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For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. Hello! And welcome to My Favorite Murder.
00:02:36
It's a podcast. Where'd Karen go? Did you hear that? Was it a verb? Did you hear it?
00:02:40
did you hit your teeth on the microphone no I did a weird inhale forward slash suck in some kind of a
00:02:49
it's not like there's snot there was a sucking noise saliva sound I keep stuff up there
00:02:55
saline solutions tucked up from the sea cotton balls nail polish remover and an emery board
00:03:04
just shoved up into my nasal navel cavity Jesus, that's George Harkestark. Wow, that's definitely Karen Kilgariff.
00:03:14
And we are having a hell of a time here in Southern California. Here in Southern California.
00:03:20
We can blame it on the Santa Ana winds that came today. That's right. There were crazy winds last night.
00:03:26
Yeah, and it makes everything a little spooky. And a little one hour and 15 minutes late.
00:03:32
Oh, guys, I just pulled one. No, everything is good. We're here. We have our sparkling water.
00:03:38
Stephen is to our right and left which is great for us Stephen is all around us Stephen kind of
00:03:46
yeah he's an omnipresent right left all around you keep dipping out this episode
00:03:52
something's happening with my what I like to call my instrument I'm like the instrument
00:03:58
I'm like a trumpet that a 7th grade boy plays where there's so much spit in the mouth
00:04:02
the smell did you not do your podcasting warm ups? I didn't do my podcast neti pot.
00:04:08
I didn't. I didn't rinse all orifices. Ew. My fault. Yeah, you got to do them podcast warm-ups that everyone knows so well.
00:04:17
Me, me, me, me, me. Me, me. Me, me, me is actually the perfect podcast warm-up. I think because I feel me, me, me.
00:04:28
What's wrong with you? Oh, I'm almost done with dry January. Yes. I have two days of non-dry January.
00:04:37
Okay. You dipped out of dry January. Yeah. Two days. Two different days. Not two days in a row.
00:04:42
Great. You know, dealing with that. But it's fine. Now, was it a binge? Like, did you end up down by the L.A. River?
00:04:51
No. Unfortunately, nothing's on. I had two glasses of wine with you last night. Yep.
00:04:55
At the Tam O'Shander. That was pretty great. And your dad. We partied. Jim was there.
00:04:59
Jim was there. And then one other night. I had an event. It was both around like things. Yeah. And it just feels better to be drinking at
00:05:07
them because I hate it's so hard to talk to people. A hundred percent. But, you know,
00:05:11
I didn't feel great about it and I felt like shit the next day. So it's, you know, teaching
00:05:16
me that it's not something I really want in my life. Well, good. And I would say it also brings
00:05:21
that, you know, what I found when I was drinking is that my tolerance for my hangover was out of
00:05:27
I could I could destroy my body and be like, it's fine. I'll have a bagel. I'll be fine later.
00:05:32
And I think once then you cut it out. And then when you come back, it's like two glasses of wine and you feel it.
00:05:37
I totally. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like I've been ignoring it and I've been thinking that's my normal every day.
00:05:43
Like I just am tired all the time and have like a low level flu. Really, it's like, no, you've just been drinking all the time.
00:05:50
Yeah, it's ruining your body. Right. Yeah, I feel so much better. Awesome. So you going to you you going to round out dry January I just going to keep going Good As I was going you know drinks here and there when it when it calls for it Right Yeah But for most
00:06:05
but mostly, I mean, I think that's the way to do it too, is like, it's whatever you're trying to do.
00:06:12
It's your business. First of all, it's like how you want to do it is your journey. Yeah.
00:06:15
If I may. Thank you. I've been waiting all month for you to tell me that this is a journey.
00:06:20
It's a journey and it's your journey. So me, me, me, me, me. It's a difficult thing, as everyone knows, with anything that you, we all have our things and that we use.
00:06:32
Yeah. And to just put them down. Yeah. Very difficult. I mean, it's taken me five years to take a month minus two days off.
00:06:39
So it's, you know. So you're actually, numbers wise, that's, I think that's a solid A.
00:06:45
Thank you. Numbers wise. Okay. I'm a numbers person. I'm a math person. A minus.
00:06:51
I never got those grades in high school. Right. This is great. So welcome to the fucking Honor Society, bitch.
00:06:58
Thank you. Do I get $5? Is it $5 for every A? Yes. So I'll give you $10. Okay. And that's incentive.
00:07:05
Thank you. And that goes to my next drink. That goes to... You just gave me money for alcohol.
00:07:12
And then you start buying super cheap alcohol so you can get more for liquor. If it's only $5.
00:07:17
Fireball. Fireball. Just get a thing of Fireball. Okay. Moving on to the news portion.
00:07:26
Oh, I have some news. Great. Let's hear it. It's a Stay Sexy event. So this tattoo parlor called Witch of the Woods Tattoo, they're in Missoula.
00:07:36
Montana. Thank you. That's where Chris Fairbanks is from. Oh, right. It's the only reason I know.
00:07:40
So they're doing a tattooing event where there's going to be a bunch of My Favorite Murder Flash Tattoo by a bunch of different tattoo artists.
00:07:49
Does flash tattoo mean they do it as fast as they can? No, it means you're like, I want you to pick off the wall.
00:07:53
Oh, great. It's not like you have this is my mother's signature type of shit. No, no, no.
00:07:58
I think that's right. I'm not a tattoo artist anymore, so I wouldn't know. But please come back to the fold.
00:08:03
So there. So which of the woods tattoo on February 5th is doing a tattooing nails tarot card like event.
00:08:12
And the money that they make is going to go to make your move Missoula, which make your move is a nonprofit that does stuff like consent education and sexual violence.
00:08:23
prevention. So I think that's really awesome. Beautiful. Love it. That's very cool. Thanks,
00:08:28
you guys. Thanks. It's Witch of the Woods is the name of the tattoo parlor. That's right. And you
00:08:32
can find them on Instagram. I feel like excited to be associated with any business called the
00:08:37
Witch of the Woods. Yeah, that's right. I'm absolutely down. One of us. I'm also a witch
00:08:44
in the woods. That's right. Use your hashtag MFM tattoo, everyone, because that's how we see
00:08:50
your tattoos. Oh, and then we can see the results of the event. Yeah, we can post them.
00:08:57
That's very cool. Well, the thing I was going to mention is we talked last week about how
00:09:02
fascinating snow is. Yeah, all that. I think that's so made fun of for people in the Midwest
00:09:07
and other snowy areas. There was somebody that wrote in, I can't find it right now,
00:09:11
but somebody just wrote, I've never even seen an ice pick. What are you talking about?
00:09:16
I live in the snow and I've never even looked at an ice pick before. right it's so funny and then apparently in newfoundland there was or saint john's there was
00:09:24
a blizzard where i saw this sped up footage um that was like from a nest cam and you just watch
00:09:30
the snow go all the way up to the to the like overhang roof of this porch it it looked like
00:09:36
they had 10 feet of snow it was crazy and so apparently this blizzard people were like
00:09:41
snowboarding and skiing in the street and like it turned into like fun times because no one could do
00:09:47
anything. We got a lot of pictures sent about that. Thanks, guys. It's really nice. You know,
00:09:52
educate us about snow. Because we need to. Dumb Southern California girls. I'm kind of
00:09:58
heartbroken that they killed off Mr. Peanut. That's sad, but that's my personal. I told
00:10:04
you about the murder you're doing this week. I'm covering it. Everyone's saying that the
00:10:09
advertising company did it like for a promotion. It was a murder. Oh, and I'm here to tell
00:10:15
you about it. Tell me. Okay, so this person with a peanut allergy. No, sorry. In crossover news.
00:10:22
Yeah. Oh, yeah. We are going to be on Murder Squad next week. Yeah, February 3rd. Yeah.
00:10:28
Talking about what did we talk about? The staircase. That's right. God, that was good.
00:10:34
That was really fun. Paul Holes talks a lot and he's great. You know, the thing about Paul Holes
00:10:39
is he knows what he's talking about and being around that is really nice. It's really that
00:10:44
was not passive aggression toward you but no fuck you i guess it was no i think it was
00:10:51
no uh but what i but at one point he says a thing that i think is like an easter egg worth
00:11:00
listening to so you can just hear it for yourself i don't want to spoiler it yeah that has the
00:11:05
ability to reignite the hot for holes movement because he is the real deal yes um it was really
00:11:12
cool just to be able to be like, speculation, speculation, speculation. What do you think,
00:11:16
Paul Holes? And then get the answer to it. Not more speculation. Not more speculation.
00:11:20
It's like, here's science and experience. And how the law works. Goodbye. And goodbye. Look, nothing against
00:11:28
Billy Jensen. He's a gem as well. Billy Jensen's holding it all down. Billy Jensen provides the stage
00:11:34
for which Paul Holes can then come in. And hold it down on his own. No, no, no, no.
00:11:40
Yeah, it was really fun. It was great. It's a good episode. You should check it out.
00:11:45
Murder Squad. Murder Squad. They know what they're doing over there. That's the tagline.
00:11:50
Murder Squad. They know what they're doing. They know what they're doing over there on Mondays.
00:11:54
Gestures randomly Points to the wall Are we first or are they first I think it we Do you mean you as we No
00:12:06
When you say they, do you mean you? No. I think it's you this week. Is it me? Okay.
00:12:12
Steven says yes, it's me this week. So it is we. So it is they. It's the royal I.
00:12:18
Are we okay? Is there a gas leak in this office? Is the question. Guys, it's been quite a day.
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up because nobody plans anything bro good thing the rug's ready like that for real rain dirt
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midsides class excluding electrical vehicles based on manufacturer websites hey everyone it's cal pen
00:14:11
host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Will Wheaton,
00:14:18
who played Gordy Lachance in Stand By Me 40 years ago, and now narrates Stephen King's The Body, the novella that inspired it all.
00:14:27
We talk about what it's like to return to a story that shaped his life, channeling his memories of River Phoenix in the recording booth,
00:14:34
and why the friendships you have at 12 might be the most important ones you'll ever have.
00:14:39
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.
00:14:49
Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:14:56
Tell me a story, Georgia. Let me tell you a story. Let me tell you two stories. Okay. I mean, I guess I have the time.
00:15:04
It's short, but I mean, it's two stories of wrongful conviction. Nice. Okay. Yes.
00:15:11
And high time. And about fucking time. Yeah. This first one is the story of the Fairbanks Four.
00:15:18
Ooh, Alaska? Uh-huh. No, Chris Fairbanks. Chris Fairbanks. So this one's kind of still ongoing and wrapping up right now.
00:15:27
And I've been seeing a lot of news about it. So I thought, like, let's get into it.
00:15:30
Yes. And I got information from the National Registry of Exonerations, the Pacific Standard website,
00:15:36
article by Elizabeth Fairfield Stokes, a Newsweek article by Josh Sowell, and a Daily Beast article
00:15:43
by Kate Brickwillette. At 2.50 in the morning on October 11, 1997, in Fairbanks, Alaska,
00:15:52
a passerby notices a body that's lying half on the sidewalk, half in the street,
00:15:57
unconscious, and he calls 911. Brutally beaten and unconscious, as I just said, A local news station shows the victim's badly beaten face on a broadcast because they don't know who it is and they need to identify him.
00:16:11
Okay. And two of this person's closest friends freak out when they recognize that it's their friend.
00:16:19
It's 15-year-old John Hartman, a well-legged high school student from Fairbanks.
00:16:25
John dies later that day at the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. Horrible. Yeah. So the night of John Hartman's fatal attack, a wedding is happening in town.
00:16:34
17-year-old Eugene Vent, who had been partying at the wedding reception earlier that night, is the first suspect to be picked up.
00:16:42
And it's because the wedding after party was broken up by police, and he's brought in for questioning after a witness at the party said that he saw Vent with a gun, which is a fact that he's later tried and acquitted for.
00:16:56
So it's not even true. Okay. When he's brought in for questioning, Vence's blood alcohol level is 0.158%, which is twice Alaska's legal limit.
00:17:05
Yeah. And he waives his right to speak to an attorney or his mother. Because he's drunk.
00:17:11
Because he's drunk. How drunk is that? So what's our legal limit here? 0.08. So how many drinks is that about?
00:17:17
Do you know? I would say he maybe had a six-pack. That's my unprofessional but yet alcoholic guess.
00:17:24
Okay. I think 1.5 something is pretty high. Yeah, that's high. It's high. Yeah. Utilizing the read technique, which is a now discredited interrogation approach that has been proven to lead to false confessions, especially when it's used on minors.
00:17:39
Detective Aaron Ring aggressively interrogates the young man for hours before he finally caves and names his high school basketball teammates from before and school friends as his accomplices.
00:17:52
So it Eugene Vent who admitting to it as well as Kevin Pease who 19 George Freese who 21 and 19 Marvin Roberts And they become known as the Fairbanks Four
00:18:05
Okay. So George Freese had visited the emergency room for foot pain the day after the murder,
00:18:11
telling the doctor that he had drunkenly kicked someone the night before but can't remember much else.
00:18:15
That's the problem with when you party and then something bad happens and people go,
00:18:20
oh, you may have done it. Yeah. We're just like, yeah, you could have. Well, you can understand why those dots would be connected.
00:18:26
Sure. You know? So investigators take Frieza's boot, which authorities later present as evidence.
00:18:32
Meanwhile, authorities tell Marvin Roberts that his car's tires match skid marks left near the scene,
00:18:39
and they play a recording event statement implicating him in the crime. So they're like, someone already admitted that you did this.
00:18:45
Roberts is the high school valedictorian, and he insists on his innocence and repeats over and over again that he wasn't even there.
00:18:52
Still, police had their motive. It was a group of friends on a joyride, and it was a robbery gone wrong.
00:18:58
The murder of Hartman and the resulting investigation and trial totally divides the town of Fairbanks.
00:19:03
Hartman was white, and the Fairbanks Four are indigenous peoples identifying culturally as Athabascan.
00:19:11
Fairbanks already has racial tensions due to the Alaskan native peoples being forced to adjust and assimilate during decades of an influx of white people.
00:19:19
Yeah. Having no actual physical evidence against the Fairbanks Four, police and prosecutors, they fabricate a boot impression and show that it matches the marks on Hartman's bruised body.
00:19:32
Sorry, what year is this? 91? Jesus. Nope. Sorry. 97. Oh, my God. Like, too recent.
00:19:39
Yeah. I really wanted you to say 75. All right. No, sorry. That sucks. And happens a lot.
00:19:45
Yeah. So in an affidavit, a forensic expert calls the state's exhibit extremely misleading and a misrepresentation.
00:19:53
But the second key piece of evidence is a supposed eyewitness who, despite having been drinking for hours that day, smoking pot, snorting coke the night of the murders, he testifies that he saw the four defendants attack the victim.
00:20:08
And in court, he admits he couldn't see the suspect's faces since he was 550 feet away.
00:20:14
Oh, my God. Right. That's very far. It's quite far. How many beers is that far away?
00:20:19
That's like 16 beers away. Yeah. But he identifies them through their profiles and haircuts.
00:20:26
Yeah, dude. No, no. Meanwhile, Marvin Roberts has an airtight alibi. Several people who are credible witnesses testify that they saw him at that wedding on the dance floor or giving people rides home around the time of Hartman's attack.
00:20:43
Instead, the prosecutor claims that the Alaskan natives are lying for each other and that he compares them to the slaves conspiring against their owners in the film Spartacus.
00:20:55
Oh, my God. Can you fucking believe that? Your Honor. Your Honor, I object to this intense disrespect.
00:21:04
It's just insulting to those witnesses who are coming forward to defend. Well, and also, this is all going on record.
00:21:12
Yeah. I feel like that's a thing maybe that's becoming more real now because the digital age, everything is permanent and everything's public and everything's online or whatever.
00:21:24
But it's just like you can – and they have done this in little towns where it's like we control reality.
00:21:30
But that ain't it. No. You can't just say everyone's a liar. Right. So that you can get your stuff done on time.
00:21:38
Totally. Totally. Horrifying. In 1999, they're all found guilty. George Freese is sentenced to 40 years in prison.
00:21:45
Eugene Venn is sentenced to 38 years. Marvin Roberts is sentenced to 33 years. And Kevin Peace is sentenced to 60 years in prison.
00:21:55
In 2008, after more than seven years of investigating the case, Brian O'Donohue, he's a former reporter for the Fairbanks Daily News Minor, who was a journalist professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
00:22:08
He publishes a series of articles in the newspaper that strongly suggests that the Fairbanks Four are innocent.
00:22:14
The series draws on years of reporting by O'Donoghue's students, which like, what a fucking incredible case.
00:22:21
He's like, guess what? You're actually going to learn something. We're really going to do something here.
00:22:25
Takes a fucking textbook and tears it in half. Everyone, this shit, get rid of it.
00:22:30
Everyone tear your book in half. You guys, you guys figure out reality. That's right.
00:22:34
The students had looked into the case during a journalism class, which is like, oh, my God.
00:22:40
Based on the articles, the Alaska Innocence Project starts reinvestigating the case.
00:22:44
And in 2013, so in 1999 is when they were convicted. In 2013, after contacting dozens of witnesses, attorneys for the project filed a post-conviction motion on behalf of the defendants seeking a new trial.
00:22:58
They claim that someone named William Holmes, he's a former drug dealer serving a life sentence in California for murder.
00:23:04
And four of his friends are actually responsible for Hartman's murder. This guy, William Holmes, according to the motion, admits that he was the driver of a car containing the men who killed Hartman.
00:23:15
Oh, my God. Yeah. So they got that guy actually saying it. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah.
00:23:20
So state authorities said they remained confident that Pease, Vent, Roberts and Fries were guilty, but agreed to reinvestigate the case based on the new evidence.
00:23:29
Oh, thank you. Wow. So on December 18, 2015, the prosecution reaches an agreement with the attorneys for the defendants
00:23:38
under which they have to. So here's what's fucking crazy. They're like, okay, we admit that this
00:23:43
doesn't look good for us. The only way they can get out of prison is that they sign something
00:23:48
that says they waive any claims to compensation, meaning they can't sue in the future.
00:23:54
They all have to sign it. One of them is already out on parole. And he has if he doesn't
00:24:00
it, none of them get out. So he's like, this is dirty. Yeah. So they all sign this thing saying,
00:24:07
yes, we promise we won't sue you, which just shows you how much the city knows that they
00:24:11
fucked up. Right. They know this thing's coming. So they're just trying to protect. Right. It's
00:24:15
like admitting that. So they all sign this claim and all the convictions are vacated and the charges
00:24:22
are dismissed. So Friis, Vent and Peace are then released. Roberts had already been released on
00:24:27
parole. And in 2018, of course, all four men file a federal lawsuit challenging the agreement to
00:24:33
waive compensation so they can rightfully sue for a wrongful conviction. Beautiful.
00:24:38
That lawsuit is dismissed on October 22nd, 2018. The one that when they're like, we want to get rid of that and it gets fucking dismissed.
00:24:50
But wait, and here's what's going on right now. Okay. The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
00:24:55
reinstates the lawsuit in January of 2020 this fucking month. Yes. So that's why I've been reading so much about it.
00:25:01
Okay. So they're like, sorry, dude, you can totally fucking. Yes. You can take it to court to potentially sue for that.
00:25:08
Right. So after 18 years behind bars, Kevin Pease says that at least their case has opened a
00:25:15
lot of eyes to violations, civil, criminal, police misconduct, and that hopefully this
00:25:20
story will help prevent a future exoneree or future wrongfully convicted person from
00:25:24
having to take the deal that they took. Yes. Which is a fucking dirty deal. Right.
00:25:29
While the four Fairbanks men are now free, the pursuit of justice for John Hartman has
00:25:33
totally fallen by the wayside. John's father has died. His siblings have tried to move on with their lives.
00:25:39
And the state can't really pursue it because as far as they're concerned, they had the
00:25:43
right people all along. Which is kind of, there's so many shitty and horrifying elements to wrongful convictions
00:25:51
in that way. But that part is especially evil because what they're saying is we don't have to actually find the killer.
00:25:59
Right. Because we've pinned it on these people and shut up because we're done. Right.
00:26:03
And we still think it's them. So we're not going to, you know, with any meaningful, you know, way investigate this all over again because we don't think it's anyone else.
00:26:13
So, of course, you're not going to pay attention to the details. But we don't think that because we've decided not to think it, not because of what the evidence is telling us.
00:26:21
that's what I hate. Yeah. Okay. Here's another one. Okay. Right. So that's we're so basically,
00:26:26
we're waiting to see if they are hopefully going to get compensated for being wrong,
00:26:33
wrongfully convicted. And we also want to see the people who actually killed John Hartman
00:26:38
get justice served. Yeah. So that's against them. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. No,
00:26:43
that makes sense. Wow. That's, that's a huge kind of like, it's because mostly we hear about,
00:26:51
you know, missing and murdered indigenous women. Right. And what a humongous and totally barely
00:26:56
looked into issue that is. Right. But this like that, it's just like, yeah, marginalized people.
00:27:02
Yeah. This happens to them all the time. Yeah. Here's another story of that. This is the Dixmore
00:27:07
five. So we had four and now we have five. Now we have five. I got info from the National
00:27:12
Registry for Exonerations, a Chicago Tribune article by Steve Mills and Todd Lighty and
00:27:18
the Chicago Sun-Times. Dixmore, Illinois. Okay. It's a suburb about 30 minutes outside of Chicago,
00:27:24
and it's completely shaken when on November 19th, 1991, a 14-year-old girl named Catrissa Matthews
00:27:32
vanishes from a bus stop while on her way home from her grandmother's house. And she's just this
00:27:37
young middle school girl. Catrissa is missing for 20 days when her body is found on December 8th,
00:27:43
1991 in a field running along the I-57 in Dixmoor. She had been raped and she had been killed by a
00:27:51
single gunshot from a .24 caliber gun in her mouth. It's awful. State and local police had
00:27:58
no significant leads in the case until 10 months later when someone tells police that he had seen
00:28:05
Catrissa getting into a car with some local boys. So Jonathan Barr, Robert Taylor, and Robert Lee
00:28:11
Veal. They're all 14 at the time. Shane Sharp and Jason Harden were 16. So some 14 year olds and
00:28:19
16 year olds are brought in. On October 29, 1992, police bring in 14 year old Robert Lee Veal
00:28:25
for questioning. After more than five hours of interrogation without his parents or counsel,
00:28:33
Veal signs a handwritten statement implicating himself, Harden, Taylor, Sharp and Barr in the
00:28:38
rape and murder. So it's very much parallel to the Fairbanks. These fucking confessions,
00:28:44
these false confessions that I feel like people are finally realizing are very easy to coerce,
00:28:50
especially out of minors. And after a long period of time, the pattern is the same.
00:28:57
Right, exactly. So later that same day, Robert Taylor also signs a statement, also outside the presence of his parents or counsel, implicating himself and all four others
00:29:06
in the crime. So it's not just one, it's two so far. Two days later, after more than 21 hours in
00:29:13
custody, Sharp also signs a handwritten statement implicating himself and the others. Like if out of
00:29:18
five people, three of them confess to it falsely, you've got some big issues inside of your
00:29:24
department. Well, and also just for that case you have, there's so much work to do to go backwards
00:29:30
out of that. Right. I mean, like, it's stressing me out. I wrongful conviction, man. It is so
00:29:37
upsetting. It's so stressful. I think it's everyone's fear. Totally. I mean, it really is
00:29:42
when, when, when no one is with you, when no one is advising you, you have no, there's no one to
00:29:47
help you. Yeah. And then the authorities that are there are hell bent on. They have their beliefs
00:29:52
and they are not going to rest And they are you know they smart people who who been doing this for a long time And they if they yeah they something telling them that it you They not going to accept any other answer
00:30:06
In June 1994, while the five awaited trial, the state police crime lab tests the DNA from semen recovered from the scene.
00:30:15
They find that the profile identifies zero of the five teens, but actually comes from a lone male.
00:30:22
OK, totally different lone male. The police and Cook County State's attorney office are like, let's not worry about that right now.
00:30:29
And proceed with the prosecution based on the three confessions, even though the confessions contradicted each other regarding facts about the case.
00:30:37
So they don't even have to fucking line up. Yeah. You know? Yeah. No one has their story straight, which is a problem.
00:30:43
Right. So Veal and Sharp plead guilty to first degree murder and receive 20 year sentences with parole available after seven years because they pled guilty.
00:30:54
in exchange. And they do that in exchange for agreeing to testify against Hardin, Taylor and
00:30:59
Barr. So basically, they got the deal, right? They were the first ones to accept this deal,
00:31:05
you know, which is I hate that, too. Or it's like, if you rat this other person out first,
00:31:10
you get a better deal than they do for no fucking reason. It's it's dirty. It is very dirty.
00:31:15
Hardin and like, it's like, don't take someone don't take someone to trial unless you have enough
00:31:19
to prosecute them against, aside from one of the admitted, you know, other participants
00:31:26
saying they're involved. Does that make any sense? It does. I know it's not always like that. It's
00:31:30
not always perfect. And this has probably been a way to get some people behind bars who totally
00:31:34
deserve to be there. But you can't cheat. You can't cheat if you're the cops. You can't cheat
00:31:39
if you're the authority. You can't do it that way. And that's the way the ideal version of the
00:31:44
justice system was set up is that you it's innocent until proven guilty. And that's the
00:31:50
upsetting thing to me is it feels like being a fan of true crime and reading these stories.
00:31:55
There's so many stories we hear where there's psycho white serial killers. When they get brought
00:32:01
to court, there's one piece of evidence that's like a little janky. And so suddenly the case
00:32:07
is dismissed or whatever. We've heard those stories where it's like there wasn't enough
00:32:12
evidence we couldn't prosecute him. And then suddenly it's like, we've got the one piece of
00:32:16
evidence that basically we had control over. And that's going to get us through because these are
00:32:22
people of color. Right. So Hardin and Taylor are tried together and they receive 80 years in prison.
00:32:28
Bars tried separately. He's convicted and sentenced to 85 years in prison. All of their
00:32:32
appeals are denied, including a post-conviction request for additional DNA testing. In August 2009,
00:32:38
Hardin, Taylor, and Barr's pro bono attorneys, Tara Thompson of the University of Chicago
00:32:44
Exoneration Project and the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth and a Chicago attorney,
00:32:51
Jennifer Blagg, together with a New York-based Innocence Project, renewed the effort to obtain
00:32:56
new DNA testing. Innocence Project! Cook County Circuit Court Judge Michelle Simmons ordered the testing.
00:33:04
She's like, great, let's get some more DNA testing. But for more than a year, the Dixmore police claimed that they were unable to locate the evidence.
00:33:12
They're like, we can't find it. We don't know where it is. So they claim they can't find the evidence.
00:33:17
And then Judge Simmons orders them to allow the defendant's attorney to inspect the department's evidence storage areas.
00:33:23
Amazing. Then here we fucking come. And they're like, oh, abracadabra. The police are like, we found the evidence.
00:33:31
What a coincidence. So now these law enforcement people that were involved in this kind of cover up, he feels are getting muscled the way they muscled the children that they had in custody.
00:33:44
One of my most one of the most infuriating things to me is when evidence gets lost, whether it's not whether or not it's like purposeful.
00:33:50
Like this seems to be allegedly allegedly or when there's like a, you know, the fire that destroys them.
00:33:57
I mean, it drives me fucking crazy. Right. Because it's so much work to collect it.
00:34:02
It's so much work. And there's answers there. It matters. It matters so much. Yeah.
00:34:06
So in March 2011, the new testing fails again to link any of the teens to the crime.
00:34:12
And instead, after the DNA profiles run through CODIS, it matches a sex offender named Willie Randolph.
00:34:20
Wow. Who at the time of the crime, he's a 33-year-old sex offender. He lived in the victim's neighborhood and was on parole after serving a 20-year sentence for armed robbery.
00:34:30
Jesus. I feel like when there's a sex crime, they look into the sex offenders in the area first, right?
00:34:37
That's kind of a thing. Not if you can pull in five teenagers that have probably no money or juice to get defended.
00:34:46
Totally. On November 3, 2011, the state's attorney's office dismissed all charges against the defendants after they served.
00:34:55
It was like 10 to 19 years each. They had already all served in prison, respectively, for a crime they hadn't committed.
00:35:02
In 2014, the Illinois State Police agrees to pay $40 million. Holy shit. The largest group settlement in the state at the time to the Dixmore Five.
00:35:13
Yeah. Peter Newfield, the attorney representing one of the wrongfully convicted men, said, quote,
00:35:18
What you have here in Cook County is an epidemic, an epidemic of false confessions of juveniles, primarily people of color.
00:35:25
So in August 2016, more than five years after the DNA tests were completed, which is insane.
00:35:33
Very frustrating. Randolph is finally charged with murder, kidnapping and the predatory sexual assault of Catrissa Matthews, Cook County State's attorney.
00:35:43
This is insane. Anita Alvarez. So she had been forced under public pressure to lift the convictions initially and to create a conviction integrity unit to save face suggested that it was possible that someone had raped the victim after the exonerated boys had killed her to account for the DNA Let it fucking go
00:36:05
Can't let it go. That this fucking sexual predator stumbled along after the Dixmore Five had killed her.
00:36:13
And he was also a necrophiliac. Yeah, that was her excuse. They all did it. Come on, guys.
00:36:19
Yeah, she would not let it go. But she did offer, quote, sincere apologies to the men and their families.
00:36:25
She says that the system did not protect them and victimize them in a way that can never possibly be repaired.
00:36:31
No shit. But she argued that reforms have been implemented, quote, to ensure that no person is wrongfully convicted.
00:36:39
Let's hope. Let's hope. Also, there's a chance. Let's just try to be fair. Sometimes.
00:36:45
No. That she was told to say that. Uh-huh. Like, that basically you need to simultaneously defend law enforcement while still giving.
00:36:55
Right. Or for legal reasons, too. Yeah, or for whatever. Or just kind of like you have to throw something out there that justifies the fact that we, you know, we did our best to destroy children's lives.
00:37:07
At Randolph's trial, Catrissa's mother, Teresa Matthews, this poor fucking woman.
00:37:12
She's went through all of their trials in the Dixmore Five and now has to go through another trial.
00:37:18
Yeah, and sit through this entire thing. Teresa Matthews, she sat up front saying, quote, I want to see his face.
00:37:25
I thank God it's happening because I just want justice for my child. She had dreams.
00:37:31
She wanted to be somebody in life. And that is the story of the Dixmore Five and the murder of Catrissa Matthews.
00:37:37
Wow. I know. Teresa must be an incredibly strong person. Absolutely. Because that also she has to be there to witness what's happening to these boys.
00:37:47
So she already has the complete life destroying heartbreak of losing her daughter.
00:37:53
And then because of that loss, these boys have this loss. And she thinks for years that they did it.
00:37:58
They're behind bars and then suddenly has to get this. And I'm sure life altering news that that it's possible the wrong people are there when she probably believed firmly in her heart that they had done it and have to come to terms with that.
00:38:10
And all the trust. Yeah. Jesus. Wow. Amazing. Thank you. Those are, I'm so glad to know about both of those stories.
00:38:19
Isn't that crazy? I've been reading about it. I mean, it's just bananas. Yeah. Hi, this is Tori Spelling from Miss Spelling.
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Awards based on 2025 model year, newer models may be shown. Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn, host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club.
00:40:03
This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Divergent author Veronica Roth to talk about her sprawling new novel, Seek the Traitor's Son.
00:40:12
It's a sci-fi fantasy epic about two protagonists on opposite sides of a war and a prophecy neither of them wanted.
00:40:19
My first book was Divergent. And when that came out, like, because it was so popular, I think it attracted like mostly positivity.
00:40:26
but the negativity I sucked in like a sponge. And I think it was like critiques of things I liked when I was like,
00:40:34
you know, I was 23 and I wrote this book and it had all my like dorky little cheesy
00:40:38
or maybe unrealistic loves in it. And I started to feel a lot of shame about those things.
00:40:45
And so for the rest of my career, I steered away from those little things that like make you feel pleasure when you read.
00:40:53
But I also was like saying no to these parts of myself that I then was like, screw it.
00:41:01
So that's this book. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:41:11
It's interesting that you did basically a topical because mine's topical, too. Is it?
00:41:18
Yes, it is. and that's why I had Jay call and ask you what yours was because I was afraid it would overlap
00:41:23
wait, does this have to do with lions? Lion? Never mind, no you mean the live action Lion King that came out last year?
00:41:32
I'm basically doing a live reading of this script and I'm singing all the songs no, I'm going to cover
00:41:37
the very recently re-emerging case of the pillowcase rapist of southern Florida have you heard anything about this?
00:41:47
yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, this is a good one. DNA, DNA. It's all DNA. And it was suggested by Vanessa.
00:41:55
Her Twitter handle is at Vanessa underlying Kelly And she was like are you seeing this Do you see what I see Right We love those Vanessa are very what are they
00:42:05
Humble. I don't know. I'm making that up. They're humble and they're usually Scorpio.
00:42:10
Yeah. So thanks, Vanessa. What's cool about this also kind of like parallel, the majority of the information in what I'm about to read you, but also in everything I looked up.
00:42:22
The source was always always came back to this Miami Herald reporter of the time in the 80s named Edna Buchanan.
00:42:30
Cool. She basically she was the crime beat reporter for the Miami Herald in the 80s.
00:42:35
And she got on this case and was all about it. And she eventually won a Pulitzer for her reporting for the for the crime beat at the Miami Herald.
00:42:45
Not enough Edna's anymore. Not enough Edna's. And also because I was thinking I had her in my mind like she was from the 40s.
00:42:51
I'm like, but it's the 80s. Well, the 80s had the 40s comeback thing. I guess it did.
00:42:57
You know, shoulder pads and stuff. Edna, she did like that grandma drag that I love so much in the 80s,
00:43:02
where you just get like an old vintage house dress and some big clompy shoes. Hi, it's me.
00:43:07
Yeah. Hi. This is my style. I'm Edna. I'm your grandma. So anyway, Edna, kick-ass reporter.
00:43:13
essentially, I was trying to make this go chronologically, but every quote I had and
00:43:19
every piece of information, it was like, it would all come back to the same article.
00:43:23
So the majority of this is Edna Buchanan's reporting, Edna Buchanan's reporting.
00:43:29
But there's also information from the New York Times, Washington Post, AP News, and CNN,
00:43:34
because it is a, what we might call breaking news story. Reanimated. Yes, that's right.
00:43:40
Okay, so sometime in 1978, maybe 1979, it's still vague. But a woman named Jill Trent, who's in her mid-20s, she lives in a duplex in West Palm, Florida.
00:43:51
And she wakes up one night, there's an intruder in her apartment. And he wraps her head in a pillowcase.
00:43:58
He threatens her with a sharp object that she can't see. He very calmly and quietly tells her to shut up, which I find very disturbing.
00:44:08
He rapes her and then he leaves. And she, of course, reports the crime to the police.
00:44:14
They started an investigation. But, of course, she can't tell them what he looked like.
00:44:19
And he barely spoke. And he was very fastidious about not leaving any trace behind.
00:44:25
Wow. So they had nothing. And meanwhile, every time Jill goes back home to her apartment, she relives it.
00:44:31
And, of course, it's just so much trauma. So she decides to move in with her sister for a while.
00:44:38
God bless sisters. and eventually she starts to get back on her feet. But of course, every time the investigators call with like an update or a question, she's right back in.
00:44:47
She eventually decides to move to Washington State and she basically just avoids any criminal news reports that come out of Florida.
00:44:55
And no arrests is ever made in her case. And she basically all but gives up hope that anything will until last week.
00:45:04
Am I right? Jill told the Miami Herald. I felt like somebody punched me right in the chest
00:45:11
I couldn't breathe I couldn't talk my husband thought I was having a heart attack
00:45:15
I finally got the words out I think that's him and it brought it all back you'd think after 40 years it'd be gone
00:45:23
but it's not of course it's not so Jill's attack would end up being the first in a series of horrifying rapes
00:45:31
that would continue through the 80s and into the 90s by an attacker who was so mysterious and there was so little information about him that everyone
00:45:42
just called him the pillowcase rapist. That's such a long period of time to be active.
00:45:47
There's a lot of parallels in this story to Golden State Killer. It's the same feeling.
00:45:53
And you can all go see his, there's video of him in his first preliminary trial.
00:46:01
and he's just an old, he looks a lot like Joseph D'Angelo, but he's not playing the old feeble man card.
00:46:10
He is wearing a bolt-proof vest, though. Oh, is he scared? I think they have to put it on people like that
00:46:17
because it's high profile and people are fucking pissed. Like, people pay attention.
00:46:23
Okay, so we're back in the 80s. It's May 1st, 1981. An intruder breaks into the home of a 24-year-old secretary
00:46:31
at the, I'm guessing it's pronounced Elysian or Alicean, but who knows what an apartment
00:46:40
complex is pronounced like in 1981. That's true. I couldn't find the database. They had some wild apartment names back then.
00:46:47
In Florida? Are you kidding me? So she lives at this apartment complex in Doral.
00:46:52
I didn't look the name of the pronunciation. That sounds right. I didn't look that one up either.
00:46:56
It's just west of Miami. Okay. Gotta be Doral. It must be. Okay, so this attacker covers this woman's face with a pillowcase and rapes her.
00:47:06
She can't give the police a clear description of him. There's almost no evidence from the scene.
00:47:11
And there will be four more rapes in the same apartment building over the next year.
00:47:17
No. All with the same MO. That is some targeted, terrifying shit. Yes. This man is close by and he is stalking and planning and it's horrifying.
00:47:31
You just hope that like after one of these incidents, there'd be more security at this apartment building.
00:47:37
Yeah. Or after the third one. Right. I mean, yeah. Okay. So, but it does go to this man was incredibly, he planned.
00:47:47
And the police later say they think he's spending 10 to 12 hours a day, like surveilling and stalking these women.
00:47:55
Holy shit. It's like his full-time job. Yeah, so, okay. Then a few days before Christmas,
00:48:00
A year later, a woman is wrapping gifts in her Fort Lauderdale home. When an intruder appears, he holds a knife to her back.
00:48:09
He wraps her head in a pillowcase and he rapes her. In the middle of this attack, her roommate comes home, sees what's happening, grabs a pair of scissors and chases him off.
00:48:18
Yay. Yes. But of course, they report the incident to the police, but neither are able to give a good description of the man.
00:48:25
They couldn't see him. All these stories are very similar. And that woman chooses to, the first two choose to remain anonymous.
00:48:35
In July of 1983, a 20-year-old art student named Marianne Ritter is attacked in her Coconut Grove apartment.
00:48:41
An intruder breaks in through an opening underneath a window. He grabs her, forces her into the bathroom, rapes her at knife point, and this time his face is wrapped in the pillowcase.
00:48:52
Ew. Horrifying. She has a roommate. Marianne has a roommate, but her roommate slept through the entire attack.
00:48:58
which is horrible for everybody. Totally. Horrible. And like the victims before her,
00:49:04
she's unable to provide a description. Yeah. On December of his face, I should say.
00:49:10
On December 28th, 1983, a 25-year-old woman identified as just Evie, the initials Evie,
00:49:18
she's in her Miami Day department when the pillowcase rapist breaks in. When she screams, he puts a hand over her mouth,
00:49:25
knocks her to the ground, he then stabs her in the abdomen with what they believe was an ice pick.
00:49:31
Oh. Yeah. And he threatens to kill her if she doesn't stop screaming. So she does.
00:49:36
He forces her into the bedroom. He covers her face with a blanket and then a pillow and rapes her.
00:49:41
When she tells him she can't breathe, he quietly tells her to shut up. It's one of the only things he says to his victims.
00:49:47
Creepy. Okay. So by February of 1985, authorities realize they have a serial rapist
00:49:53
and a very dangerous one on their hands. They're nowhere close to catching him. He doesn't leave evidence.
00:50:00
They can't, you know, no one can describe him. So they set up a task force of 50 investigators.
00:50:06
And it's headed by a man named Detective Dave Simmons. And at the time, Dave Simmons is 35.
00:50:13
So Simmons and his team hold a press conference to go public with everything that they know.
00:50:18
And basically they say this intruder, this rapist, is targeting young professional women in their 20s or 30s
00:50:25
who usually are single. Most of them have lived alone and in condos, townhouses and apartments.
00:50:32
He stalks them beforehand as the behavior reflects of him knowing about them and that they will be
00:50:38
alone if they do have roommates. And he finds their way in, usually through an unlocked door
00:50:45
or window, usually ties them, covers either their face, his face, or both with a pillowcase or a
00:50:52
piece of material and then threatens them with a sharp object. So scary. Now that's going on in your town.
00:50:58
It's so violent. It's so, yeah, it's so horrifying. Okay. So now we, uh, Miami Herald reporter,
00:51:06
Edna Buchanan, she covers this hunt for the rapist with what is referred to as a quote,
00:51:12
a particular tenacity. Yeah, girl. Um, she's good at what she does. And then she's like,
00:51:17
yeah, this is, I'm assuming she's like, this is what I'm in this for. Yeah. So she writes an article covering this press conference that the police hold on February 24th, 1985 about this case, because basically the police were trying, you know, basically said we have to go to the public and ask for their help because we this just keeps happening.
00:51:35
We can't let it continue this way. So they hold a very comprehensive press conference.
00:51:40
And so I'm going to read you the article that Edna wrote, like basically from attending that press conference.
00:51:46
It's police ask for help in finding pillowcase rapist. After nearly four years of investigation, Metro Dade police went public Saturday with their most frustrating case, the pillowcase rapist.
00:51:58
Since 1981, the pillowcase rapist, a young, athletic, white American, has stalked career woman in upper middle class apartment complexes from South Miami to Deerfield Beach.
00:52:08
He's raped at least 39 women. Holy fucking shit. So by the time police go public, because clearly they're just pressed, this is how many women have been raped, at least, but probably more.
00:52:22
Edna wrote that. The latest one was Tuesday, yet police can find no one who has seen his face after 39 incidences.
00:52:31
It's methodical. It's methodical. It is. It's psychotic. Yeah. Police can find no one who's seen his face.
00:52:38
It's always covered, often with a towel, a hood, or even his own T-shirt. He's not invisible, Detective Sergeant Christine Eckrell said, but he might as well be.
00:52:49
Among his victims are school teachers, nurses, airline attendants, an artist, a model, an engineer, a health spa instructor, insurance executive, publicist, and student.
00:52:59
They all range from age 17 to 43. All are slender and attractive. Only one lives in a single-family house.
00:53:07
All others live in apartments, townhouses, or condos. On several occasions, the rapist has returned to the home of the victim weeks later.
00:53:16
Almost always, he enters the victim's apartment through an unlocked sliding glass door or open window.
00:53:21
As many as 100 detectives at a time have been assigned to the case. The investigation has cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and police thousands of hours.
00:53:32
The crimes has sparked, and this is an indication of the year that we're in, An index card list of nearly 300 suspects, all of whom, this is pre-computers, all of whom have been eliminated as possibility.
00:53:45
So they had to investigate, interview, and then dismiss 300 suspects. Wow. None of that is in the article.
00:53:54
Elaborate surveillance in which police moved victims out of their apartments replacing them with police women who physically resemble the rapist target Wow Hundreds of strategy sessions among law enforcement agencies in Dade Broward and Palm Beach counties
00:54:09
Civic condo and crime watch meetings with warnings to thousands of tenants in large apartment complexes.
00:54:14
Half a dozen civil lawsuits by outraged victims suing their landlords for lack of security.
00:54:20
The use of state and FBI resources to no avail. police have established certain physical facts about the rapist his shoe size is 10 and a half
00:54:30
his blood type is common it's o but has rare and identifiable subgrouping characteristic found only
00:54:37
in one percent of the population he's a screeter and also that's like this is the pre-dna thing
00:54:43
where they're like yeah oh wait we found a subgroup right that's that's all they have you got
00:54:47
sexually he frequently is unable to maintain an erection he is probably somewhere between
00:54:53
his mid-20s and early 30s, white American with no accent. He is 5'8 to 11 inches tall,
00:55:00
about 170 pounds with a slim muscular build and fair skin. He often is well tanned. His hair is
00:55:07
dirty blonde or medium brown. He's clean and neat and wears jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers.
00:55:13
His hands are not rough or calloused. I feel as though I know him, Metro Sergeant David Simmons,
00:55:19
chief investigator in the case, says he is the cleverest rapist I've ever investigated and
00:55:25
definitely the most prolific in Dade County history. Police have revisited the 39 victims
00:55:30
they know about and they have encouraged them to move. Quote, we're telling them there's a
00:55:35
possibility he'll be back, Simmons says. Five weeks after one rape, he returned to the victim's
00:55:41
apartment. She was not there. He masturbated on her lingerie. Laboratory tests established the
00:55:47
identification as have tests for the 38 other victims when the same victim took a hot shower
00:55:54
one day three weeks later the steam made visible an obscene message the rapist had scrawled with
00:56:00
his fingertip on her bathroom mirror oh nightmare uh-huh and edge on edgewater drive in coral gables
00:56:08
he raped a woman in a fashionable high-rise apartment he returned four weeks later and
00:56:12
raped her neighbor one door away. What the fuck? A newly hired security guard saw the second victim
00:56:19
park her car and walk into the building. From a distance, he saw the rapist follow her,
00:56:24
walking about 50 feet behind. The man looked ordinary. Oh, he saw his face. He saw his face,
00:56:32
but from 50 feet. Oh. The first reported rape occurred May 1st, 1981, and at the Elysian
00:56:39
Lakes Apartments, and so this is clearly before they knew about the real first one, at 4920
00:56:46
Northwest 79th Avenue. So was the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th, and the 5th. The next summer,
00:56:53
the crimes began to occur in Coconut Grove, then Broward County, and then back to Dade.
00:56:57
There have also been cases in North Miami, Miami Lakes, Fountain Blue Park, Davie, Taramac,
00:57:04
plantation, Papano beach, Deerfield beach and Oakland park. The most recent took place last Tuesday,
00:57:11
February 19th, the South Miami apartment complex near Southwest 75th street and 59th
00:57:17
Avenue. The victim stepped across the hall to visit briefly with a woman neighbor.
00:57:21
She did not lock her door. She remembered. She returned 10 minutes later to watch Hollywood wives on TV at 9 PM.
00:57:30
Sure. Details. the rapist was waiting hiding inside a walk-in closet in her apartment if that right there is
00:57:37
not the fucking yeah specific nightmare everybody has especially young women who live alone
00:57:43
i mean it's also because like there was a 10 minute window and he knew how did he know her
00:57:48
door was unlocked in that 10 minute window he is stalking yeah the people he's already victimized
00:57:53
so this is next level monster shit oh how terrifying and going back not getting caught
00:57:59
and going back is such a nutso thing. He was waiting inside the walk-in apartment closet.
00:58:06
Quote, All she saw was a dark shadow rushed toward her from behind and something pink over her head, Simmons said.
00:58:14
He'd covered her face with a blush-colored towel. Police describe his general pattern.
00:58:19
A few years ago, he would awaken his victim before dawn by placing a pillow over her face.
00:58:23
Now he arrives earlier in the evening assaulting women who are still awake. Oh, God.
00:58:28
quote he's taking more chances simmons says he's becoming bolder of course as we know that's how it
00:58:34
always goes he carries an ice pick or a knife and cuts telephone cords oh god one once he left the
00:58:41
victim's telephone in her refrigerator he often presses his knife to the throats or bodies of the
00:58:46
victim sometimes inflicting minor wounds sometimes he slashes off undergarments he says little to his
00:58:52
victims and warns them constantly, speaking softly in low tones to shut up. Sometimes he
00:58:58
moves the victim from room to room and spins her around to disorient her. Not only is he careful to
00:59:04
hide his own face, he always covers the victim's faces with pillowcases, pillows, blankets, bed
00:59:10
linens, or other items. He constantly warns victims not to look at him. Simmons has a theory about
00:59:16
that. Quote, I have a feeling that maybe something about his face is unusual, a scar, a physical
00:59:21
deformity of some kind, something highly distinctive. Okay. So sorry to read you an
00:59:26
entire article, but as I was trying to write this, I started realizing once I read this article
00:59:32
that all the other articles I was reading and trying to make this chronological,
00:59:36
it was all just Edna's article. So I was like, let's just read Edna's article and get it all
00:59:41
said. She nailed it. I mean, it's so comprehensive. And then can you imagine being a woman in the
00:59:48
80s in the Miami area and picking up your newspaper in the morning and reading what I just read.
00:59:54
That horrifying I mean there so many women You must know someone who knows someone who knows someone who was a victim Right Yeah it crazy Okay so after this press conference after these you know obviously the articles start getting written people start finding out about it thousands of tips start pouring in
01:00:13
So many, in fact, that in May of the same year, IBM donates computer equipment to help the investigators cross-reference thousands of clues.
01:00:23
Oh, good on you, IBM. So this is like, I think I said 1985, which is like the computer is humongous.
01:00:30
They were like, we're donating it, but you have to come down to our facility to use it.
01:00:34
You need an extra room. Yeah. Okay. So in January of 1986, the pillowcase rapist changes his MO.
01:00:40
And I think it's probably because the coverage and the story getting out. Right.
01:00:45
So specific to. Yeah. And clearly he's smart and paying attention to everything.
01:00:49
so he usually targets younger women but this time he breaks into the home of a 69 year old woman and
01:00:56
makes her his next victim not only that but the usually meticulous criminal also fails to clean
01:01:02
up properly and police recover a semen sample from the crime scene an analysis of the semen
01:01:07
sample shows that the attacker's blood type is unique the typo with a subgrouping found in just
01:01:13
one percent of the population which is not enough to identify him outright but it's something that
01:01:18
they will have. See, that was just a little piece of Edna's article that got repurposed into the rest of the story.
01:01:24
Totally. Okay, so then on February 11th, 1986, a 36-year-old woman encounters the intruder in her
01:01:30
home. He's got a pillowcase over his head as he attacks her. It reminds me of that fucking movie, The Strangers.
01:01:37
Yeah, totally. It's a pillowcase on the head, maybe. I don't know what that is. How do you even see, though?
01:01:42
You have a pillowcase on your head. I know. No, he must have cut on eyes. It's horrible.
01:01:46
But this time, again, he's less careful. So he's, it's escalating and he's getting out of control. So, and this woman,
01:01:54
this 36 year old woman is genius because she tells him and insists to him that she's blind as a bat,
01:02:01
that she can't see anything without her glasses that are sitting on her bedside table.
01:02:06
So he believes her and takes the pillowcase off his own head and holds a knife to her throat.
01:02:13
He does rape her, but she was lying. She can see him perfectly. How in a moment of terror and panic she was able to be so clear headed is incredible.
01:02:26
Because I think the thing that maybe we don't talk about and maybe a lot of true crime journalists don't talk about because maybe not everybody has been in this horrifying situation.
01:02:37
situation is there is a bolt, a lightning bolt of strength that must come out of you in these
01:02:44
situations. I bet things get super clear and you are looking for ways to survive.
01:02:50
Well, that's, that's, I was going to say that it's out of all of those cases and there's so many,
01:02:56
there aren't any women who were able to escape him means that this is a very scary,
01:03:02
intimidating person that they didn't feel safe trying to escape. No. So that says so much about him and how terrifying he is.
01:03:10
Yeah. And it's so incredible that she was able to do that. It's genius. Yeah. And to do it convincingly because it's like, it's hard to lie at 7-Eleven.
01:03:20
Totally. You know what I mean? And she did it. Yeah. She nailed it. So armed with the most detailed description of the attacker ever, this woman describes
01:03:32
his face to police they quickly issue a police sketch the task force distributes one million
01:03:38
flyers of this sketch i'm looking it up right now they even commissioned a sculptor named tony
01:03:42
lopez to create a clay bust of his head oh my god tony lopez is like i got this this will be free
01:03:49
it's my it's my pleasure to sculpt this piece of shit's head on the house um and yeah there's good
01:03:55
pictures of both the head sculpture and the um flyer that went around he basically looks like
01:04:01
anybody. Yeah. Yeah. But if you knew him, you would be like, that looks like so-and-so. Right.
01:04:08
Local and national news outlets broadcast the sketch and the sculpture. Nothing comes of it.
01:04:14
So frustrating. That must've been heartbreaking for all those, that entire task force, everybody involved is just like, we're so close. Yeah. A month later
01:04:23
on March 14th, 1986, an 82 year old woman awakes at roughly 530 in the morning to a man standing
01:04:31
over her bed with a pillowcase covering his face man you get through all the shit in life
01:04:36
and you fucking serve your time it's to wake up at 82 to that it's all the worst but this is kind
01:04:46
of depravity victim depravity stuff that is just like it's off the charts his eyes are showing in
01:04:53
this situation. After the attack, this is fucking rad, she tears the metal dish towel
01:05:01
rack off the kitchen wall and chases him out through the back door. Girl! She is
01:05:07
fucking pissed in that very same way of, I didn't fucking live 82 years for this bullshit.
01:05:13
Oh my god. She is the 45th and final recorded victim in this rape crime spree. Wow.
01:05:22
He makes off with her wedding band, but leaves a bizarre set of clothes behind. A pair of women's red bikini style underwear,
01:05:29
a pair of little girls ruffled red nylon panties. Disgusting. A cream collared woman's sleeveless
01:05:35
undershirt, navy blue leather purse with two crumpled department store bags inside of it,
01:05:41
and an unidentified item of men's clothing. He leaves all of that behind. He brought that all with him?
01:05:48
Yes. And leaves it behind when he barely ever left anything. She chased him out.
01:05:54
She chased him out He didn have time to get his creepy trinkets Weird bullshit But the police actually consult a Miami psychologist a man named William R Samick
01:06:05
He theorizes that he left them behind because he's, quote, setting himself up to be caught.
01:06:12
Oh. So it might be that, that he's like, can't do it anymore. Subconsciously, like.
01:06:17
Yeah. Yeah. So after the February 1986 rape of the 45th reported victim who ripped the fucking paper towel shit off the wall,
01:06:27
was like, I will kill you. The attacks suddenly stop. On April 3rd, 1987, the task force is officially disbanded.
01:06:36
And this shocking serial rape case goes cold. Until. Oh, my God. 32 years later, September 2019, the police respond to a domestic disturbance call
01:06:47
where a woman has reported that her boyfriend, 29-year-old Robert J. Kohler, threatened her, broke her flower pots outside of her home,
01:06:54
and tried to break into her house through a window. He's arrested. He's charged with attempted burglary, criminal mischief, and domestic violence.
01:07:01
And he's 29. He's 29, yeah. Okay. Because the charges brought against him are felonies,
01:07:06
police are required to take a DNA sample and enter it into CODIS. Prosecutors end up dismissing the case.
01:07:13
But a little over two weeks ago on January 13th, 2020, that DNA sample of Robert Kohler's reveals a familial match to a cold case, the rape of Evie from December 28th, 1983.
01:07:30
Oh, my God. So investigators, there's a cold case squad, I will call them, but I don't know how many people are on it.
01:07:39
But there are cold case investigators that immediately get it, pick it up, start looking into it.
01:07:43
They learned that Kohler's 60-year-old father, Robert Kohler Sr., is a registered sex offender who pled guilty to rape charges in Palm Beach County in 1991.
01:07:54
so it turns out so I looked it up Palm Beach County is just about two hours away from Miami
01:08:02
so it's far enough away that they didn't pick it up it wasn't on their register exactly that the police
01:08:08
there weren't as familiar as like Miami metro area or Miami Dade I don't want to act like I know
01:08:15
turns out Robert Kohler Sr. was arrested for breaking into Owen's home in the middle of the night
01:08:21
covering up her face and raping her Oh, convicts were not required to give DNA samples in the 90s like they are today.
01:08:30
Robert Kohler Sr. walked away from that rape charge with probation and and with no DNA left behind.
01:08:37
No, no, no, no, no. Apparently, none of the investigators in the Palm Beach County in Palm Beach County in the 90s recognized the pillowcase rapist.
01:08:46
Right. Now, I will say this. When I Googled the pillowcase rapist, more than one came up.
01:08:54
OK, so we do have to remember that this is a thing that happens horrifyingly a lot.
01:09:01
So we can't be like, what? Why didn't they memorize that when it's like, I bet you they had their own version.
01:09:06
And there was no like database where you could be like put in the M.O. and you can just type in like uses a pillowcase covers like hopefully today there are stuff like that.
01:09:15
Yes, totally. Got it. So and a lot of times when we talk about cases like this are like from the 80s where it's like it's the detective that.
01:09:23
what was that one? Was it from The Man in the Window? Where I can't remember which detective,
01:09:29
one of the early Golden State Killer original detectives, one of them just walked around
01:09:34
and asked people, hey, do you have a, like, would basically make conversation with other detectives
01:09:40
just to see what they had to compare, just to kind of keep the conversation going about it.
01:09:46
I mean, it takes a lot of extra work, I think, and stuff like this. Anyway, not to be overly
01:09:51
defensive. Do it. Sometimes we must. Sometimes. The way I wrote this was, apparently none of these investigators
01:09:57
in Palm Beach County recognized the MO or made the connection to the Pillowcase Rapist
01:10:02
series, but this cold case team sure did. So they placed Robert Kohler Sr. under surveillance. Investigators
01:10:09
followed him to a grocery store, managed to pull his DNA off the shopping cart he
01:10:14
used, and a door handle he pulled. It's amazing these days that out of just fingerprints you can get
01:10:21
DNA. Yes. Incredible. Yeah, just the... Touch DNA. I love when a guy smokes a cigarette, flicks the butt,
01:10:29
and they walk up three minutes later with some tweezers. When police run those DNA
01:10:35
samples, they get a preliminary match to the 1983 rape of the victim identified as EV.
01:10:41
They now have enough solid evidence for an arrest warrant, so on Saturday, January 18th...
01:10:47
What? What's that, 11 days ago? What day is it? 10 days. Yeah, 11 days ago, police arrive at Robert Kohler Sr.'s home in Palm Bay, Florida, and arrest him.
01:10:57
They also secure a search warrant to look through his house. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
01:11:01
They find several safes that contain jewelry and trinkets that police believe are souvenirs from the rape series in the 80s.
01:11:10
Yeah, they are. But more disturbing than that, they find an excavated area underneath Kohler's house,
01:11:16
which they have reason to suspect was being built as a dungeon for future victims.
01:11:22
Shut up. Holy shit. It's like, you can say it took too long, it's too late, but then in this case, it's just fucking in time.
01:11:33
Right. So now police are able to take better DNA sample because Kohler is in custody.
01:11:39
And so they take that sample and they entered into CODIS and results come back linking him to 24 more unsolved rape cases from the 80s holy shit so
01:11:51
uh thursday january 23rd uh he appeared in court for his initial hearing he's only been charged with
01:11:57
uh the first rape he was tied to with DNA evidence, which is the one of EVs that occurred on December 28th.
01:12:04
But more charges could be added as this evidence is being gathered, because this literally is like breaking right now.
01:12:11
And in fairness, we need to say that Robert Kohler told the judge at this hearing that he is not guilty.
01:12:18
But it's not his official plea because it wasn't the it wasn't that trial. It wasn't the time. And so his official plea has not yet been entered.
01:12:28
OK, he was denied bond. Yeah. And Detective Dave Simmons, who is now retired, has kept in touch with some of the victims since his days on the task force.
01:12:39
The Miami Herald, of course, interviewed him to ask how he felt when he heard the news of this DNA match and the arrest.
01:12:46
And he said, quote, I felt absolutely thrilled for the victims that we could finally tell them the man was caught, that the cold case squad continued working after I retired.
01:12:56
gets me uh the case has haunted me over the years and a lot of them gave up hope
01:13:01
of course they went and talked to edna buchanan yeah about it she was elated to hear there was an
01:13:07
arrest and she wondered if it would prompt more victims to come forward quote i would i just wish
01:13:13
it was years and years earlier back then so many women would not report a rape because of the way
01:13:19
they were treated. Yeah. So that's a very important part of this because they don't know how many
01:13:26
victims the pillowcase rapist had. And they're just basically starting to dig into the size and
01:13:33
breadth of this case. Crazy. And so there's a woman named Shara Kazovitz, I think. There's a
01:13:43
couple Z's in there. It's a very intimidating last name. But she's a licensed clinical social worker
01:13:47
at Jackson Memorial Hospital's Roxy Bolton Rape Treatment Center. And she told the Miami Herald,
01:13:54
quote, one of the ways people avoid is not reading the news or social media, like Jill that I talked about at the very beginning. And that can bring back a lot of
01:14:03
feelings. And a lot of people don't get help until years later, they avoid it, and then something
01:14:09
will trigger them and all the feelings come back. So she stressed that the rape treatment center
01:14:14
that she works for, which is the Roxy Bolton Rape Treatment Center in Miami. It offers free counseling and support groups for victims, even ones from decades ago.
01:14:26
And she said she told the newspaper it's never too late to get support. And so at the end of one of their articles, the Miami Herald wrote, quote,
01:14:36
as victims grapple with decades old memories, Miami-Dade prosecutors have now set up a hotline for them to call.
01:14:44
What's this, an ape? I just love that they're... Oh, you're crying. They still get to fucking report their fucking rape from 40 years ago.
01:14:55
Thank God, man. Fuck statute of limitations for sexual assaults. I mean, everyone's getting hip to the fact that these crimes matter.
01:15:03
They're real. They're awful. There's no statute of limitations on your trauma. No.
01:15:08
It's forever. It's always valid. Yeah. It needs to be worked through. Yeah. So here's the hotline for Miami-Dade prosecutors.
01:15:16
It's 305-547-0441. Why is reading numbers getting me? It so weird 305 State Attorney Catherine Fernandez said prosecutors will try to file charges in cases in which there is DNA evidence and the victim still available to testify
01:15:37
Yeah. And just for people, because there may be people listening to this who realize that this horrible event that happened in their life is connected to this case.
01:15:48
It's a possibility. Yeah. So just, you know, the Roxy Bolton Rape Treatment Center is the only comprehensive rape treatment center in Miami-Dade County and one of the few rape treatment centers nationwide to provide an all inclusive approach to the care to the care and treatment of victims of sexual assault over the age of 12.
01:16:08
so there's really good resources for the women of southern florida which is a very heartening thing
01:16:16
to know because as this case is breaking and as this case kind of really gets delved into
01:16:22
just like golden state killer i think that you know lots of things are going to be discovered
01:16:28
and lots of people are going to i don't know who knows yeah what's going to happen yeah but but
01:16:34
it's very nice to know these there's resources there that are that are great yeah and that's
01:16:39
the breaking cold case story of the fucking pillowcase rapist that is incredible great job
01:16:45
thank you that's why i understand why you made jay ask me how annoying would that be we can't
01:16:51
you're like and now i go first pillowcase rapist wow i know oh you know i love cold cases being
01:16:58
solved so much. It's so it's one of the good things that's happening. It's really good. Yeah,
01:17:04
it's happening, guys. And remember, old trauma deserves to be heard, heard and taken care of. And, you know, treated as well. So no matter how you think,
01:17:17
like, oh, I should be over this by now. And it's been too long. And, you know, that's trauma doesn't
01:17:23
have a time limit and trauma lives in places and buries itself until years and years later
01:17:28
and, you know, comes out in weird manifestations and, you know, you can't do it wrong. Right.
01:17:35
It's going to be hard and messy, but you can't do it wrong. And there are people who know how
01:17:41
to help you. Right. And, you know, just from what the, the, what I read, it's not like I
01:17:46
know so much about it, but it's just so cool that that rape treatment center really seems
01:17:51
They're all about the full comprehensive care. Yeah. So it's not just like, let's get this evidence and let's get your report.
01:18:00
It really seems like there's such good support systems in place. Yeah. Which is, you know, it's really nice to be able to say that every once in a while.
01:18:10
In one of these fucking stories. Totally. Yeah. Great job. Thank you. Emotional episode.
01:18:20
Journeys. what's it's the weirdest thing reading a phone number yeah but i think it was just like that
01:18:25
just that idea that it's an it's like a offering to to victims yeah and they're respecting it they're
01:18:32
just they're basically saying we want to hear from you we want to know what this really is as opposed
01:18:38
to some of the stories we read where it's just like uh yeah that's not convenient yeah or in 1991
01:18:44
when he gets parole for a sexual assault. Wow. Okay. Well I feel like my fucking hooray isn good enough I mean I think we always feel that way It hard to take a left turn and go like here a valid thing My fucking hooray is that I just took the news app off my phone
01:19:03
That's good. Oh, my God. I was going down this constant rabbit hole. And I want to stay informed.
01:19:09
And so I do find other ways of reading the news and everything and staying up on current events.
01:19:14
But that news app that I would constantly refresh and get so many articles that had nothing to do with either news or me taking that off has been a huge anxiety reducer for me.
01:19:28
I bet. That's very smart. It's like there's we've all it's a very recent thing that we all suddenly started believing that we have to know what's going on all the time.
01:19:39
Right. It's not true. Yeah. For years, millennia, most people had no fucking clue what was going on.
01:19:47
You know what's going on in your family and your town. Yeah. And that was it. And if someone came up to you and punched you in the arm at the grocery store, that would be a thing.
01:19:54
But it's so good. That's very nice. Yeah. What's worse? I think mine needs to be, my dad came down to visit.
01:20:02
Jim. Big Jim. We had a real fun dinner last night, me and you and Vince and Jim.
01:20:07
but I was just kind of in my house with him today and we, I mean, I love my dad.
01:20:15
My dad's the greatest, but I couldn't stop thinking about how fun he is to talk to.
01:20:21
He loves to tell stories. He's fucking hilarious. His references are like of the moment.
01:20:28
He's interested in other people. He's interested in like learning about what's going on.
01:20:33
I love hanging out with him. He was on a on our drive to dinner. We had to take a like a conference call. I was like, sorry, you just have to listen to this. And he I when we got when we got off the phone, I was like, sorry, I know that's kind of irritating. And he was like, are you kidding me? I love this. This is fascinating. You guys are so you're doing big business and you're so smart.
01:20:54
he was stoked about it and it was just like I had a wave of deep gratitude that I think I rarely have
01:21:03
because I'm very spoiled you know I thought everyone's parents were like that growing up
01:21:08
where it's like a dad that my dad when my sister and I were obsessed with the Outsiders
01:21:13
when we read it when we were 12 the S.E. Hinton book he took it and read it after us
01:21:18
and then called me Ponyboy and my sister Soda Pop Like he wants to be in the world
01:21:25
He's involved in your life Yeah and as like an 80 year old white man These days he's kind of
01:21:30
A lone He's a lone wolf a little bit Liberal and everything And more like You know he's really mad about what's happening
01:21:41
What's happening around him What's happening to people his age The way he's seeing people kind of
01:21:47
Fall for bullshit Anyway hooray for Jim I guess I feel like I kind of finally understand how much I lucked out in the in the dad lottery.
01:21:57
That's awesome. I love that. Yeah. I like I like hanging out with him a lot. You guys are so I always loop you and Vincent.
01:22:04
I'm like, I want to get dinner because my dad could hang out with Vince forever.
01:22:09
It's their long lost best. Totally. It's hilarious. Oh, it's so great. Yay. Also he really supported you stopping dry January Why you do that Georgia goes I stopped drinking for the month of January
01:22:28
He goes, why the hell would you do that? That's how it is in my family. Mine too.
01:22:34
I love it. Rad, what's your fucking array? Let us know. Yeah. Let us know what yours is.
01:22:40
That's a great idea. On Instagram, let's start doing a comment on what your fucking array is.
01:22:45
I'd love to hear other people's fucking array. And we can read a couple other people's and then do our own.
01:22:50
That's a good idea. We can steal other people's story. And then be like, I don't know what you mean.
01:22:55
This has been mine the whole time. This is mine. My puppy. What? You don't have a puppy.
01:23:00
What? And My Favorite Murder on Instagram. And what is it? My Favorite Murder on Twitter.
01:23:06
And MyFavoriteMurder.com. I couldn't get My Favorite Murder when I set up the Twitter account.
01:23:14
We didn't think it would be a big deal. I honestly didn't think it would ever come up.
01:23:18
I was just like, yeah, you want me to start a social media? I remember when I was doing shirts and I got MyFavoriteMurderShirts.com.
01:23:25
Because I just didn't think it would be more than shirts. Right? We'd just do some shirts.
01:23:28
Why would it be? Thanks for listening. You guys are the best. Thanks for letting us do more than shirts with merch.
01:23:35
That's right. And, of course, you can find all of our official merch on MyFavoriteMurder.org.
01:23:42
No. Dot E-D-U. No. What is it? Calm. dot c-a-l-m and stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye elvis do you want a cookie
01:23:54
why is it always chaos when we link up because nobody plans anything bro good thing the rug's
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ready like that for real rain dirt whatever available all-wheel drive five modes we still
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outside and they got some kick too that turbo torque is crazy the most in its class it moves
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moves rogue doesn't mess around and peep the space merch on merch gear mics all the fits load up we
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out 2026 nissan rogue built for all of it auto pacific segmentation 2026 rogue versus latest
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in-market competitors in the x suv mainstream midsides class excluding electrical vehicles
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based on manufacturer websites running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group
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project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales. And somehow,
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none of them talk to each other. That's where Odoo comes in. An all-in-one business management
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software that brings every part of your business together. From sales and accounting to inventory
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and marketing, all in one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs.
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And best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with
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one unified system. Try for free today at odoo.com slash iHeartRadio. That's odoo.com slash iHeartRadio.
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This episode is brought to you in part by Vital Farms. Have you noticed that the egg section at
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the grocery store has gotten very complicated lately? But Vital Farms makes it simple. Pasture
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raised eggs traceable to the farm. Their hens have outdoor access year round with fresh air and
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sunshine and forage on rotated pastures with local grasses. Every carton can be traced back
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to the farm it came from so you can see the pasture where the hens live by visiting vitalfarms.com
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slash farm. Look for the black carton in the egg aisle and visit vitalfarms.com to learn more.
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Vital Farms, good eggs, no shortcuts. Goodbye.