:29
Ugh. And that thing of like the people who have power are believed rather than the people
00:56:34
who are being victimized. Yes. This guy is a well-known, well-respected businessman.
00:56:40
Yeah. He's going to get a slap on the wrist rather than actual punishment. Right.
00:56:45
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00:59:03
That's interesting because I feel like my story today is kind of the perfect continuation of this discussion.
00:59:11
There's a movie about this that came out and I never watched it. And I know when the story broke, people were talking about it.
00:59:17
And it truly freaked me out and bummed me out so bad that I just didn't. I was like, I understand what happened.
00:59:25
I do not like this at all. And it really bothers me. So in April of this year, friend of the show, Alison Tallman,
00:59:33
who was in Gaslit. And if you haven't seen Gaslit, it's amazing. She's so good in it.
00:59:38
And she basically pitched this story. And at the time, she was rewatching the movie.
00:59:44
And then I said, I hate that story so much. It makes me so mad. I tried to watch the movie,
00:59:49
but I couldn't do it. And then I said, but keep the ideas coming. She said, she wrote back and goes I feel slighted personally and so Allison I doing this story because you suggested it And also because I think the idea of it is so relevant these days this idea of
01:00:08
people exerting control over other people. And usually it's the people who are being controlled
01:00:14
or who are in that position either are young, they are isolated, they are disempowered,
01:00:21
They don't have a voice. They are desperate in some way. They need a job or they can't lose the
01:00:26
job or something like that. There's certain things that bring about the exploitation that
01:00:32
happen to people all the time. So you can keep your eye out for it for yourself. But also,
01:00:37
especially if you're like young and in the workforce, know the limits of what people can
01:00:42
and cannot ask of you because that is what this story is all about. So this is basically compliance,
01:00:50
which is the story of the phone scammer of the 90s. Dremel Walker is so incredible as the main character in that movie.
01:01:01
I couldn't watch it. I was like, the idea of this is so infuriating to me. And it is because I was raised with two parents,
01:01:09
but especially my mother who was always like, you have permission to say fuck you to basically anyone you want.
01:01:15
And we were told that from a young age. Pat. That was Pat's whole deal. This is exactly the kind of thing that it was like her life's mission to make sure people understood.
01:01:26
Just like, they can't tell you. Get up and walk out. She was like the queen of it.
01:01:31
She was the queen of it. I love it. Because she was the only child with very irresponsible alcoholic parents who she had to make her own way in the world.
01:01:40
And she had to get into these situations and then be like, fuck this shit. Yeah.
01:01:44
If you don't have parents, you don't have like adult presence behind you, there's people who
01:01:49
specifically look for kids like that to explore. So yeah. Case File, the amazing true crime podcast,
01:01:56
Case File did a story on this. It's episode 157, The Strip Search Scam. And that's one of the
01:02:02
sources for this story today. In that episode, they changed the victim's name for anonymity.
01:02:09
So I'm going to do the same. I'll take their lead. And I'm just going to call her Mary.
01:02:13
Although this person has actually very publicly spoken out and her name is out there.
01:02:19
But for me, more than just the anonymity, it's really not about the person it happened to.
01:02:25
It's talking about what circumstances could bring this about because the situation itself is beyond belief.
01:02:33
Yeah. Yeah. That would never happen to me, but it's like, it's all of us. Let's make sure it never happens to anybody.
01:02:40
Right. So it's April 9th, 2004, just before 5 p.m. It's a busy Friday night at the McDonald's in
01:02:46
Mount Washington, Kentucky. This is a small town population, like 8,500. And the phone rings there
01:02:53
and 51-year-old assistant manager, Donna Summers, strangely enough, but not the one we know.
01:03:00
She's been working at the restaurant for about eight months and she answers the phone. She
01:03:04
basically steps out of the insanity of the dinner rush to go take this call. The man on the other
01:03:09
end of the line, identifies himself as a policeman named Officer Scott. And he says there's been a
01:03:15
theft. A purse has been stolen. It's serious. He actually has McDonald's corporate and the
01:03:20
restaurant's manager. And he gives that manager's name and he says they're on the other line.
01:03:25
And he gives Donna a description of the thief, a young female in a McDonald's uniform with dark
01:03:31
hair and a small build. So Donna goes through the staff and her mind tries to think of who that
01:03:38
could be and realizes the one person that fits the description is 18-year-old Mary.
01:03:43
But that doesn't make sense to Donna because Mary's a good kid. She only started working at
01:03:47
that McDonald's four months ago. She actually had to get the job because her mother got sick
01:03:52
and lost her job. So she's basically trying to contribute to her household's income and she's a
01:03:59
great employee. For example, she was there that night. She was supposed to get off after the lunch
01:04:05
rush. And she ended up staying after her midday shift to cover for another employee who didn't
01:04:11
come in. And that's who Mary was. She was always helpful. She was really reliable.
01:04:17
It just doesn't make sense to Donna that Mary would steal a purse from a customer. But
01:04:21
Officer Scott is insistent. He's calm, but he's very direct. And he seems very confident about
01:04:27
his information and what he knows. So Donna calls Mary into the manager's office in the back of the
01:04:33
restaurant. So there's actually footage of this because there was a CCTV, like there's a security
01:04:38
camera inside the office. So there is footage and photos of this whole event. Oh, I didn't
01:04:46
realize that, I don't think. Disgusting. Yes, it's really upsetting. So basically,
01:04:52
were you to look at it, you would see it's a tiny space, brown tiles on the floor,
01:04:56
white walls, there's furniture, there's boxes everywhere, taking up so much space that the
01:05:01
room feels very claustrophobic. And the security cameras are like way up high and pointed down
01:05:07
almost vertically. They're up so high. Donna confronts Mary about this alleged theft.
01:05:13
Mary's expression is absolute shock. She immediately denies any wrongdoing. She explains
01:05:19
that she's been working at the register all day. She wouldn't even have had a chance to take
01:05:23
anything if she could have, which she couldn't have. And besides, she doesn't steal. So she
01:05:28
didn't do that. And she really needs this job so she wouldn't do anything to jeopardize this
01:05:34
paycheck. Donna, who's been holding the cordless phone to her ear the whole time,
01:05:38
tells all this information to Officer Scott. He insists. He doesn't budge. It's not up for debate.
01:05:45
Mary's a thief. Donna's trying to process this information all at once. She trusts the policeman on the other end of the telephone line, even as he gives this shocking
01:05:54
ultimatum either officers will come down to the McDonald arrest Mary and take her to jail and then search her for stolen belongings at the precinct or all that can be avoided
01:06:06
and they can just do an on-site search. Oh my God. It's that thing too of like authority figures, and like so many people are raised to
01:06:14
not question authority figures of any kind, especially men. Especially men and especially calm, reasonable men.
01:06:22
Right. Right. If this person had called up screaming or angry or anything, it would have been easy to
01:06:28
discount. But if you play it correctly, and it's the same thing when like, that's why sociopaths
01:06:34
or psychopaths join churches. Because if you can put on that veneer of kindly, calm, nice,
01:06:40
normal, whatever, that's how they get away with things. Yeah. Don't trust normal people, guys.
01:06:46
And certainly don't trust nice people, everybody. No. So at first, Mary begs to go to the police station. She is just like, she doesn't understand
01:06:54
why this officer is so confident that she stole something. She just wants this cleared up. And
01:06:59
she's like, yes, please have them come and take me down. She's worried what this mix-up could mean
01:07:04
for her. There's a clear power differential here. Officer Scott's a policeman. She's a young woman
01:07:10
who, in this situation, has less power. Although Mary is in the top of her class,
01:07:16
She has ambitions to go into pre-med because she's going to college after she graduates high school.
01:07:21
And she also is very freaked out of like her family. You know, she goes to church every week.
01:07:28
Her family is very like law abiding. She would be so humiliated if for some reason she was arrested for theft.
01:07:35
Her family would be so disappointed in her. She starts crying, cannot, she doesn't see what else she can do.
01:07:41
So she reluctantly agrees, quote unquote, to participate in this search. But she really isn't, there's no agreeing.
01:07:50
She's crying. She's asked to go to the police station. She's trapped and isolated.
01:07:57
And basically like, yeah. First of all, this is the weirdest concept and scenario.
01:08:03
Never heard of it before, but you're just going to go with it. Never. It's not a thing.
01:08:07
Yeah. Yeah, so it's like in no way are we saying, am I saying, that Mary should have known anything.
01:08:13
No. Because this is so strange. And what she is doing is taking all this bad stuff that suddenly got thrown in her face and trying to figure out what's the best way to clear this up.
01:08:24
Totally. And make sure this doesn't stick to me. So Donna keeps the phone on her shoulder as she basically relays the command Officer Scott is telling her in the phone to Mary.
01:08:37
So first she's told to empty her pockets, which Mary does without hesitation. So then Donna tells Officer Scott, Mary doesn't have anything.
01:08:45
Then he suggests that Mary might be hiding stolen items under her clothing. So Donna is going to need to check there too, he says.
01:08:53
Oh, dear. Now she stole a purse. So you're not hiding a purse under your McDonald's shirt.
01:08:58
Like you know that. Right. Yeah. Then another assistant manager, Kim Dockery, shows up in the office because the dinner shift's about to start.
01:09:07
And she's there to relieve Donna Summers. So she's very surprised to see a distressed Mary in the back office with Donna.
01:09:17
So she asks what's going on. Officer Scott tells Donna to keep quiet. He says that she shouldn't tell Kim what's happening because there are more serious matters involving Mary and illegal drugs.
01:09:28
And that's all very sensitive information. So they can't tell anybody. Oh, fuck.
01:09:33
So Kim stays in the office as Mary is told she has to remove her clothing piece by piece to complete the search.
01:09:40
So after a few moments, Mary's left standing in front of her two supervisors in just a bra and underwear.
01:09:46
Oh, my God. How humiliating. It's so gross and creepy. So Donna tells Officer Scott there's nothing.
01:09:53
She's clean. Officer Scott tells her to continue the search. She must now remove her underwear.
01:09:58
Mm. Somehow, neither Donna nor Kim says, we need to talk to somebody else. We need to check
01:10:05
any of this Googling, is this kind of search okay online or anything? Or the name of the, call the police precinct and ask if this name is-
01:10:15
Yeah. Hang up and I'll call you back. Anything, any kind of intervention, they're just doing this person's bidding. Right.
01:10:22
And they watch as they force this young employee to strip at her job. So as it's happening, Mary's continuing to insist she's done nothing wrong.
01:10:34
Kim ends up handing Mary a black apron to cover herself with. And then she leaves the office to go back to work.
01:10:42
So Donna still has the phone. And Donna's told to take Mary's clothes as well as her car keys and her phone
01:10:50
and place them in a bag. He says, now that's evidence and that that bag must be left somewhere
01:10:57
away from Mary, like put aside so that the police can come and pick it up. Yeah.
01:11:03
So now the dinner rushes on at this restaurant and the cashiers are a man down since Mary is
01:11:10
being held in the office. So Donna tells Officer Scott she needs to go help in the restaurant.
01:11:15
And she asks when the police are coming to pick up the evidence. He says that she needs to sit
01:11:20
tight. It won't be much longer. But he says, I understand your situation. So Officer Scott tells
01:11:26
Donna to find an employee she trusts who can watch Mary through the dinner rush. And it can't be the
01:11:32
assistant manager that was just in the room. He says it should ideally be a man. No.
01:11:40
So Donna pulls in 27-year-old cook Jason Bradley and hands him the phone. Oh my god
01:11:47
Jason is stunned to walk into the office And see Mary, his co-worker Covered with only a black apron
01:11:53
And other than that, she's nude He doesn't look at her He actually faces the opposite direction
01:11:58
As he puts the phone to his ear Officer Scott introduces himself and gives him a command.
01:12:03
He says, ask Mary to drop the black apron and then describe what you see. Jason's taken aback at this ludicrous instruction.
01:12:13
He doesn't care that it's a cop on the phone. He wants no part of this. He sets the phone down.
01:12:17
He goes and finds Donna. He tells her he refuses to participate. And then he just goes back to work in the kitchen.
01:12:24
So he doesn't tell anyone else what's going on with Mary. He just is like, I'm out and I don't want to be included in that.
01:12:30
I don't want nothing to do with this. Yeah. Much like him, the assistant manager who kind of did the same.
01:12:35
In their defense, the setup here is she is bad. She did a bad thing. She stole. Therefore, we have to do this.
01:12:44
Yeah. Which is realized very thin and not an excuse in any way. But the construct they're walking into is like, you don't know what she did.
01:12:53
Right. And it's already happening. It's already happening. So yeah, you don't know how it started.
01:12:59
Exactly. It's like if someone else got convinced first, then I guess you're convinced.
01:13:04
Right. Obviously, Jason said no way. Right. But then didn't go, hey, maybe I should get some other people.
01:13:12
We should go back there. Yeah. Because he's just at work, just like everybody else.
01:13:17
He's like, I just need my paycheck, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so Donna returns to the office and gets back on the phone, checks in with Officer Scott,
01:13:28
and she says no one else is available to help out. All hands are on deck. And Officer Scott asks Donna if she's married. Donna, like she's talking with an old friend,
01:13:39
mentions her fiance, a man named Walter West Nix Jr. He goes by Wes. Wes is by all accounts a nice
01:13:46
guy. He has two kids. He goes to church regularly, even coaches a youth baseball team. One friend
01:13:52
would later say he's, quote, a great role model. He's so by the book that he's never even gotten a
01:13:57
speeding ticket before. And so Donna is like, he's the right guy to help me do this.
01:14:03
Who doesn't know? Yeah. She calls him up. Wes is confused. Donna assures him it's important. There's an ongoing
01:14:09
police investigation. She needs his help. So now it's past six o'clock. Mary, who was not
01:14:16
scheduled to work that night, has been held captive in the back room at work for over an hour,
01:14:23
and no one, not Donna, Kim, or Jason, has tried to put a stop to it. So now Wes, the boyfriend,
01:14:29
non-employee, arrives at McDonald's, goes into the back office, finds the distressed, terrified,
01:14:35
naked teenage girl covered only by an apron being detained in the office, and he doesn't
01:14:42
do anything either. In view of the CCTV cameras, Wes picks up the phone and is given his first
01:14:48
order from Officer Scott, have Mary drop the apron and describe what you see. Oh my God.
01:14:55
Which how in the world is that any part of like, it's so- A purse being stolen or anything like that.
01:15:02
Yeah. Beyond. Wes complies. Encouraged by the voice on the phone for the next two hours,
01:15:09
Wes forces Mary to subject to humiliating orders like being told to dance or do jumping jacks naked.
01:15:18
And then it, of course, continues to accelerate. It's unreasonable, but Officer Scott assures Wes that this is all part of the process,
01:15:26
that these physical acts will help police determine what type of drugs Mary is on,
01:15:32
which they need for the investigation. That's what he says. The whole time Donna's coming and going from the restaurant to the back office,
01:15:38
Each time she enters, Wes throws Mary the apron and tells her to be quiet. And then when Donna leaves, it continues.
01:15:48
So that's very strange because it's supposedly Donna, it was her thing first. And now suddenly it's like he knows.
01:15:56
In my opinion, that feels like that's when he knows it's going past the point of any normalcy.
01:16:03
This is like torture in a way. It is. Yeah. It's disgusting. Because at this point, so Mary has no power. She's humiliated. She's paralyzed
01:16:15
with fear and believes she's in real danger. She's considered running, but as it is in that
01:16:22
tiny office, the only way out is to run past Wes, who is much, much larger than she is.
01:16:29
And then also, if she did escape the office, she'd be running into her workplace naked
01:16:33
with no keys and no phone. What's the next step? What would she do? And then she also, Mary, actually is really afraid. Am I somehow actually in trouble with
01:16:45
the law? Because running would make her look even more guilty. Totally. The movie is called Compliance. If you continue to comply, maybe this will fucking end.
01:16:55
Yes, exactly. So she now begs to be taken to the police department and she's pushing back
01:17:01
as much and as best as she can as these demands become more outrageous and more humiliating
01:17:07
and violent. So her begging like this elicits a new level of cruelty from Officer Scott,
01:17:14
who asks Annette to now speak to Mary directly. She takes the phone. Officer Scott threatens her.
01:17:21
He says she'll lose her job if she doesn't obey his orders. But she would later say it sounded
01:17:26
like he was threatening. It was much more threatening than that and much more frightening
01:17:30
than that, than just losing her job. She's terrified. She goes numb and would later describe
01:17:36
it that she basically felt like she left her own body at this point. Because this is going on so
01:17:41
long, it is of course escalating and heightening. And basically it heightens and escalates to the
01:17:49
point where the man on the phone tells Wes to physically assault and then rape Mary What And that what happens What most people know about this story because they made a movie at it and because it been
01:18:05
talked about a lot, but you might not know if you've never heard of this story before.
01:18:10
This is all a sham. The person on the other line is not a police officer. Obviously,
01:18:14
this is not how any kind of investigation would be held. This has nothing to do with anything.
01:18:22
And this is all down to this insane, sadistic scammer that is on the phone. And this is not the first time it's happened.
01:18:33
Oh, my God. Yep. In fact, the first case of this, of this exact type of strip search phone call at a fast food restaurant done by the manager to an employee,
01:18:48
the first known case of it was reported back in 1992. Wow. So in these scams, a man pretending to be a police officer or a corporate official would call chain stores and restaurants in small towns.
01:19:02
He would often ask for the managers. He'd then tell them he was investigating some sort of criminal wrongdoing by a staff member who he would identify in vague terms.
01:19:12
Then on the other line, the manager or the worker would fill in the blanks, basically pinpointing a staffer based on this caller's description.
01:19:19
So these allegations of some sort of criminal act would then, that's the deviousness of this caller.
01:19:29
He was able to then translate that into the need for a strip search that this person listening to him would actually believe and buy into.
01:19:40
Jesus. And the commands would slowly become more extreme. So here's just a couple examples.
01:19:46
In North Dakota in 1991, a manager of a Burger King truly thought he was talking to a police
01:19:52
officer when he was ordered to spank a 17-year-old employee during an impromptu on-site strip search. A caller in Hinesville, Georgia in 2003 convinces a 55-year-old McDonald's
01:20:05
janitor to perform a cavity search on a 19-year-old cashier. And this actually ended up
01:20:13
resulting in the town's police sending a letter to every single resident warning in detail about these scam calls.
01:20:22
And then the next year in 2004 in Arizona, it's a customer that's a victim, not an employee.
01:20:28
And in that case, a Taco Bell manager strip searched a 17-year-old girl who matched the caller's vague description
01:20:35
and then also carried out a cavity search on her. And what's really horrifying are there many more examples of this.
01:20:44
I had no clue this was a thing. I thought this was like a one-time thing they made a movie about.
01:20:50
So did I. Isn't that a nightmare? Okay, so companies, including McDonald's, knew about these scams.
01:20:57
In fact, managers at 17 McDonald's locations had already been duped at the time of Mary's search.
01:21:03
17. That's insane. And the corporation was involved in at least four lawsuits in Georgia, Ohio, Utah, and other cities in Kentucky.
01:21:14
It had happened multiple times in Kentucky. Wow. And they were taken seriously enough at the corporate level that security executives came up with a plan to create, quote, warning stickers about them.
01:21:26
And they were to be sent to several McDonald's locations and to go on the phones themselves and on the headsets, be like warning, be careful of these kinds of fake calls.
01:21:39
But the plan was never carried through. They just didn't do it. McDonald's corporate, however, did send a voicemail message to its store managers a week before Mary's assault.
01:21:50
But because they didn't mention the strip searches specifically, the message was vague and the information didn't usually filter from managers to staff who are the ones who most usually answer the phone.
01:22:04
So it just was ineffectual. So the manager of the McDonald's where Mary and Donna worked did hear that voicemail before the scammer targeted their location.
01:22:14
And she later testified that it didn't have a lot of specific information in it.
01:22:19
So she didn't think it was very important. Oh, my God. Okay. So now back in the office and back in the crime, eight o'clock is approaching.
01:22:28
Mary's been detained in the McDonald's office for three hours. She's despondent, terrified.
01:22:34
She's been sexually assaulted. It's hard for her to even piece together how this is happening.
01:22:40
Her day started so normally. Then she's accused of stealing and now she's here. And Wes is still in the room.
01:22:47
On the phone, the scammer tells him he can leave. So he returns the phone to Donna, who has no idea what her fiance has just done.
01:22:58
So when Donna puts the phone to her ear, the man tells her that the search isn't over yet
01:23:03
and that she needs to go find a new man to replace Wes. What? And Donna, still thinking that this is legit,
01:23:10
goes out into the restaurant and finds the store's 58-year-old handyman, Thomas Sims.
01:23:16
I am in total fucking shock right now. It's beyond. Okay, so Thomas wasn't working a shift that night.
01:23:22
He dropped by the store for dessert. So he's surprised when Donna approaches him.
01:23:27
She says he's needed in the back office for something urgent. He follows, and he is, of course, aghast when he sees Mary.
01:23:35
He cannot believe what he's seeing. Donna tries to reassure him everything's above board.
01:23:39
It's a police investigation. Even corporate is in the loop. It's something involving theft and drugs, and she hands Thomas the phone.
01:23:47
So the caller now asks Thomas to order Mary to drop her apron. Thomas instantly recognizes there is something incredibly wrong with this situation and like Jason he refuses to obey the order He tells Donna quote something is not right about this And then Donna remembers that at the
01:24:09
very beginning of this, that this caller said they had the restaurant manager on the other line.
01:24:15
And so for the first time, she decides to double check this caller's claims that he's been on the
01:24:21
phone with a corporate and a McDonald's corporate and the restaurant manager. So Donna calls the
01:24:28
manager and wakes her up. No. She's been sleeping. She has no idea what Donna's talking about.
01:24:37
She certainly hasn't heard anything about a theft or an employee doing something criminal.
01:24:43
And Donna instantly breaks down. She suddenly realizes the extent of this horrible truth.
01:24:49
When she picks the phone up again to confront the caller that he is a fraud, he hangs up.
01:24:58
So what happened here? How would something like this happen? So experts have long observed that human beings by nature are obedient and respond well to authority.
01:25:11
Just like we talked about episode 325 when I covered the story about the third wave experiment at Coverley High School.
01:25:19
This is a thing that is kind of built into all of us when we are told, here's the justifiable
01:25:26
reason, this person's bad. So you start doing one thing and then it just gets more and more extreme.
01:25:33
Yeah. That's the classic pattern. And when talking about this case, experts often mention the infamous Milgram experience,
01:25:41
the tests on human obedience that were conducted by Dr. Stanley Milgram in the early 60s.
01:25:48
He was a psychologist at Yale. He wanted to understand how German citizens complied with the inconceivable orders during the Holocaust.
01:25:57
And basically, so he recruited a group of men who believed they were participating in a study on memory.
01:26:02
And they were told to administer a shock to the volunteer every time the volunteer got something wrong or answered a question incorrectly.
01:26:12
And then the jolts of energy were increasing. And it was basically a test in how far would these people go.
01:26:19
simply because they were being told to do it. Right. And that is an interesting comparison and a very apt comparison.
01:26:26
But I was blown away. Our own Phoebe Judge, there's an episode of Criminal. It's episode 178.
01:26:32
And it's called The Experiment Requires You to Continue. And it is about the people who participated in the Milgram experiment
01:26:39
talking about how incredibly horrible it was for them and how damaging it was for them just to get this,
01:26:46
just for Milgram's trying to get this, oh, this is what people are like. And it wasn't even like, so basically it was like, it's not just the victims of these things
01:26:56
that people do when they're complying. It's the people who are forced to act that are also
01:27:03
victims in a way. Yes. Victims, right. Yeah. So there's much darker shades of the Milgram experiment in these compliance stories.
01:27:13
at a Burger King in Indiana in 2001, the father of a 15-year-old employee actually had to jump
01:27:20
over the counter to physically stop her supervisor from continuing the search. So it's like once the people have what they believe are the justified reasons to do the
01:27:30
thing that this psycho is telling them to do over the phone, they won't stop doing it.
01:27:37
They're in it. At a different Burger King in Delaware in 2003, the mother and boyfriend of an 18-year-old employee called the cops because the manager
01:27:47
was fighting them off so strenuously that they needed backup to get the manager to stop doing it
01:27:57
and stop fighting for doing it. Oh my God. It's beyond. The extreme version of this is Wes Nix's behavior, who was later quoted to say,
01:28:08
I've always been the type of person that's very easygoing and I've always followed authority,
01:28:14
always. And he said that he felt like the person he believed was Officer Scott, quote, had control of my mind. Wow.
01:28:24
Dr. Thomas Blass, who was actually one of Dr. Milgram's proteges, has said that, quote,
01:28:30
once you accepted another person's authority, you become a different person. You are concerned with
01:28:36
how well you follow orders rather than whether it is right or wrong. Yeah, that makes sense.
01:28:42
So those social experiments give us a sense of how willing humans can be to comply with
01:28:49
horrific orders, but they do not excuse these heinous crimes, obviously, nor do they excuse
01:28:54
grown adults for taking the word of a voice on the phone over a person in front of them who they
01:29:00
know and interact with and over common sense itself. How did that feel? That guy knew better
01:29:13
than you as an individual that this was the right thing to do. Horrifying. It's crazy.
01:29:19
So in 2004, Mount Washington only had 16 police officers and they had one detective. And that
01:29:25
detective's name was Buddy Stump. And as it turns out, he'd only been on the job for a few weeks
01:29:31
before he caught the McDonald's phone scam case. It only took a simple Google search for the
01:29:38
detective to learn that this same type of scam had happened many times before. So he begins to try to
01:29:45
connect the dots to see if they can find this psycho that's been doing this. And at the same
01:29:50
time as Detective Stump is doing that in Kentucky up in Boston Massachusetts a detective named Vic Flaherty is also on the case He focused on four different Wendy locations like the Boston area that had been targeted by a phone scammer in one single
01:30:08
night in 2004. Oh my God. What is this person getting out of this? I just don't understand.
01:30:14
This is like the height of being a sociopath. Course of control. Yeah. Okay. Based on my lack of education. But I mean, this is what it's all about. Whether it's money,
01:30:27
whether it's sex, whether it's flirting, whether it's whatever, it's all about you call the shots.
01:30:34
Right. It's up to you. You're in charge. And that feeling of being in charge to the point where
01:30:39
someone will do your bidding and harm another person because of how good you are at telling
01:30:46
them to do it. So sick. As Stump's beginning his investigation, Detective Flaherty has already traced his Boston calls to a calling card purchased in Panama City, Florida.
01:30:57
But this is where he hits a wall because the Walmart store where the card was purchased only had security cameras placed at the entrance of the store.
01:31:05
So he couldn't get a visual ID or even a good visual of the purchaser because the camera's too far away.
01:31:13
So down in Kentucky, Detective Stump also is able to trace the Mount Washington calls to somebody using a calling card that was purchased at a Walmart in Panama City, Florida.
01:31:24
But unlike Flaherty, Stump gets lucky with his lead. The calling card used in the Kentucky case is linked back to a different Panama City Walmart, and that one has cameras at the registers.
01:31:37
So Detective Stump tracks down the time of sale and cross-references it with Walmart security footage, and there's a suspect.
01:31:45
It's a white man between the ages of 35 and 40 wearing glasses and checking out at that Panama City Walmart with a calling card.
01:31:53
It's not enough in the footage to identify him, but Detective Stump now has a solid lead.
01:31:58
So he dials the local police in Panama City, hoping they might be able to help move his investigation forward.
01:32:04
and those officials connect Stump with Flaherty in Boston. So now Flaherty gets to watch the
01:32:09
footage for himself. They're able to identify the man's jacket because it's worn by guards
01:32:15
working at a private prison company that operates the nearby Bay Correctional Facility.
01:32:20
So Detective Flaherty is soon on a flight to Panama City in a car headed to the prison,
01:32:25
and there he shows the warden still from his CCTV footage, and he gets a name, David R. Stewart.
01:32:33
So investigation into Stewart turns up incriminating evidence. When police search his home, they find a calling card that had been used to dial nine fast food places over the past year, including an Idaho Burger King that fell for a strip search scam.
01:32:49
So it was the same guy the whole time? Well, they believe so, yes. Oh, my God. They also learn that Stewart's brother is a retired police officer and they make note of a ton of police memorabilia in Stewart's home, magazines, uniforms, applications for jobs at police departments.
01:33:09
So in 2004, Stewart's arrested and charged with impersonating a police officer and soliciting sodomy, which both are felonies, both of which he pleads not guilty.
01:33:20
So investigators suspect that Stewart was behind many, if not all, of these strip search scams.
01:33:28
Oh, my God. The charges solely involve the Mount Washington case. Stewart maintains his innocence throughout his trial.
01:33:37
His defense team argues that he isn't intelligent enough to pull off an elaborate manipulative scam on this level.
01:33:45
They also work to establish that the prosecution is too narrowly focused on him because they're desperate to get a conviction.
01:33:52
At the culmination of his trial, Stewart is acquitted of all charges. They cannot prove that he, none of the evidence was strong enough to prove that he is the person that made those phone calls.
01:34:07
But the police say that these hoaxes stopped after David R. Stewart's arrest. Uh-huh.
01:34:14
So as mentioned earlier, police and criminologists believe that the rash of these calls that happened around the country were carried out by one person because all of the MOs were so incredibly similar.
01:34:25
But whether the caller was actually David R. Stewart or if it's someone else that has never been identified, we will never know.
01:34:32
What? Most clinical psychologists who comment on this case suggest that the perpetrator of these crimes has a God complex and gets deep satisfaction from manipulating and harming others.
01:34:44
And whoever did this, whether it's David Stewart or someone else, did incredible harm.
01:34:50
This event changed the lives of everyone involved, obviously. Wes Nix Jr. pled guilty to a series of charges, including sexual abuse and sexual misconduct,
01:35:01
and he was sentenced to five years in prison. Wow. Donna Summers, who of course broke up with Wes after she saw the security footage herself,
01:35:11
is fired from McDonald's. She's charged with unlawful imprisonment and sentenced to a year probation after taking
01:35:18
the Alford plea, which we have learned on this podcast is the guilty plea where the defendant
01:35:24
maintains their innocent, but acknowledges the substantial amount of incriminating evidence
01:35:30
against them. And in a way to me, I think that is kind of one of the, a very accurate use of
01:35:37
the Alford plea because what it feels like Donna is saying is I did it and I was like, I wouldn't
01:35:45
have normally done it. I can't say I didn't do it, but I didn't. Yeah. Yeah. But it also makes me think of intention, where it's like, you don't need bad intentions to do
01:35:57
bad things. You're still guilty. It's not like you can't... if you had good intentions and did something wrong. You know what I mean?
01:36:03
Yes, completely. That's what kind of upsets me about that. Yes. Her being able to plead that.
01:36:08
Well, you know what it is? This is such a, it's so insanely complex. And it would be interesting
01:36:14
to understand how convincing this person was. Because as we've all watched now, 1,000 Netflix documentaries, true crime documentaries about this level of scammer,
01:36:28
that's not the correct word for them. Scammer sounds like someone stole your tickets to the
01:36:33
fair when this is a certain type of personality disorder where they are really good at manipulating
01:36:41
people to a degree that most people can't understand. Totally. I can't. I obviously
01:36:46
can't because I'm still like, but wait a minute. That's... Right. Yeah. I can't understand it
01:36:51
either myself, even though I'm trying so hard. Well, and it's that kind of thing where I think
01:36:55
the one way, and it makes me think of that, I won't be able to remember the name, like the guy
01:37:01
that basically convinced those people in the UK that the world was about to end and they had to
01:37:06
just drive around. And he had certain people going for years and years where when you hear the story
01:37:13
from the outside, it just doesn't make sense. So it almost seems simplistic or laughable.
01:37:19
Yeah. But when you hear the people who it happened to describe it and talk about it, and they're
01:37:25
like clearly intelligent people and clearly, you know, like not, you just go, what would
01:37:31
it be like to have one of these types, like this level of sociopath aiming their thing
01:37:37
at you? Right. What would that be like? Right. Scary. Yeah. Mary, who, as I said, was planning to be a pre-med student, decides not to go to college
01:37:48
after graduating. She says, quote, I lost my faith on April 9th, 2004. And rightfully fucking so, rightfully so.
01:37:58
She struggles with PTSD for years. She eventually sues McDonald's on the grounds that it failed to warn employees about these scams that they knew about.
01:38:07
Yeah. They knew were happening. And of course, McDonald's puts up a fight in court.
01:38:11
They say that any harm Mary experienced was done by her coworkers, not the corporation.
01:38:16
At one point during the trial, an expert McDonald's put on the stand infuriatingly suggests there's a bright side to this horrific situation.
01:38:25
He tells the court that what happened is quote not the ideal way to come to new growth but some people grow through their trauma Oh my God Said that out loud Oh my God Like okay all right
01:38:41
Well, Mary ultimately won over a million dollars in damages, although she initially was awarded $6 million,
01:38:49
but that was reduced after a lengthy appeals process by McDonald's because, of course, they have all the money in the world.
01:38:58
Right. Right. Which is just more trauma, a court case like that. Oh, horrifying. It's reported that between 1995 and 2004, as many as 70 stores across 32 states
01:39:13
were duped by this scam. Dude. I had no fucking clue. Me neither. I truly thought this was this bizarre, one-off, creepy, horrible thing.
01:39:25
Me too. Some reports put that number as high as 130 or 140 stores, with around 30 of those being McDonald's restaurants alone.
01:39:36
Experts think that these numbers could be low. The scams are so embarrassing and so bizarre that the people involved might have been reluctant to report them at all.
01:39:45
Right. So this case was covered extensively by a reporter named Andrew Wolfson for the Louisville Courier-Journal.
01:39:53
And at one point, he interviewed an editor for the nation's restaurant news trade magazine about the weirdness of these hoaxes.
01:40:01
And that editor said that the corporations, quote, failed to act more quickly or decisively in part because no one could believe it.
01:40:10
It was so weird. And after all this talk of authority and obedience and horrific orders, it's worth keeping in mind the people who saw through the bullshit.
01:40:19
It wasn't just Thomas Sims. That scammer had targeted many stores and restaurants, and his scheme often hit a brick wall.
01:40:27
In fact, the scammer had called a McDonald's in Hillview, Kentucky, the very same evening
01:40:32
that the McDonald's that Mary worked at was targeted, and the employees there hung up on him.
01:40:38
And that is the insane story of compliance, the fast food strip search scam. Holy shit.
01:40:47
Okay so the main sources for my story today are a series of articles by a journalist named Andrew Wolfson for the Louisville Courier an article in the Associated Press by a journalist named Mitch Stacey an abcnews article and then of course the Case File podcast episode 157 The Strip Search Scam And they in our show notes Great job Great job So fucked up
01:41:16
So yeah. You know what I realized was, because I knew it's that kind of thing. If something
01:41:22
bothers you that much, which is how much it bothered me, it was like, well, then there's
01:41:27
something that you need. There's something about that that is important to you. And I think that's,
01:41:32
you know, perhaps that kind of thing of like, there's some people like, I don't understand how
01:41:36
you can look at true crime. And it's like, well, you might have a certain sensitivity.
01:41:40
It makes sense. Like not everybody has the same feeling of like being compelled by these stories,
01:41:46
but learning about it, it's like that what I don't like and what really gets me is that idea
01:41:53
that anybody, and I think it often happens to women being put in this position where you think
01:41:59
because the quote unquote rules, you have to do A, B, or C. That is never the truth. And when you
01:42:07
go through life, I know for some people that's like impossible to imagine because you do this
01:42:13
and you do this or whatever. But if you observe things and kind of push the boundaries a little
01:42:19
bit that you understand that like there's no world where you don't have to get up, get out.
01:42:27
And fuck politeness. And fuck politeness. That's what I'm trying to say. I just feel like the important part of actually retelling this story is going forward.
01:42:38
And that's what it feels like. They can't do, or like hopefully they can't ever do this scam again because people have
01:42:44
heard about it and they understand, you think this is beyond belief. You think this is an impossibility.
01:42:51
You think this is crazy. It happened. It happened perhaps 140 times. It happened over and over and over again.
01:42:59
Somebody got really good at exploiting that one piece of the human brain that goes,
01:43:05
it's important that the authority figure has his way. That I follow the rules. Yeah, that I follow A, B, and C, and I'm a good person if I do it that way.
01:43:16
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bullshit, man. All right. Well, thanks for listening, you guys.
01:43:21
We appreciate it. You are the best. Let's wrap this thing and then meet next week or some other time. Or you can go back in time
01:43:29
and actually meet us in 2017 if you want to. That's possible. Totally. Does the queen understand that podcasts are time travel Someone explain it Oh my God Not me Not it Okay All right Stay sexy And don get murdered Goodbye Elvis do you want a cookie
01:43:54
This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.
01:43:59
Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
01:44:04
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