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Data accurate as of 220-26. Hello. Hi. And welcome. I didn't know we were starting. Welcome to My Favorite Murder.
00:02:36
We didn't do the thing where we nod at each other for five seconds before we actually launch into
00:02:40
it. Do prayer hands. I busted out. You did. I busted out by starting without you and I busted
00:02:46
out by biting into an apple right before we started. Like that was anything you can do
00:02:52
in the entire timeframe of doing a podcast. Eating an apple never comes into it.
00:02:56
That's Karen Kilgara. Oh, that's Georgia Hardstart. I'm not eating an apple. I'm drinking a kombucha because I'm just pretending I'm drinking alcohol.
00:03:05
And it's not alcohol. I bet there's a little bit of alcohol in there. Oh, I hope so.
00:03:09
Because it's fermented, right? Because I put whiskey in it. Oh, because both hands are shaking really hard.
00:03:15
Have you ever seen those really, like it's in the movies and stuff, where there's a really old drunk whose hands shake so bad he has to tie a kerchief around one hand and then pull it around his neck so he can pull his hand up to pour a drink.
00:03:26
into his mouth no yeah oh the ravages of alcohol just saying today's 15 days off for me really yeah
00:03:34
i didn't want to ask because i didn't want to put pressure on i get it yeah but so i'll just say it
00:03:39
to your past two weeks i know that's incredible congratulations thank you what's going on do you
00:03:44
want to report any feelings any are you having hallucinations no how are how shaky are your hands
00:03:49
i'm good i'm sleeping fucking amazingly i'm not having those 3 a.m shame hours where i just wake
00:03:56
up and I'm like, why'd you fucking drink again last night? Like you were gonna, this time you're
00:04:00
gonna do it. And hating myself, not having those. I'm not taking naps. I'm feeling fucking good.
00:04:06
That's great. Yeah. Well, the poison's leaving the body. Is it? The poison's leaving the system.
00:04:11
How long does it take to not feel like? Um, God, from what I can remember from medical school,
00:04:18
It's right around. I don't know. I mean, I say you're basically I'd say a month.
00:04:27
Yeah. I think they usually say 28 days of a habit broken is a broken habit. So I think if you, you know, but I but I bet you just system wise, like running clean for two over two weeks is primo.
00:04:41
You're in you're in golden state. Thank you. And I've just been shoveling turmeric into my face.
00:04:46
What's that do? it helps with inflammation nice do you have anything? any other tips or tricks for how you got
00:04:53
two weeks is a long time I am falling asleep listening to the book that I recommended
00:04:57
I've listened to it three or four times at this point nice it's This Naked Life by Annie Grace
00:05:03
I'll fucking say it again it has changed everything for me amazing and I have other suggestions too at some point
00:05:09
we'll have a full talk through about it I love it because you talking about that last week
00:05:16
I was like, you don't have to, it doesn't have to be alcohol to be pointing and looking
00:05:21
at a thing that you want to let go of. Yeah. And it's just more about the, because I actually kind of breezed through that book just to
00:05:28
see how alcohol centric it was. Yeah. And I was like, oh no, I could completely listen to this.
00:05:33
Yeah. To be, you could just have it about food. You could have it about weed, whatever you want.
00:05:38
Yeah. About, I mean, those aren't my problem. I didn't mean you. I want, I want to do it about just being too nice to people and it being too helpful.
00:05:46
I truly didn't mean you when I said that. And somehow I hit you spot on. Well, it's all I talk about.
00:05:54
It all I talk about But you know there are these things where like you know Apples before podcasts Just eating just into a honey crisp just one bite and throwing it away That a terrible habit that has to get rid of I think these days though the stress and
00:06:08
daily horror that everyone is dealing with, and that, you know, just the the temperature
00:06:14
and literally figuratively, politically, people are relying on things probably now more than
00:06:21
ever. A hundred percent. And coping with things that maybe might not be working. So stuff like
00:06:26
this and these conversations, I think can be really helpful, even if it's cash, even if it's
00:06:30
not like, yeah, oh, I crashed my car for the fifth time or whatever. Yeah. But it's just kind of like,
00:06:35
I want to figure out what actually feels good. Yeah. Not what my habit is. You know what I've
00:06:40
been thinking about? I, you know, in AA, you hit rock, people hit rock bottom and that's when you
00:06:45
decide to quit. Yeah. I haven't done that, but I think I've hit rock boredom or I'm so fucking
00:06:50
bored when I drink and I'm so bored. I drink because I'm bored and I'm bored of that. And I
00:06:56
want something new. Right. You know what I mean? A hundred percent. Okay. Because it's almost like
00:07:01
you're like, I'm just going to go walk down that same hallway again. Right. And so, yes, there's
00:07:05
great things down that hallway. There's a pinball machine and there's drama. Right. And there's like,
00:07:10
woo, confetti and shit. Yeah. And it's like, you're more yourself or so you think,
00:07:14
you're more excited and happy or so you think. Yeah. And that hallway. Brave. There's all these
00:07:18
things the hallway makes you believe right but then yeah after a while you're like is there any
00:07:23
other fucking part of this house i could please go sit in for a while that is a great analogy it
00:07:28
is an analogy well a great job thank you it might even be a metaphor but who can say now i would like
00:07:36
to talk about something more important than your sobriety and that's a new tv show that i found
00:07:41
love it let's do it um and i'm surprised because i was so excited about this show
00:07:46
that I thought I could get you. But again, it's proven that we are polar opposites
00:07:52
and do not have the same taste. It's HBO's new series starring and directed by the great Jason Bateman called The Outsider
00:08:00
that is about did he or did he not commit this crime? And I think it's so good. I do too, but I accidentally, like a year ago,
00:08:10
read the book and I didn't like it. Right. So I stopped. So I think it's kind of clouding how I look at it, but I do really like it and I'm going to watch it.
00:08:20
And also probably needs to be said also, Stephen King has recently said some problematic shit that other people wouldn't like.
00:08:27
So that might be clouding it for some people. I didn't even realize he had anything to do with it.
00:08:33
So I watched it and got these big The Night Of feelings, those old. Remember, was that 2016 or 2017?
00:08:41
That was so nice. And we're like, yes, what is this? What is it? Who is Riz Ahmed?
00:08:45
I love it. Why is this taking over my life? I only want to look at this TV show for the rest of my life.
00:08:50
It's similar feelings in that way. And then also just I've loved Jason Bateman since, you know, he came into my life via Silver Spoon.
00:08:58
Sure. The great syndicated Ricky Schroeder vehicle as the villain. Then he got his own show called What's Your Move?
00:09:08
What the fuck was that what it was called? And it was like a kid with a single mom.
00:09:12
And the guy across the hall wanted to date his mom. And it was so it was like him versus the adult.
00:09:16
I never saw that. It's so good. He is so fucking good as a child actor. He's like 12 years old.
00:09:23
And he it's like he's fucking he's unbelievable. What's the actor who's also in the show who is in Bloodline?
00:09:30
What's his name? He's amazing. Is it Norman Reedus? No, that's the guy from Walking Dead.
00:09:36
Is it should be pausing. Also, the detective from The Night Of is also on it as the lawyer.
00:09:43
oh is that okay so the detective that's like a all anti-riz Ahmed and then Ben Mendelsohn Ben
00:09:52
Mendelsohn is the guy from bloodline yes and he's incredible he's so good I love him he's the
00:09:57
detective in this one yeah then the lawyer is the guy that was the detective on the night of that's
00:10:02
why that's where I was getting my night of feeling got it good let me change the subject
00:10:06
casually and cleanly change the subject cool okay I just saw this news that I wanted to tell you
00:10:12
because I thought you would love it as much as I did. Please. So there's this soccer team.
00:10:17
You know, you and I went and saw soccer when we were in the UK. Yes, we call it football.
00:10:21
Football. It's so much fun. So there's a soccer team. They're called Roma. They're from Italy.
00:10:26
And they're like, big deal. A big deal. They're called Roma. They're from Italy.
00:10:35
Yeah. Yeah. Can you believe it? It's so crazy. Who'd have thunk? So I guess they're like known for having a really witty, funny Twitter account.
00:10:44
Oh, and now they've done something where so incoming transfer announcements. That's when like we have this new player.
00:10:50
Was that what that that's what that means? Sure. I don't know shit about sports.
00:10:53
So I'm going to get this wrong. I text Vince the other day when he was watching football.
00:10:56
How many innings are left? Not even to be cute. I was not being cute. I just didn't.
00:11:03
I don't. Sure. I'm not. So now when they post a photo and like a news announcement of their incoming transfers, their new players, side by side with it, they pair a slideshow and pics of missing children from various countries.
00:11:17
No. So every time and it's a big news when someone gets transferred. Every time someone clicks on it to read the news, there are missing children that you need to keep an eye out.
00:11:26
And guess what? Six fucking children have been found because of this. No. How amazing is that?
00:11:30
Oh, are you crying? Am I going to cry? Oh, God. I can't. I'm holding my cheeks. Take a bite of an apple.
00:11:36
That's very. Push that down. Do what you like. A bite of this apple. That's beautiful.
00:11:43
Isn't that amazing? Absolutely. What people should be doing. For no reason. They have no fucking stake in it.
00:11:48
It's just like such a good thing to do. It somebody within that club or within that system over there It realizes this gets all this attention And for what Aside from the joy of this sport which God bless that Yeah But what else could we be actually doing Totally That
00:12:06
incredible. Beautiful. It's incredible. Arrivederci, Roma. Actually, and you know, the fall line.
00:12:16
The fall line on Instagram, their Instagram account is a lot of those missing people, too. And it's a lot of
00:12:23
missing people that are not that are marginalized in the community. So they're, so they're missing person information isn't as widespread as it would be for someone,
00:12:33
right? Say, who's white. So yes, it's really so the fall line follow them to because we and
00:12:37
everyone knows this, especially people that follow true crime. But God, we've been so
00:12:41
the media has taught us that the most important missing person is a blonde teenage girl over the
00:12:48
years. We have been indoctrinated into believing that. And it's really beautiful when we can
00:12:53
start changing that narrative any way anyone can. The Fall Line's been working on that so hard.
00:12:59
I wanted to read this tweet because this girl sent this. So as we talked about last week, right?
00:13:06
Yeah. God, was that last week? Yeah, yeah. Murder Squad got their first cold case solved.
00:13:11
Amazing. Very exciting. You can go listen to that episode now. So there was a lot of online action about that.
00:13:19
I'm trying to talk and read Twitter at the same time. Did you see it's in Rolling Stone?
00:13:22
It's in Rolling Stone? That they did that? They did a little article on Rolling Stones.
00:13:26
I didn't know that. Paul Hulls and Billy Jensen talking. Oh, hell yeah. And they got all their pictures ready of them sitting really moodily on the side of a desk.
00:13:35
Yeah. So beautiful. So everyone's all excited for the murder squads solve. And then a listener named Shelby wrote in.
00:13:45
Shelby. Shelby. The Exactly Right Network podcast, The Fall Line, led former prosecutor Laura Coates to bring the case of the Millbrook twins
00:13:53
to Oxygen to help investigate their disappearance. The true power of podcasting.
00:13:57
That's fucking right. So I thought that was super cool that she basically saw the other heat
00:14:01
and was like, can we actually turn this back a little bit to the fall line? Because those guys, you know, they're doing amazing work.
00:14:08
They are. They're very under the radar about it. They just do it and they're getting it done.
00:14:12
And it's not like Paul and Billy. You have to be like, oh, we're so next on. Oh, come on.
00:14:18
Look at over here. Can I admit something to you? Always. Here's my this is Dirty Secret Corner.
00:14:24
Let me hear it. I never watched, listened to or participated in any way in Dirty John.
00:14:30
Never once. And so all these conversations that we this happens sometimes where I really take a step
00:14:35
back from just getting into true crime. Yeah. Now, as everybody knows, you have to be up to date on everything.
00:14:42
Yes. And people want to talk about all of it. And we do, too. But like sometimes I'm just like, I can't I can't watch another story.
00:14:48
I'm so behind on the podcast, like all the new cool podcasts that are coming out of true
00:14:51
I'm so behind on it. Yeah. I've been up on them lately and God damn, there's some great ones.
00:14:56
There's some ones that are like, it's so, I'm telling you, Murder in Oregon is a humongous
00:15:01
accomplishment. That's the one I did listen to and I loved it. Oh man, it's so good.
00:15:05
And it kind of is like, it's about the power of the press and how we really do need to
00:15:09
protect journalists and the people that are really doing, you know, the journalists in
00:15:13
the media that are doing the good jobs are the sometimes the only people holding anyone,
00:15:18
anyone's feet to the fire ethically. And it's so important. and crucial, especially in this day and age.
00:15:24
So I basically just binged Dirty John, the TV show, for like two days. Basically, I just kind of like my 4 a.m. thing where I can't stop getting up at 4 a.m. and being fully awake.
00:15:36
So I'm just like, I stayed up all night and watched that show. Oh, my God. Which that show is, now I understand what you mean.
00:15:45
It's so infuriating. Even though I only listened to like two episodes. Yeah. Because I just couldn't get through it.
00:15:52
It's so frustrating. It's so frustrating and infuriating. And it reminds me of my mom.
00:15:58
And I just couldn't get... It reminds me of everyone I fucking grew up with in Orange County.
00:16:02
I just can't get through it. It's tough because this woman is a victim. And that is a great story to tell because people getting their lives overtaken by psychopaths.
00:16:13
Totally. And the way those people will stop at nothing to like end thing and the total lack of logic for these people and how they do things.
00:16:23
But the way it was like, it was like nothing's a big deal. Nothing registers. And so these poor children that are being affected by that.
00:16:32
Yeah. I could see it all like it was very emotional and it was very difficult. We're just like these girls.
00:16:38
It didn't matter what they said. and how difficult that is for like kids who grew up in family situations where they didn't get
00:16:45
heard a lot and they didn't get their time and people didn't pay attention. Yeah, man,
00:16:50
that was difficult. I'll tell you, watching your parents date is something that I don't
00:16:55
fucking wish on anyone. It really sucks. It just is like, it's so ugly. Yeah, I bet. You know,
00:17:01
I can't I never had to deal with it. Yeah. So I but I can only imagine that's the vulnerability
00:17:08
of that. Strangers. And you have to be vulnerable to get into that shit and you have to trust people. And that's like
00:17:16
a big thing for me lately. I don't trust anyone. Trust issues are so deep and they're so
00:17:22
fucking like when you get that alarm set off with a trust issue, it like personally,
00:17:30
it's like it rocks your world. It's just like your bell gets rung and you just don't know. And you'll never again
00:17:36
in the same way, unless you act totally vulnerable. But it's like, well, what if you're right?
00:17:40
And what if you're just ignoring fucking red flags? Yes, I know. But, you know, at the same time, you have to do it.
00:17:47
You have to. You have to trust and you have to be open. And it just like this whole study of it was very it was difficult But God damn it God bless Connie Britton What a fucking unbelievably great actress She incredible Oh and so watchable Can I say what I binged this weekend that I had no fucking clue about
00:18:05
I didn't know anything about it before. The Watchmen or just Watchmen. Watchmen.
00:18:10
Yeah. Did you watch it on HBO? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Holy fucking shit. The best, right?
00:18:14
It was like made for me. I love it so much. Fucking Regina King. Regina King. Regina King.
00:18:19
She has been putting in her work day after day, year after year for so long and killing it.
00:18:25
And now she's like, it's so exciting to watch a person who's always been so great.
00:18:31
Continue this rise, just like fucking just continue to rise and rise. And then she is the heart and soul of that series.
00:18:39
And it was so good. I'm not done with it yet. So don't tell me. OK, I don't think I could.
00:18:44
It's so like I read Watchmen and I didn't know what was going on. Yeah, we tried to watch the movie and it was terrible.
00:18:50
I like the movie, but it is that thing of I get very defensive about comic books because I'm like, I don't get symbolism.
00:18:58
You know what I mean? I'm like, I immediately I'm like, I don't know about Greek mythology.
00:19:01
And I bail. Yeah, me too. Oh, I just have to. Did you know Brene Brown is coming out with her own podcast?
00:19:07
Yes, it's new. I think it's out. It's not. There's a trailer. Oh, OK. And then it's like, you know, we can all go run and subscribe.
00:19:13
Yeah. It's called Unlocking Us. Yeah. Yes, girl. Unlock us. Help us. We need you.
00:19:21
We're here for you. Get out here. But it's already like, it's number one, I think.
00:19:26
It is number one. I saw it. That's why I thought it was out. It's number one already.
00:19:29
The trailer is number one. The trailer is number one. Hell yeah. That's how we, so, it's so exciting to welcome Brene Brown to the podcasting community.
00:19:38
We're here with our tray of cold cuts saying welcome to the church hall. I've made a crudité platter.
00:19:43
We're so excited to see you. Yeah. And cannot wait to hear. I don't give a shit if she's just reading off a list of things in her kitchen.
00:19:52
Yeah. I want to hear it. Yeah. It'll be beautiful and helpful. It'll help everyone.
00:19:56
So excited. Those kitchen items. Am I first? You're first. Okay. Right, Stephen.
00:20:02
I saw your notes. I read your notebook earlier. You did? My secret diary. Hello, beautiful.
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00:21:51
Okay, well, speaking of alcoholism, but first speaking of the fact that we asked everyone to send us suggestions of murders that we should cover.
00:22:02
Sure. That was the best fucking idea we've ever had. I mean, it only took us four years.
00:22:07
Yeah, what a great idea. It ended up being great for me because I found this murder that I had never heard of, would have never probably found if Jeannie G hadn't emailed it to us.
00:22:18
Jeannie G! Jeannie G! Jeannie G! Thank you! She also sent us a hilarious photo of a guy on the leg, leg, thigh push machine.
00:22:26
What's it called? I think leg press. Leg press. Who had chicken feet socks on. I saw that.
00:22:31
Okay. Oh, Stephen, I think you sent it to us. Oh, good. No. Maybe you just saw it.
00:22:35
Someone texted it to me. and it was a delight. Go find it, everyone. It's fucking hilarious. Yeah. So this is the blackout
00:22:44
murders. Okay. Any idea yet? Because I feel like you might Texas. No, you might know it because of
00:22:50
the time period. You were the 70s an adult. No. All right. What if I guess the whole story?
00:22:57
Just keep guessing going. What did it take place in Dubuque? No. Okay. So I got info from this from
00:23:05
The New York Times article from 1994 by Joseph Berger, a New York Magazine article by Suzanne O'Malley.
00:23:13
And actually, I looked her up and she's just like, you know, really fucking incredible journalist and author.
00:23:19
And she was a crime journalist. And she's the one who discovered the false testimony during the Andrea Yates trial.
00:23:26
What? Which led to the reversal of her conviction. Remember that? Remind me. Is she the one that drowned the kids?
00:23:33
Andrea Yates is the one who drowned all five of her kids. Okay. One of the, um, one of the prosecution's arguments was that she, she, it was premeditated because
00:23:41
she had seen a Law and Order, um, episode about it. Okay. And then this fucking chick, Suzanne O'Malley figured it out after she had been convicted
00:23:49
that that, the date that that came out was after the trial. Ew chills. Ew. Right?
00:23:55
Ew. Ew. So she got a retrial and this time she was, um, declared insane and sent to the
00:24:00
hospital where she belongs. Yes. So that's pretty incredible. That's congratulations, Suzanne O'Malley.
00:24:06
You're an American hero. That's right. You're a law and order American hero. And she also wrote the 1995, what's it called?
00:24:14
A law and order episode about this case called Privileged. Wait, hold on. Yeah, she's very.
00:24:20
She went on to work on law and order after discovering this thing on law and order.
00:24:24
She just wrote some episodes. Holy shit. Yeah. Incredible. Right. I wonder if she was sitting.
00:24:29
Now, I'm just saying two situations. One, she got herself into that situation and that earned her a job on Law & Order.
00:24:36
Two, she already worked on Law & Order, had an encyclopedic knowledge, and then went, hold on, that's not, that timeline.
00:24:44
Because there was no like sitting in the courtroom Googling like IMDb. There was no such thing as that.
00:24:49
Not in 94. No. Okay. And then also I listened to an episode of Once Upon a Crime about this.
00:24:55
So. Okay. Blackout murders. I'm starting here. I'm starting in the spring of 1990.
00:25:01
Great. Okay. 23-year-old Paul Cox realizes after yet another alcohol-induced blackout that he has a fucking
00:25:08
drinking problem. And his girlfriend's like, you got to go to AA. So he goes. Up until that point, Paul had had a troubled life, even though he had had all these fucking
00:25:18
advantages. He grew up in the town of Larchmont, which is an affluent suburb of New York in Westchester
00:25:24
County, which we all know is fucking bougie as shit. It's bougie here in L.A., Larchmont neighborhood.
00:25:29
That's right. That's like where all the assholes go to pretend to eat pizza. That's right.
00:25:36
Village Pizzeria. I just blew up Larchmont. They'll never have me back. So this is like this is a total waspy town.
00:25:44
And Paul Cox himself is like a waspy, good looking young man born in 1967. He's the fifth of seven kids.
00:25:51
And, you know, when rich people have kids, it's to show off how much money they have.
00:25:54
Sure. Right. Everyone gets a horse. So it's a prominent family in the community, distinguished in the community.
00:26:04
His father is a vice president of Chase Manhattan Bank. So come on. Yeah, privilege, privilege.
00:26:11
They actually have a bowl of cash that's just sitting on their coffee table. You can just take a five or a ten.
00:26:16
Right. So nothing's wrong with privilege. It's just like, take advantage of it, you guys.
00:26:20
What? Don't do that. What a refreshing stance in 2020. There's nothing wrong with privilege.
00:26:27
All right, edit that out immediately. Do not rise. What I meant was do good with it.
00:26:32
I think the name of this episode is there's nothing wrong with privilege. I meant do good things with it.
00:26:37
Be a good person and add to your community. Oh, it's the cancellation trumpets. They're coming for us.
00:26:45
Am I going to get canceled? This is the final one. This is our final cancellation call.
00:26:49
I meant do good things with your privilege. No, stop blowing that goddamn horn of shame.
00:26:55
Do good things with your privilege. Yes. Is the message. Take advantage of it and do good things with your privilege.
00:27:00
The taking advantage is already happening. That's built into privilege. Okay. So as a young kid, he got into trouble like in first grade for stealing money from his parents.
00:27:09
Then he started stealing money from other kids in the class. He had failing grades, which was later determined because it was due to a learning disability, which wasn't, you know, known at the time.
00:27:19
Yeah. They didn't check for that shit back then. No, they were just like, please read fast or we don't care if the letters are all backwards and jumbled up for you.
00:27:26
After a failed suicide attempt, after being sent to a private high school, Paul sees a psychiatrist who says that he had matricidal and patricidal tendencies, which means you want to kill your mom and your dad.
00:27:39
He eventually graduates high school, but had dropped out of the private college.
00:27:43
His dad had pulled strings to get him into. He quits the Air Force two weeks in.
00:27:47
He's like, oh, this sucks. by saying, Oh, this is hard. Yeah, this is not fun or military. That's right. This is not taking
00:27:52
advantage of my privilege. No. He lies on a psychological evaluation to get out. And he was
00:27:58
more into drinking and partying than worrying about his future. As I feel like, you know,
00:28:02
the time and place, it's a pretty normal thing. No judgment. Yeah, especially what's that early
00:28:09
90s? We're talking about? Yeah, that was kind of what everyone did. Yeah, then. There was no
00:28:15
internet. Yeah, there was no forever war. Everyone was chilling. Yeah. And listening to pretty good
00:28:21
music and wearing their dad's card again. That's right. So cut to 1990, when he enters AA and
00:28:28
starts getting into the program and getting sober for the first time since I think even
00:28:31
at like, as a kid, he started drinking. Yeah. Yeah. So after he gets sober, he starts to have
00:28:36
these vivid, crazy dreams and flashbacks in which he kills his parents. They're super realistic,
00:28:44
and they freak him out. But obviously, he didn't kill his parents. They're still alive.
00:28:47
So while working on steps four and five of AA, which are you have to make a moral inventory
00:28:52
of yourself and you have to admit to God, yourself and to another human being your wrongdoings.
00:28:58
So during those steps, he tells his girlfriend that he needs to tell her something.
00:29:02
Oh, he's crying. He's distraught. And he tells her that he thought he actually killed someone during a blackout years before.
00:29:10
He doesn't think it's just a dream. and he's just now remembering the details. See, this is hard.
00:29:16
I know, because I want to ask you about, do you remember blackouts at some point?
00:29:21
Did they come back to you? I would. Really? Yes. There are lots of memories that I have where I drank till I didn't know what was going on,
00:29:31
but then the next day, it would be like my brain would go, hey, do you want to see a Polaroid really quick?
00:29:37
And there's a couple where like, there's one I have that's the most humiliating where I'm in a blackout.
00:29:45
And then the next thing I know is I'm trying to kiss someone and they're moving away with a kind of like horrified look on their face.
00:29:54
But the next day I remember waking up and just having a bad feeling like I did something Something went wrong yeah And then like around 4 p after like four bagels and watching TV for six hours
00:30:05
a quick Polaroid comes up of this guy basically kind of like backing up. And I didn't know until that point.
00:30:13
And then I'm like, oh, no. And it was that kind of thing where it was like if my brain wanted to serve it up,
00:30:17
it would let me know what I did. But other than that, it was. So I also know like the reason this part of the story is giving me the super sweat.
00:30:24
sorry. No, I mean, it's that thing. If you check out, you still are doing things. And that's scary.
00:30:32
It's dangerous. It's totally scary. You're not making decisions anymore. Your subconscious is.
00:30:39
And you're leaving yourself up to the protection of the universe. It's so goddamn dangerous for
00:30:47
personal safety. That's right. I don't know how I do it. I like to thank my friend Dave Messmer,
00:30:53
because oftentimes he was the person that was loading me into a car or loading me over here
00:30:58
loading over there like that thing where like someone's so drunk they can't walk but they're
00:31:03
still fucking walking yeah so you have to kind of run around near them guys keep an eye on your
00:31:08
drunk friends come on everybody make sure that they get home safely okay so let's get back to
00:31:14
the shit yeah so he's distraught and he tells his girlfriend that the he thought he had killed
00:31:19
someone during a blackout he's just now remembering it his girlfriend's like no freaking way i know
00:31:23
you better than anyone. You would have never done that. And she tells him to go talk to his sponsor.
00:31:28
So, which of course is someone in AA who's been through the program longer than you,
00:31:34
who can help guide you through it, essentially. So, Paul tells his sponsor the same thing. He
00:31:39
wasn't certain he had committed the murders and his sponsor basically was like, talk to a lawyer.
00:31:46
And the lawyer, who was also in the program, advised Paul to fucking shut the fuck up,
00:31:51
Stop talking about it. Yeah. Go continue staying sober and go to a therapist. Yeah.
00:31:56
Basically, he's like, stop talking about it because he kept giving more and more details.
00:32:00
Really? Yeah. Like he started to believe it. OK. But Paul couldn't stop remembering details and he couldn't stop talking about it.
00:32:07
So for two years, he told at least seven people in Alcoholics Anonymous about the vivid memories that were coming back to him.
00:32:14
No one said a thing. so okay basically in 1993 this woman wants to move into his apartment with the other roommates
00:32:23
in the program and he's like okay you can move in but i have to tell you something first
00:32:27
i have nightmares and sometimes wake up screaming because i uh i think i might have killed someone
00:32:34
back when i had a blackout but i don't remember fully what happened see now i'm on his lawyer's
00:32:39
side that's just like why would you be telling people that yeah if you don't know for sure yeah
00:32:44
Anyway. All of it. She moves in anyways. Okay. You know, to each his own, etc. So Mrs. H, she's known by Mrs. H.
00:32:55
She decides to move in anyways. But after a couple months, she has to move out for health reasons.
00:33:00
And finally, in January 1993, after two years since he first started telling people about his flashbacks, she finally tells her therapist about it.
00:33:10
Mrs. H does. And she's like, yeah, you got to go to the police about this. So after telling as many as seven people in AA about these flashbacks that he started to think were real, who, because of the anonymous nature of the program, Alcoholics Anonymous, kept the info to themselves.
00:33:26
We had a friend who joined AA and used to come home and tell us every person that was at the meeting, all famous people constantly.
00:33:35
And so my friend Laura called it, he's going to AA. There is no anonymous. and she's just like, he's going to his A meeting.
00:33:44
Oh my God. I always felt very guilty because I knew deep down I was going to end up there soon.
00:33:49
Yeah. And I'd just be like, yeah, I hope no one tells all of my fucking secrets.
00:33:54
But that's very Hollywood because it was always just celebrity. Of course. You know, whatever.
00:33:58
So finally, Paul's story comes out to police. This is the story. In 1988, when Paul was just 21 years old, he was enrolled at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina.
00:34:09
and he had just learned that he was flunking out on all of his classes when he had to go home for
00:34:16
the holidays. So it's December 30th. He'd been drinking heavily all day and night with his
00:34:22
friends. They're at a local bar that night and they're drinking tons of beer and kamikazes,
00:34:28
which is a fucking mistake, let me tell you. What are kamikazes? Vodka and... I just got acid reflux hearing the word kamikaze. I haven't heard that drink name in so long.
00:34:37
Those are the ones that are like It's the bunch of liquor mixed together So it's a little shot that's kind of sweet
00:34:45
It's orangey It is like What the fuck's in there? Vodka, Midori Or like vodka and some kind of
00:34:52
Orange liqueur The kamikaze is made of equal parts vodka, triple sec And lime juice
00:34:57
You guys, stop consuming so much Sugar in your drinks Don't do that It makes you so much more hungover
00:35:05
It adds to the pain But also just like it makes it go down easier in the front. It's all part of the bad decision making where you're just like, I guess I'll have, you know what?
00:35:15
Just put four sugar cubes in a shot of Bailey's Irish cream. Oh, no. So they're fucking absolutely shit faced.
00:35:24
Yeah. And eventually, because he's drunk, he gets into his car. It's his mom's borrowed car to drive his friends home.
00:35:31
Yeah. Since he was drunk driving, he misses a sharp turn and crashes into a guardrail.
00:35:36
Okay. And the car won't start back up again. So they all get out of the car and friends are like, we're walking back to the bar.
00:35:42
Fuck this. And he's like, I'm just going to walk in the opposite direction home.
00:35:45
So he leaves the car there. And what happens next, he says he has no memory of it until he began to get sober.
00:35:54
So instead of walking to his family home Paul goes to the home he had lived in until he was seven years old So that was the first seven years of his life Obviously Why did I say that
00:36:09
Just so everyone's sure. Does everyone know math? If you're seven, that means you've lived seven years.
00:36:14
Okay. Which his family had sold in 1974. So the home had been bought and was still inhabited by Dr. Lakshman Rao Shervu, who's 58, and his wife, Dr. Shanta Shervu, she's 51.
00:36:28
The Shervus are a well-liked and respected family. They had left Bombay, India in 1968 with just their shirts on their back in order to start a new life in LA.
00:36:39
Nope. In order to start a new life in the US. Eventually, Dr. Chervu, Mr. Chervu was able to get his Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry.
00:36:49
He lands. Sorry, I might say that again. Eventually, Dr. Mr. Chervu was able to use his Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry to get a job as a professor of nuclear medicine at Einstein Montefiore Hospital.
00:37:03
Like big, big time. Yes. Big time smart people. Yeah. And in 1974, the family is able to buy the Cox's house in the upscale town of Larchmont, New York, where they had been living.
00:37:13
So they had two children. And while she raised them, Mrs. Dr. Chervu, is that right?
00:37:19
Worked as a lab technician. Well, she's a doctor, too, right? Yeah. Yeah. So just Dr. Chervu.
00:37:24
I just want to make it clear that I'm talking about her. Dr. Rhett. Got it. Cancel.
00:37:33
Cancel. Cancel. I have to say this right now. The pressure building in me of what the story is about to be about the Charvaux is so upsetting to me.
00:37:43
Yeah, you're right. It's so upsetting to me, and it's awful. Let's blame Jeannie G.
00:37:49
Oh, yeah. It's your fault. No, it's awful. It's terrible. It's so bad. It's insane.
00:37:53
They had two kids, and while she raised them, Dr. Shanta worked as a lab technician.
00:37:59
She later goes back to school for her MBA, and in her fucking 40s, She went to medical school in order to reach her lifelong goal of becoming a doctor.
00:38:07
So these are hardworking, intelligent people that are giving back to the community and important members.
00:38:14
They are using their privilege. They're using their privilege for good. That's right.
00:38:19
And at the time, she was a resident, a resident in geriatrics. So they put their children through Princeton.
00:38:24
They supported family members back home in India, and they helped eight of their siblings immigrate to the U.S.
00:38:29
and they were hardworking, intelligent, reliable people, which is why on January 2nd, 1989,
00:38:36
after no one in their life had heard from the couple, the family member goes to the
00:38:40
house to check on them. And when they go around to the back of the house, they see that one of the panes of glass
00:38:45
in the back door has been broken out. And so the family member, there's no cell phones, remember, and he doesn't want to go
00:38:50
in and contaminate the crime scene, gets in his car, drives to the police station and
00:38:54
makes them come back with him. Wow. So when the police arrive, they go to the master bedroom and they find what they described as a war zone.
00:39:02
It's awful. There's blood spattered on the vaulted ceilings, which is crazy. And on the walls and on the floors, it's horrible.
00:39:12
And the bodies of the two doctors are lying on their bed. Rao's still under the covers and Shanta across the bed with her head on his arm.
00:39:21
Shanta had been stabbed nine times. Rao had been stabbed 15 times to their faces, to their bodies, and both of their throats had
00:39:29
been slashed. It's just horrible. There's no sexual assault. There's no robbery. There's no
00:39:34
murder weapon found. There's a handprint or a palm print found at the scene on the pillow,
00:39:41
but they didn't match the more than 60 prints investigators compared them to. Investigators were like, well, you know what probably happened is two hired Indian assassins
00:39:52
as part of a vendetta had killed the Chervus and then fled the country. That's what their that's what their conclusion was when they couldn't figure out who it was.
00:40:00
Yeah, not seeing it. No, that, of course, upset the Chervue family because they felt like their immigrant immigrant status made it so that their case wasn't being taken seriously.
00:40:10
And well, and also just how convenient you make the most convenient story and then go, well, that's probably what happened.
00:40:16
No evidence that that's the that's the case. And then and oh, OK, so then I guess you can close it because the the people from India were killed by people from India who left and went back to India.
00:40:25
Stuff like that doesn't happen here. So it must have been outsiders. Yeah. That thinking.
00:40:30
So for over four years, there's no suspects in the murders of the doctors. Back to Miss H telling the police the story that Paul had told her, including the fact that he said he did it because he had a blackout and had a flashback of abuse and thought he was killing his parents.
00:40:46
So he went back to his childhood home, which they don't talk about. But you and I, this is an opinion podcast, can fucking speculate as to what happened.
00:40:54
And, you know, the abuse that he must have been suffering to want to kill his parents.
00:41:00
Yes. Yeah. She tells them that he had told other AA members as well. And so they bring all those AA members in and they're like, why didn't you tell us what's wrong with you?
00:41:09
The Chervou family is. But you wouldn't. Would you? Yeah, because it's not proven.
00:41:14
And it's not it's a person saying, I'm afraid I did this thing, which is as real as it is not real.
00:41:21
And it's not on those people who are listening to a person kind of dump what however many years of drug abuse and like confusion.
00:41:29
You wouldn't go, oh, I'm going to take this fear you have and go report you. But the more details he starts to over the two years, the more details he starts to come out.
00:41:38
And then he's he says because he knows that this is in his town. So he knows about these murders.
00:41:43
Oh, he does. Yeah, because it's his old house. It comes on the news the next morning.
00:41:47
Yeah, that's... The more detail that comes out, then the more it turns to not... Yeah, that you have to do something.
00:41:53
Yeah so he thought he was killing his parents When he sees the news the next morning he realizes what happened So the Chervou family is super pissed that so many people knew who murdered their parents for two years but hadn come forward while they suffered
00:42:07
So the now 25-year-old Paul Cox, he's a carpenter at this point. He's arrested on May 20, 1993.
00:42:14
And in addition to the statements of AA members, the police had a matching palm print of Cox's from the scene.
00:42:21
Right. So Paul claims that he had woken up the next morning after the murders. He said he was covered in blood.
00:42:27
He didn't know what it was, what was going on. He had the kitchen knife that he had taken from the kitchen, the Sherwood's kitchen, after he had broken in.
00:42:35
But he didn't remember anything from the night before. And so here's a little detail I saw.
00:42:39
Either he or his mother incinerated his bloody clothes. Oh. Yeah. Initially, he was saying that his mom took the clothes and just incinerated them.
00:42:48
Yeah. So she must have had a fucking clue, right? Right. I mean, yeah, you don't burn clothes.
00:42:53
No one burns clothes anymore. It's not, you know. Right. The 10s. No. 1910s. Yeah.
00:42:59
Not the 2010s. And then Paul took the knife and he throws it in a nearby lake. Yeah, he does.
00:43:05
Yeah. So he must have. I mean. So he knew more than he. Yeah. I think, you know, he later saw the news report about the murder of the Chervus.
00:43:13
And he and he he tells people later that he went back to the house to try to clean any
00:43:18
fingerprints. So at that point. he went back to his old childhood home where he broke in and oh yeah now this changes everything
00:43:25
right yeah well that's what's interesting telling the story from his perspective yeah i have so much
00:43:31
empathy yeah for a person who is like like that yeah now that we are hearing it from the charveau's
00:43:38
perspective which is these are two innocent people living a great life in a house they happen to buy
00:43:43
yeah and a monster breaks in the middle of the night and murders them in cold fucking blood but
00:43:48
he it's hard for me to be like well he might still have had been blacked out you know but he's he he
00:43:55
could i don't i'm not fucking making i don't think no no that that's an excuse at all no no um it's
00:44:00
just but as soon as he knew i mean what is he gonna yeah it's just weird it's like you know
00:44:06
that he has a reason but it's certainly no excuse no and it's not a vague concept now that we know
00:44:15
that he knew the news story. That's not a vague concept. He knew exactly what he did
00:44:20
and he just didn't know it. He wasn't positive because he didn't have the exact memory.
00:44:24
But he can put two and two together. Yeah, exactly. But I mean, like, what would you,
00:44:29
like, would you turn yourself in? Yes, fuck yes. You did the bad thing. Sorry, that's part of what,
00:44:34
what being an alcoholic and being a blackout drunk, knowing that you can fuck up like that.
00:44:39
The second you even begin to put that together, at least come forward and say, this could be me.
00:44:44
Yeah. You might want to check some prints of mine. I mean, that's what he should have done.
00:44:49
Totally. So he claimed he didn't remember the killings until after he sobered up in 1990.
00:44:54
And that at the time he thought he was killing his parents. So the state charges Paul Cox with four counts of murder, two for intentional murder and two for depraved indifference murder.
00:45:06
Shit. Cox's attorney decides to go with the defense of not guilty by reason of insanity, saying Paul was in a psychotic state when he killed the couple.
00:45:14
The psychiatrist for the defense said Paul had snapped after a lifetime of being pushed to succeed and having been emotionally neglected by his mother and father.
00:45:24
And from the humiliating way they handled his chronic boyhood bedwetting. So and had during a blackout killed them, essentially.
00:45:33
So he thought I just wonder there had to be more than that. Right. Like the abuse that had his wedding is bad.
00:45:40
That's always a sign of sexual abuse. I mean, perhaps. Yeah. But even then, you can't kill your parents. You can't. There's so many abused people that don't kill their abusers. Like there has to be a line drawn where no matter what your reasons are, they're not justifiable reasons, I think.
00:46:00
Yeah. And so he says it's the psychiatrist says it's almost as if he were going back in time and eliminating the people he sought to blame for all his problems back when he was seven years old.
00:46:12
So when the seven members are subpoenaed to testify against Paul, they're like, well, what the fuck?
00:46:18
They claim their statements should be considered as privileged, just like clergy attorneys and psychiatrists.
00:46:25
they're bound by AA principles of confidentiality, which I've been to AA and NA meetings for some
00:46:31
time on and off. I would never think that it's confidential. No, I mean, confidential between
00:46:38
two people, but not legally binding confidentiality. No, I would never assume that. No, but the judge
00:46:43
and they're not clergy people. They're not. Well, it's not because it's a spirit. They say because
00:46:47
it's spiritual. What's it called? Element? Yeah. Or like it's spiritually grounded. I mean, sure.
00:46:53
up until a point. And I think that point is murder. Right. I think I agree. So the judge
00:46:58
is like, no way, dude. And rules. Oh, the judge agrees. Yeah. Thank God. And rules that the
00:47:03
state law does not extend privilege to self-help groups, which is essentially what it is. All
00:47:08
seven members are ordered to testify, but they're they let them just use like Miss H and like let
00:47:15
them use not full, not full names and their photos are forbidden to be taken. The first trial ends on
00:47:21
June 28th in a mistrial after this one fucking juror who sounds like or like just sounds like everyone's worst nightmare would not accept the other 11 jurors conclusion that Paul Cox was not temporarily insane when he killed the Chervus.
00:47:37
Then this this she had doubts that Paul had even committed the murders, even though the defense admitted that he had.
00:47:43
Oh, so she just like was not. She wasn't accepting the facts that were being presented to her.
00:47:49
She would not off on her own. She would knock it on the carousel and take a ride.
00:47:54
So the carousel of facts. It's real fun. Yeah. Get on there. So they declare a mistrial.
00:48:03
So Paul Cox went to a second trial. And by the way, he had already been bailed out by his parents for like 200 grand and was home on house arrest, which is what privilege gets you.
00:48:13
Wow. Yeah. The parents knowing that they wanted. Isn't that be the creepiest part?
00:48:18
I mean, yeah. Come on home. A lot going on here. Yeah. So he goes to a second trial in December of 1994.
00:48:27
and one difference is that Paul decides to testify in his trial. He tries to get the jury's sympathy by telling of all the abuse he suffered,
00:48:36
such as having, I'm not kidding with this, they gave him gross sandwiches and his school lunch.
00:48:41
His parents sometimes missed his sports games. His siblings didn't wish him a happy birthday
00:48:45
and the gold stars he would get if he didn't wet his bed. So he says that's how he was.
00:48:52
What about those gold stars? He didn't get them? They weren't big enough? What's the problem?
00:48:55
Just the gold stars showing that he would wet his bed in general, you know, or not.
00:49:02
You look mad. I'm livid. I feel tricked that I empathized with him in the beginning.
00:49:08
After deliberating for eight days, the jury rejected the insanity defense, but they also rejected the prosecution's request of a verdict of murder.
00:49:16
And they found that he committed the murders under extreme emotional disturbance and found him guilty of two counts of manslaughter in the first degree.
00:49:23
so now 27 years old Paul Cox is sentenced to uh to like two eight and a half to 25 year sentences
00:49:31
to be served um consecutively so the convictions are appealed because the AA members uh they're
00:49:38
they're it's more of the the clergy convent privilege saying that it was a religion so
00:49:43
they're trying to overturn his whole appeal based on the AA being um being privileged information
00:49:49
Westchester County DA, Janine Pirro, is like, hell no. Oh, Janine Pirro. We know her from Fox News.
00:49:57
Oh, really? Yeah, she's a judge and it appears a lot on Fox News. How did they not know that?
00:50:03
She's been arrested for speeding at like 130 miles an hour. Among other things. Look up.
00:50:11
Wow. Look it up for yourself. She might be your hero. Well, she takes this to the Court of Appeals and they agree with her.
00:50:18
and said that when he talked to AA members about the crime, he was just unburdening himself and seeking empathy and guidance,
00:50:26
not a spiritual, you know, revelation. No. But you can't find anything online. All I could find was he was released in March of 2015.
00:50:38
He said at the trial or a sentencing, I'm profoundly sorry for this tragedy to the Chervou family,
00:50:44
as well as my own family. I was very sick at the time of these actions, and I will regret them for the rest of my life.
00:50:50
Yeah, I bet. And that is the blackout murders. Wow. That's a real emotional and moral quandary there.
00:50:59
There's a lot going on. But you can't, I feel like once you start hearing about there were actual victims,
00:51:07
this was a real murder, this was not a blackout concept. Yeah. And people in town like sided with him and his family being like,
00:51:15
it could have been any, it could have been any of our kids that did that. But it's like, can we
00:51:19
talk about this fucking innocent couple who were sleeping and happened to buy the house? You know,
00:51:24
it's just... Well, maybe, and maybe that's true that it could have been any other kids that did it.
00:51:28
But that what they're saying is any of our kids could be a murderer. So once your kid is a murderer,
00:51:33
you have to go from there. Yeah. Once that is the thing that gets done, it's not a concept. And
00:51:39
the goal should not be to figure out how it's okay that they did that. How to get them out of
00:51:43
trouble. The goal should be you fucking did it. You took human lives. That matters. Let's please
00:51:49
have this matter in a real way. Yeah. Let's get justice for the share of the family. Oh,
00:51:54
God damn it. Yeah. Also, I feel like this, I caught, I was thinking when you were talking
00:51:59
about the part of it being a psychotic episode, but there is a logic to him going to his childhood
00:52:04
home that that I feel like if I was a lawyer and let's hope I'm not, you might be that that would
00:52:18
that would actually indicate logical thinking. And to me, it's the opposite, because he went to a home
00:52:23
that he hadn't lived in for what's math, 13 years, right? And and killed his parents, even though they
00:52:30
hadn't lived there for 13 years like that's how deeply ingrained his pain and his uh you know
00:52:36
his sure but he didn't just go he didn't just walk and go into a random home that's my thing
00:52:43
is that i feel like if you were in a psychotic state you would walk he would be walking and then
00:52:48
kill the first two uh man and woman adult couple that he finds he didn't want to kill people he
00:52:53
wanted to kill his parents right so therefore he does the thing of going to back where he thinks
00:52:59
his parents are. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I guess you could argue it both sides for the exact same fact.
00:53:04
Yeah. But I'm looking at it as it seems like that's actually a planned thing. And therefore, whether there literally are his parents, that is premeditated murder.
00:53:16
Yeah. So even it doesn't make it better that it is his parents or is not his parents.
00:53:22
Yeah. It's an act of premeditated murder within an alcoholic blackout. Yeah. Ugh.
00:53:29
Crazy. Fuck, that's a nuts story. Yeah. I've never heard that. I haven't either.
00:53:34
I was hoping the whole time you were going to tell me it wasn't real and that he somehow
00:53:38
finds the real killer or something. Oh, I'm sorry. No, it's certainly not your fault.
00:53:43
That's not it. Shit. Yeah, that's a touchy one. Fuck. Yeah. Man. Yeah. Great. For real.
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Data accurate as of 2020-26. Are you ready to get into it? Let's do it. To move right along.
00:55:44
Let's move in. Let's settle into this one. I also took a request from a... Great.
00:55:48
From a listener. This is fun. And this one I liked because I feel like it goes along. You do these sometimes and I find them so delightful. I like to put it in the file of outrageous criminals. So it's a little bit lighter and a little bit, a tiny bit less.
00:56:05
Okay. Bad. This is the story of Scott Scurlock, the Hollywood bandit. Okay. All right.
00:56:13
I don't know it yet. Okay. So I'm going to tell it to you. Do it. This was suggested by a listener and their Twitter handle is at Doc under line under slash under slash lower bar.
00:56:30
Are you saying small line way at the bottom? What's it called? Underscore Stephen.
00:56:36
Stephen, the millennial. It's at Doc underscore honey bear. OK. And they're the ones that suggested this one.
00:56:42
Thank you very much. Great. Thank you for thinking of us. so the I got this from Wikipedia of course please give five dollars if you can an article from hub
00:56:53
pages.com which I don't think I've ever seen before it's a really good article called William
00:57:00
Scott Turlock the Hollywood bank robber and the end of the dream and that's written by a writer
00:57:05
named Westman Todd Shaw then there's an article on history link.org written by Daryl C. McCleary
00:57:11
and also some information was taken from an article found on the Washington Secretary of
00:57:18
State's blog called From Our Corner. Oh, wow. Is there a muffin recipe? Please take that up. The State Secretary of Washington is a woman named Kim Wyman.
00:57:31
Okay. Apparently she fucking blogs. Love it. Good for her. Feelings, dreams. Yeah. Challenges.
00:57:38
album she's listening to these days five day challenge and then and then also just remember
00:57:45
this crazy crime yeah okay let's talk about scott surlock who is the hollywood bandit he was born
00:57:51
on march 5th 1955 in fairfax county virginia his father was a baptist minister his mother was an
00:57:56
elementary school teacher he has three sisters um but as opposed to like the usual typical hollywood
00:58:03
thing of like the minister is all strict and you know whatever in fact it was the opposite his
00:58:08
parents were very permissive and scott basically did whatever he wanted he was also charming
00:58:14
charismatic and manipulative and as he got older he started looking like mel gibson so he was
00:58:21
actually of becoming a human monster um in that he clearly did what he wanted and used his kind of
00:58:30
manipulative charm to get his way. Heard of it. I mean, experienced it firsthand.
00:58:37
So... And actually, looking at pictures, he, to me, looks less like Mel Gibson and more like the sheriff
00:58:46
from Jaws. What's that actor's name? Roy Scheider! Roy Scheider! You burped that one out.
00:58:54
That was amazing to watch that. I barfed it up from my internal guts. Please watch Jaws.
00:59:00
Rewatch Jogs if you haven't watched in a while. As opposed to your external cuts.
00:59:04
As opposed to this sack I'm carrying outside my body. Filled with bile. So in 1974, he's 19 years old and he decides to move to Hawaii because his friend, Kevin Myers, is going to the University of Hawaii.
00:59:18
So he's like, I'm going to go chill out there. Great. So Kevin then flunks out of the University of Hawaii.
00:59:23
And so the two of them go to Plan B working on a tomato farm on Oahu. Great. Right?
00:59:30
everyone's plan B in 1976. So they do that for a little while, like a year and a half.
00:59:36
And then one day they're on a hike. And this is in 1976. And they walk across some of the neighbor's land.
00:59:46
And they happen upon a bunch of pot plants. All right. And they see that they take it as a sign that it time to enact plan C Which is stealing all these pot plants Selling pot and making a profit off of it Don steal drugs from drug dealers guys
01:00:05
No, they're like, no, we're all about this. This is the life that we want to live.
01:00:08
So Plan C seamlessly leads into Plan D, which is secretly growing pot plants on the tomato farm where they work.
01:00:15
Wow, that's complicated. Right? But this is just God's plan in action for them. They're just seeing it coming to them,
01:00:22
Because they're like, things are kind of falling apart. And now we're basically helpers of a tomato farmer.
01:00:29
Yeah. And then suddenly it's like, ah. Yeah. The song from The Little Mermaid plays.
01:00:36
And the pot gets its legs. And it marries the prince. What do you call him? Feet.
01:00:43
The pot grows feet and holds up a fork and calls it a whatchamadu and a dingley dong.
01:00:49
Oh. So, so I laughed really hard when I was like, so they took these, they started growing pot
01:00:56
plants on the tomato farm. Yeah. Because in my mind, remembering my cousin growing pot in her mother's field, pot plants
01:01:06
grow very tall in the wild. She actually grew sunflowers plants around so she could hide the pot plants.
01:01:14
Smart. You're narcing out your cousin right now. Well, you know, fucking 40 years ago.
01:01:18
Yeah. But so I started laughing because I was picturing tomato plants being low to the ground.
01:01:23
So there's just like it looks like Christmas trees. And then I looked it up online.
01:01:28
And of course, tomato plants can grow very tall. And tomato plant leaves kind of look like pot leaves.
01:01:33
Oh, OK. So they blend real nice. I was thinking I actually realized I was thinking of pumpkins.
01:01:39
So anyhow. My parents lived on a tomato farm. For real? Yeah. In Israel. Did they really?
01:01:46
Yeah. Did they work the farm? Yeah, you had to. It was a moshav. So it's like a kibbutz where it's like the community has to.
01:01:54
It's like the moshav, so it's like a kibbutz. Oh. Does that make any sense to you?
01:01:58
Sorry. No, no, no. I love it. It's basically like a community that all works together and the money's all, you know.
01:02:04
That's rad. Did they do that in the 60s and 70s? 70s, yeah. Hell yes. Was Janet's hair so long past her butt?
01:02:13
Not past her butt, but it was long. And my parents were so beautiful. Yes. They're still beautiful.
01:02:19
They both are incredibly attractive people. When I see pictures of your mom, I get low self-esteem.
01:02:26
Because Janet's blowout is major. Yeah. She is perfectly put together. You're a beautiful group, you hard stars.
01:02:34
Thank you. You are. Hot cousins. Yeah. Listen, I'm trying to tell a fucking story.
01:02:40
Hey. Hey. So eventually the farmer from the tomato farm, Old MacDonald, he finds the pot plants and he gets rid of the two of them.
01:02:50
Okay. So Scott decides it's time to move back to the mainland. So in 1978, he moves back to Olympia, Washington and enrolls in school to become a doctor at Evergreen State College.
01:03:04
All right. So suddenly out of the blue, he's decided, and maybe this is something he wanted to do before, and he was just too hot and manipulative to do it or whatever.
01:03:12
Oh, he's a doctor. A doctor. So he goes to school to be a doctor. And he's very good.
01:03:18
He's very good in chemistry class. But his old easy money drug dealer life still calls to him.
01:03:25
Absolutely. So he uses his chemistry skills. No. In a visionary manner, Breaking Bad style, and starts cooking meth in the chem lab.
01:03:33
Wow. Wow, you can't do that. Yeah, he can and did. And I wonder if he later wanted to.
01:03:40
Oh, no, he wouldn't have, but he should have sued. Okay. So I wonder if like that's the Breaking Bad people.
01:03:46
Yeah. This story. But yeah. So essentially, he starts making fucking bank. Oh, my God.
01:03:54
It's cooking and selling meth. And of course, doing that. Yeah. Because he is in med school.
01:04:00
Right. So he's got to fucking get through. So he makes so much money selling meth that he is able to buy himself a 20 acre plot of land near Olympia that's really secluded that has a small house on it.
01:04:13
Wow. And now just simultaneously and as like a footnote to this portion of the story, I want to remind anyone who has never seen, I believe it's the Oregonian newspaper from Portland.
01:04:25
They have it was from the early 2000s, I believe. That's when I first saw it. is their series Faces of Meth.
01:04:33
When meth became such a huge problem up there. Was that there? They started that?
01:04:37
No, no, I'm just saying that on this side, it's a guy that's like, yeah, let's get meth going.
01:04:42
Oh, that one. And meth began to ravage the Pacific Northwest in such a serious way
01:04:48
that they started showing the mugshots of people who were getting arrested for petty crimes and then went on meth.
01:04:56
and their series of mug shots. That's one of the most upsetting and disturbing things
01:05:02
where over a series of like five to seven years, you watch a young person look like they're 75 years old
01:05:11
because of this drug. This drug is the worst. I still can't believe I got out of it without like meth teeth
01:05:18
or like looking methed out. You basically got like grazed by a semi instead of hit.
01:05:26
by a truck. I dipped a 14-year-old toe in it and then got burned and stepped back. Bless it.
01:05:31
Fucking God. Blessed be. Yeah. Jesus Christ. I know, it's crazy. Thank God. Yeah. Because your
01:05:37
skin would look so bad for me. We're the worst people. Okay, so but I just bring that up because
01:05:44
in this story it goes on and he's kind of like this successful fucking meth maker and distributor
01:05:51
and dealer. Yeah. And there is this other side to that where he fucking Living like a king Because everybody Fucking quote unquote Loves meth Is getting sick and addicted They so addicted It like meth is the one where it like you do it once and you done for
01:06:06
It's terrible. It's terrible. It's a scourge. Okay, so. But not on Scott's side of things.
01:06:13
He makes so much money. He's got his plot of land. And he uses the real house on the property to cook the meth in.
01:06:21
And then he decides to build himself, and this is the methiest project of all time, a three-story, 1,500-square-foot treehouse to live in.
01:06:32
And this treehouse spans seven cedar trees. And it has running water. It has electricity.
01:06:38
It has an outdoor bathtub. It has a zip line running from the house through the woods for, quote-unquote, emergency escapes.
01:06:44
And it has my favorite treehouse amenity of all time, a large fireplace. no don't do that you're on drugs hello and welcome you're on drugs you know what i need for my tree
01:07:01
house a fireplace a fire place i want a wood i want a log stack too so i can get wood for the
01:07:08
fire yep can you go down and get me some some wood and bring it back up into the tree house so
01:07:13
We can have a nice roaring fucking fire and do huge rails of meth mixed with baby laxative and fucking Clorox.
01:07:21
Okay. Guys, calm down, Karen. So he brags to his buddies that he built the treehouse in two weeks.
01:07:30
Are you serious? If someone told me that, I'd be like, well, I'm never going up there.
01:07:34
You should take longer. Yeah, you should really go over. It actually turned out that the truth of it was it took him a couple months.
01:07:42
But to him, it felt like a couple of weeks because he was on meth. Yeah. Time flies when you're tweaked out as hell.
01:07:48
When you don't sleep in your eyes, just stay open for 18 days in a row. He ends up hiring his friend, Kevin's brother, Steve Myers, who was a very successful sculptor who's fallen on hard times and needs money.
01:08:02
So he says, oh, I'll pay you to come and help me work on the treehouse. according to Steve and this is a quote from Wikipedia quote there was nothing in the house
01:08:12
that was conscientiously designed and that's very much what Scott was like aka on meth yeah of this
01:08:20
treehouse I didn't see any it's the thing where you you see the photos of like when spiders take
01:08:25
they give spiders certain drugs and then they show you what their web looks like that's just
01:08:30
makes me think of that yeah they give meth heads tools yeah and then they it's the big human spider
01:08:36
web of a treehouse project gone that long awry gone it's like can we get more fire elements into
01:08:44
this treehouse i don't know is this the candle room we'll just have lit candles in here all the
01:08:49
time i mean it's a fucking nightmare um so he's living that treehouse life right he's he's just
01:08:57
blazing off of all his drug money he has quote this is my favorite piece of research a free and
01:09:04
open demeanor. No shit. You're not going to be like conservative. No, not on meth.
01:09:11
No, you might have started conservative, but then slowly but surely your tie gets loose
01:09:15
and you have a quote free and open demeanor. He walks around nude a lot. He travels a ton and he has lots of girlfriends, which in my mind, when I read that it was
01:09:26
all happening at the airport at once. Like the fucking naked guys here again. and he's going to fucking Ibiza with three girls and he's nude.
01:09:36
Whoa. He's nude at gate B. So he also becomes known for really, you know, being a free spender,
01:09:44
which is very nice of him. He actually, people start, he's known around town for leaving waitresses like thousand dollar tips.
01:09:52
He makes so much money, he drops out of med school. No, Dr. Meth, come back. Please.
01:09:59
You're needed. this world needs you we need someone that can't stop talking here in the emergency room okay so
01:10:07
in 1989 scott's main meth distributor gets murdered on the job jesus this is not about that murder
01:10:14
okay and we don't know that person's name but it scares scott so badly that he stops cooking and
01:10:20
selling meth entirely because he knows that he's been fucking around and like yeah and basically
01:10:26
getting away with something. Then he looks around and goes, oh, shit, my treehouse has a fireplace.
01:10:31
This is not a way any person should live. Just kidding. He never says that. He spends the next
01:10:36
few years living off his remaining drug earnings. And then when that's gone, he starts digging up
01:10:42
all the drugs he's sealed in plastic buckets and buried around his property and starts selling that
01:10:48
off. He's like, I took a break and I'm back, baby. But basically, that was his nest egg.
01:10:55
That was his 401k that he had buried in buckets around the property. So once. Does meth stay fresh?
01:11:02
You tell me. I don't know. There's never any left. It can't. Yeah, exactly. That all happened in a three week period.
01:11:11
But basically the money starts to run out. He realizes he needs to come up with more money somehow.
01:11:17
And that's when he comes up with plan E. I bet. Yeah. We've gone to planning. He's walking away from this highly unethical life as a drug kingpin to follow what he's discovered now as his true passion, robbing banks.
01:11:33
Oh, my God. So, yes. He basically is like, I'm going to get away from this meth life and I'm going to do what I really want.
01:11:42
You know what feels safer and saner at this point? You know what I've always... So he literally tells Steve Myers he's always dreamt of robbing banks and giving the money away, Robin Hood style.
01:11:51
That's dumb. And then Oprah comes in sideways from the side, dips in and goes, follow that dream, Scott.
01:11:58
Do it. Oprah talks. me i hallucinated oprah in front of the fireplace so basically this is a very positive way of saying
01:12:08
he hit fucking rock bottom on meth yeah and had no other alternatives or a place to go so he calls
01:12:15
up another old friend from college a guy named mark biggins and he had also hired mark to work
01:12:19
on the tree basically he was this psychotic rich guy on meth who was like my old broke friends are
01:12:26
you going through hard times i'll pay you to come do drugs and like put put up um tree house
01:12:32
construction new wings yeah exactly i mean good on you like your friends need help but then they
01:12:39
become math addicts it's very winchester mystery house on math yeah is what i in a tree i'm saying
01:12:44
it so so basically he calls mark he's at mark again is having financial trouble scott uses this
01:12:51
to convince him basically to rob a bank with him. Okay. Dude, fucking do it. Bros before hoes.
01:12:58
Do it. And so then Mark was like, sure. So just before noon on June 25th, 1992, Scott and Mark walk into the C First Bank at a 4112
01:13:10
East Madison Street in Olympia, Washington. Scott's wearing a fake nose and heavy theatrical makeup.
01:13:16
Mark's wearing a Ronald Reagan mask. I feel like rule one of robbing banks should be like, go to a different town.
01:13:21
yes right yes don't don't do your hometown bank that's right because the getaway drive yeah you're
01:13:31
like around the corner trying to hide your car i mean like yeah it's 100 i think we're and olympia
01:13:37
is like a small town kind of i it's it's not a it's not a huge metropolis that's for sure
01:13:43
So they get inside. They steal $19,971 in cash. They go outside. They successfully steal a car from one of the customers at the bank so it can't be traced to them.
01:13:56
But Mark's the getaway driver, and he kind of can't handle it. So he floods the engine on this car.
01:14:02
Come on! Which means they stole a car old enough to be able to flood the engine.
01:14:07
But didn't they all do that in 92? I don't think you can. I think they stole like an old fucking, like a Ford, like a Nova or something.
01:14:17
That's a Chevy. But they stole some shitty old car. Then Mark immediately floods the engine.
01:14:22
Like, Mark. Guns it, puts his foot all the way down on the gas. And then they're just like, dude.
01:14:27
Oh, no. So they have to get out and run. No. So they fucking, so they're chased by dogs on this run home.
01:14:36
They have to cross a golf course that's busy. And a bunch of fucking people see them run across the golf course.
01:14:41
And they still manage to get away. Again, the magic of math. So now he's not on it anymore.
01:14:49
Well, we don't know that. Well, I mean, it seems like they might be dabbling. The experience scares Mark so badly that he tells Scott, I'm never doing this again.
01:14:57
But Scott actually has the opposite experience because he gets a huge fucking hit of adrenaline.
01:15:03
And he's like, now this is all I want to do for the rest of my life. And he can't wait to do it again.
01:15:08
So Scott taps his old tomato farm friend from Hawaii, Kevin, to team up with him and serve as a lookout.
01:15:17
Kevin says, no fucking way, you idiot. But Scott is able to convince him to launder the stolen money at Las Vegas casinos for him.
01:15:26
OK. So basically now simultaneously, he's successful in his first bank robbery. and it's the tech boom in Seattle and the like that area in that generalized area.
01:15:39
Yeah. So most banks at that time were teeming with cash. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And on top of that, Scott decides that he's going to invest in a bunch of movie quality
01:15:53
masks, costumes and theatrical makeup. If we're going to do this, let's do it right.
01:15:58
Let's really go for it. Let's really go for it. Because his whole idea is if like if I don't I can go in, they won't be able to recognize me.
01:16:08
But for reasons that people that aren't people don't normally do. Right. So this is about him using makeup.
01:16:15
Scott Scurlock's greatest contribution to the lexicon of bank robbery tactics was the use of theatrical makeup.
01:16:21
And this completely disguised his face while at the same time not causing the immediate visible stir caused by an idiot wearing a ski mask.
01:16:32
You also never see theatrical makeup in movies about bank robbery as that's just too good of a tip to give a potential robber.
01:16:40
So Scott Scurlock had an arrangement where theatrical makeup was bought, ordered and shipped to a friend who would nary a clue as to what it was being used for.
01:16:49
and this is the path to wisdom should there be any in organized crime oh my god so apparently he
01:16:56
would walk in and people he would he would have like a weird crone's face well you've seen like
01:17:01
the kim kardashian before and after contouring she looks like a different freaking person
01:17:05
is that like what were they good yes it's contouring but essentially he would give himself
01:17:10
an old person's face but still move like a young person so people that's how later on people knew
01:17:17
was the Hollywood bandit is they'd be like, oh, this is a weird, this is not the person.
01:17:22
But in the beginning, it was very effective because it was like, oh, that's an old person
01:17:26
or that's like an old woman or something. Right. No, there would, that energy would not be there.
01:17:31
And he wouldn't be, he would have a gun on him. But he wouldn't be like waving around going, everybody get down.
01:17:37
He would just be like a person. Yeah. And it was super, super low key and super effective.
01:17:42
Okay. So in 1992, Scott disguises himself. He arms himself with a handgun and he successfully robs five more banks.
01:17:51
Holy shit. By himself. Oh, my God. So on August 14th 1992 he robs the C First Bank again He goes back to the same one they already hit and he gets more dollars On September 3rd he robs the U Bank at 4200 Southwest Edmond Street and he gets almost
01:18:09
On September 11, 1992, he robs the university savings and loan at 4568 Sandpoint Way Northeast and gets almost $6,000.
01:18:19
On October 5, he robs the Great Western Bank at 2610 California Avenue Southwest, and he gets $27,500.
01:18:29
Wow. And on November 9th, 1992, he robs the C First Bank at 4020 Northeast 55th Street.
01:18:37
And he gets, he wins, I wrote, a whopping $252,000. Oh, my God. Quit. Quit at this point, guys.
01:18:45
Quit. You're ahead. You're done. But you know why he can't? Meth. Because now he's high on the deadliest drug of all, hubris.
01:18:56
I laughed so hard when I wrote that down today. Okay, he's getting away with it.
01:19:02
Yeah. And it's working. So there's no way he's fucking stopping now. Police have no idea who this mystery bank robber is.
01:19:09
They're doing everything they can to catch him. They nickname him Hollywood because of his high quality disguises.
01:19:16
The media picks up on it, gives it his own twist. They start calling him the Hollywood bandit, which is in writer's rooms, they would say,
01:19:25
don't do lateral pitches. If you can't beat the original idea, then just don't pitch it all.
01:19:31
Anyway, anyone can re-say the things someone else just said. That's not being funny.
01:19:38
That's knowing synonyms. Like with a different word? Yeah, it's like, oh, we're going to call him Hollywood.
01:19:42
Well, we're going to call him the Hollywood Bandit. Okay. Okay, well, that's the same basic idea.
01:19:46
Right. Okay. Quit fucking cheating. Okay, so no matter what they call him, the disguises are working because there's almost no evidence and the authorities have no idea.
01:19:56
And so Scott decides to lay low for a little while. Right. So he takes his winnings and his earnings and his money.
01:20:03
And about after about a year, he wants to go back to the life. So this time he asks Steve Myers help the guy that helped him with the treehouse.
01:20:15
OK. In my mind, Steve Myers is Steve Zahn. You know, that actor out of sight who's like, yeah, man.
01:20:22
Kind of a burnout, but like reliable. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Steve's on plays the part of Steve Myers. He's now the lookout. And so on November 24th, 1993, the day before Thanksgiving, they once again stake out the C first bank. Steve plants himself outside. He's listening to a police scanner as Scott goes in holding the gun and wearing makeup on his face.
01:20:45
but then Steve hears that the 911 call coming in about the robbery. So he goes, get Scott,
01:20:52
they flee. And, uh, they basically, they get, they get away again. Oh my God. They wait about a month and then they proceed to rob five,
01:21:03
five more banks. Fuck. So basically it's us. I won't give you the addresses this time because that took too long.
01:21:10
January 21st, us bank, 15,000, almost $16,000 on that one. February 17th, C First Bank, it's that same one on Northeast 55th Street.
01:21:21
This time they get $114,000. June 24th, they go to First Interstate Bank in Portland, Oregon on Hawthorne.
01:21:28
And they get $0.00 because Scott ends up aborting the mission because it says unsafe conditions.
01:21:40
You know it was a security guard who was retiring the next day. He's like, fuck this shit.
01:21:44
pulls his gun. There's no fucking way you guys are getting away with this. Not on my watch.
01:21:49
And then Scott's like, this is unsafe. I feel unsafe. So that's a zip. July 13th,
01:21:55
the first interstate bank on Queen Anne Avenue. Oops. Over $100,000 on that one. On December 20th,
01:22:04
there's a U.S. bank on Woodstock Boulevard in Portland, and they get $22,000 from that. So
01:22:09
it's another successful year of bank robberies. and so Scott takes those victories and goes back to Mark
01:22:17
Biggins who did the very first robbery with him and then quit the engine flutter and he's like join this
01:22:23
team we're moving forward what do I have to do to prove it to you 10 pile money what do you want me to do do you want
01:22:30
I will do a cat eye eyeliner on you I'm really good at it at this point okay so now
01:22:37
they're a trio these guys this is actually really starting to line up pretty severely with the movie Out of Sight
01:22:46
starring George Clooney and J-Lo with Steve Zahn actually also in it at the beginning when it was the pot plants I was thinking
01:22:53
it was like the beach with Leo DiCaprio then we're moving into this part and it's getting very
01:22:57
out of sight with bank robbers in or out of their comfort zone J-Lo, great in that
01:23:02
the best she's ever been second only to Hustler so Mark's on board, he's the lookout
01:23:09
He's the lookout from inside the bank. So Steve's watching outside the bank and Scott's doing everything and planning it and orchestrating it.
01:23:19
So this trio robs two more banks in 1995. But on one of them, a die pack explodes and they basically have to bail on the money.
01:23:30
But they still get away without getting caught. So they do on January 18th, they get $11,000, almost $12,000 from the first interstate bank.
01:23:39
but then they have to bail on $12,000 because it's all got dye on it. Dude. And then on January 27th, they go to the Seafirst Bank and they get $252,000.
01:23:51
Quit. Quit now. Seriously. You've got enough. So they think the key to their success is Scott calm demeanor This is Steve later being interviewed And he says Scott whole point was if you go in crazy with violence and waving a gun and something does happen what do you do then
01:24:09
Most people working in banks realize this guy is not afraid. And that's more frightening and commanding without having to be crazy.
01:24:17
Wow. Tactics. So he kind of went in with some weird makeup on his face and was just like, give me your money.
01:24:23
It's me. And they all kind of went, OK. So, of course, now the cops in the area have called in the FBI.
01:24:29
The FBI thinks still it's only this one robber. They don't know that there's other people on the team.
01:24:34
And, of course, they don't have any evidence because none of the if there is security footage, it's an unrecognizable person.
01:24:42
The Washington State Bankers Association and the Crime Stoppers of Puget Sound band together and they get 50 grand together for a reward for this bank robber's capture.
01:24:53
no one comes forward no one has any useful information okay by the end of 1995 uh the fbi
01:25:00
has enough incidences that they start tracking patterns in the bank robbers behavior they notice
01:25:07
the timing is based around how much money um is pulled in from previous heists so they uh so they
01:25:13
basically are like okay this guy if he steals x amount he's going to come back because he he needs
01:25:18
live on 20 grand a month. Okay. So they're like, they start being able to predict
01:25:23
when they're going to hit banks. That's so interesting. Which also is how often they're doing it.
01:25:27
Yeah. And not getting caught. Oh, you guys, stop. So using this logic, they take an educated guess
01:25:34
as to where the next robbery will be. So on where and when the next robbery will be.
01:25:40
So they think it's going to happen January 25th, 1996 at the C-First Bank. Wow. They fucking love the C-First Bank.
01:25:48
Yeah, they do. So they stake out the C-First And it turns out that the date is correct
01:25:55
But the bank is wrong They got the date right? They got the date exactly right That's crazy
01:26:00
But the bank that the guys actually rob Is the first interstate bank That's two miles away from that C-First bank
01:26:07
So before the FBI can get over there The guys get away from the first interstate bank
01:26:14
With $141,000 Wow almost $142,000. So this lasts the guy until May of that year.
01:26:23
So this is in January. So they go till May. And then they decide to hit the Madison Park branch of the first interstate bank.
01:26:31
And from that one, they get almost $115,000. What the crap? So it's just working.
01:26:37
This is like, it's a plan that's going well. So then this is around this time. Scott finds out there's this $50,000 reward for information about him.
01:26:49
And he decides. No. He takes this information and does, in classic Scott fashion, he decides, well, then we should
01:26:57
rob five banks in one day. Why? Because that's where his logic takes him. Jeez. Because he's an adventurer.
01:27:05
Oh, God. He's just showing off at this point. He's high on adrenaline. Yeah. He can't get a big enough fix.
01:27:13
Yeah. So, they hear the police have told every bank in the Seattle area to put electronic tracers on stolen money or like on the money.
01:27:23
Yeah, yeah. So, they decide that with that piece of information, they're just going to hit one bank.
01:27:27
Okay. So, at 541, Wednesday, November 27th, 1996, Scott and Mark, wearing their disguises, walk into a brand new bank they've never hit before.
01:27:38
It's the Steve's First Bank in nearby Lake City. Steve's outside keeping watch. What the boys don't know as they walk in is that the bank teller working there that day knew all about the Hollywood Bandit.
01:27:51
It was all read up. He knew exactly. He was a full on fucking murder Reno. And the second those two walked in, he hits the silent alarm, just like, you know, ankle in the doorway.
01:28:03
So police are in other neighborhoods. They're not anticipating that the Lake City Bank is the one they're going to hit.
01:28:10
So they race over toward the bank. they're actually this bank they're at. But the robbers get it done in less than four minutes.
01:28:18
Wow. And get out. I wouldn't want to press the button, panic button, because then you're in a hostage situation.
01:28:27
Like, I'd rather them get away and then you press the button. Do you know what I mean?
01:28:31
Yes, that's smart, except for that I think this guy is just like, let's catch him.
01:28:34
Yeah. Maybe because there wasn't... Maybe he'd never hurt anyone, so he didn't think that they were going to do anything.
01:28:40
Yeah, like that. It wasn't a everybody on the floor thing at all. Right. Right. They were just kind of like they were gentle robbers.
01:28:47
They were they were more into the theatrics and the makeup is what it felt like to me.
01:28:52
But I just love the idea that the guy sees what what if it was just a weird looking person?
01:28:58
Never mind. Never mind. Never mind. Oh, man, this nose. You got to see it. Sorry. It's just a strangely shaped nose and a lot of eyeliner.
01:29:06
But once they leave, a customer defies their order. So apparently they did say like everybody, they must have made people get on the ground or whatever, but it's like, don't nobody follow us out.
01:29:15
Yeah. So I'm like, I'm coming with you. But apparently it's just like, yeah, you wave a gun around and go, everybody stay where you are.
01:29:23
They'll do it. Sure. But this one bank customer did not do it and immediately got up, walked outside and saw the car they drove away in.
01:29:31
You crazy kid. You, you super rebel. Stay on the ground. But that person sees them get into a blue Dodge Caravan, immediately calls the cops,
01:29:41
tells them, gives them the vehicle description and the direction that they are going.
01:29:45
Wow. No cell phones. This is all without cell phones, everyone. That's right. That's right.
01:29:50
96. You have cell phones. Yeah, no. So the Treehouse Trio I like to call them they ditch that caravan the blue caravan and they immediately steal a white Chevy Astrovan Sure That inconspicuous Right All those cars that you literally don see when they driving down the freeway
01:30:07
Right. They're just background cars. Yeah. But the problem is now it's nighttime, it's dark, it's raining, and they're caught in holiday rush hour traffic.
01:30:17
What? So they're just sitting in... You don't think of bank robbers as having to deal with shit like fucking holiday drivers.
01:30:23
Like, ugh, trying to merge. Yeah. let us merge and then they were just trying to get away can we be in the carpool lane and on top of
01:30:29
that um they're scott's driving and mark and steve are using their flashlights to to look through the
01:30:36
money to see if there's electronic tracers in the money and a cop behind them sees guys using
01:30:44
flashlights inside a van yeah and immediately are start to tail them and watch them uh
01:30:52
the phrase used here is it's unclear who fired first what i would bet a lot of my a personal
01:31:00
fortune that the cops fired first you gotta think but they're the guys quickly find themselves being
01:31:06
shot at by police steven and mark are each shot in the arm and they're like basically rendered
01:31:11
immobile scott pulls off on the side street to try to fire a shotgun back at the cops don't do
01:31:17
that he's driving yet please don't do that yeah the gun jams so he then has to drive off again
01:31:22
which is a very like unslick no like action sequence in this movie yeah just like you try
01:31:29
to pull over you try to yeah i'm getting i'm starting that last one again and then he guns
01:31:34
it in this um an astro van so he goes from five to seven miles an hour down this alley the cops
01:31:41
pursue the van they fire at it and mark who still injured shot in the arm fires back eventually
01:31:47
Scott veers off the road and crashes into the side of a house. So the police swarm the van,
01:31:53
they get inside, they find Mark and Steve bleeding over just about a million dollars.
01:31:59
Oh my God. That's how much they got or they had in the car? That's how much was in the car.
01:32:03
Whoa. I don't know if they brought all their winnings to every robbery. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
01:32:09
No. So it must have been what they got. But Scott, the driver and the makeup artist, has run.
01:32:16
Okay. Okay. So he's on foot and nowhere to be found. So the police section off a six block radius in search of the Hollywood bandit.
01:32:25
And they continue this search into Thanksgiving Day. Because remember, it was Thanksgiving Eve.
01:32:31
So a woman who lived within that six block radius named Wilma Walker. Wilma. Wilma sees the report of the fugitive that's in her neighborhood on the news.
01:32:40
So she asked her son, Ronald, to go check the family camper in the backyard just for peace of mind.
01:32:47
Oh, no. And when Ronald checks the camper out, he sees there's a man inside. So he calls the cops.
01:32:54
Police arrive on the scene. They knock on the camper door. They announce themselves.
01:32:58
No one responds. They throw a canister of pepper spray inside. Nothing happens. At this point, they think no one's in there.
01:33:06
So they're like, there's nothing going on. the walker family is like we need you to make sure by putting your eyes on the inside open the door
01:33:15
do it so sergeant howard monta uses his flashlight to look inside the camper and as he does a gun
01:33:22
shot goes off so at first sergeant monta thinks he's been shot and then when he realizes that he's
01:33:29
okay other two other officers on the scene open fire on the camper and then backup arrives they
01:33:38
They wait for four hours to see if anyone's going to come out. Oh, my God. And when there's no movement, they fill the camper with tear gas to be safe.
01:33:48
And they finally enter the camper with gas masks on. And inside, they find the body of the Hollywood bandit, soon to be identified as 41-year-old Scott Scurlock, with one self-inflicted bullet wound in his head.
01:34:03
No way. So he killed himself because he was surrounded. So that one shot that they first heard was him shooting himself.
01:34:11
Wow. So in total, Scott committed 18 robberies and he stole approximately, with different team members, $2.3 million, making him one of the most prolific bank robbers in U.S. history.
01:34:26
After receiving medical treatment for their gunshot wounds, both Mark Biggins and Steve Myers are sentenced to 21 years in prison each.
01:34:33
Wow. Steve's released early in 2013. Mark's released in 2015 after serving his full term.
01:34:40
And that is the cinematic tale of the Hollywood bandit, Scott Sirloff. Wow. That was awesome.
01:34:48
Isn't that the most nuts? Twists, turns, all of these things. Masks, fireplaces.
01:34:53
They're everywhere. Treehouses. Treehouses even. When I got to that part in this story, because I was like, this is a little bit off.
01:35:01
This is not a classic whatever. And then I was just like, oh, we've hit pay dirt here.
01:35:06
Oh, my goodness. The treehouse made it for me. In that man's 41 years, he lived a million lives.
01:35:13
He did it, and he did it, and he did it. Yeah. He was addicted to the meth of life.
01:35:23
Wow, that was incredible. Oh, thank you. Good job. Thank you so much. What, do you have a fucking hooray?
01:35:29
Is it time? Yeah, let's do it. Well, yeah. Let's do it. Okay, you want to go first?
01:35:32
Do you want me to? Okay. Did I tell everyone publicly already that I'm up to my therapy days?
01:35:40
Yeah. I don't think you talked about it on here. Okay. So I decided since I have the time and the money, I get to go to therapy three times a week.
01:35:50
That's incredible, Karen. And I have to say this. Now, I'm a narcissist. I could fucking sit in front of anyone and talk to anyone.
01:36:00
myself clearly, obviously. Yeah. Just look at my podcasting history. But it is so helpful.
01:36:09
Because in especially when things come up lately, like we were talking about trust issues and stuff,
01:36:15
when things come up, and they really affect me, my life coping strategies, usually,
01:36:21
you're not supposed to be feeling these feelings. So shut it down. Yeah. And shut it down. Shame
01:36:26
over them. Yep. And truly feeling, um, yeah, like you're not like I, because I have this
01:36:32
strong emotion, say jealousy or, um, or just straight up anger or whatever, that that makes
01:36:39
me weak and lame and irresponsible or whatever. It's like you're a dog and you're whacking
01:36:44
it on the head with a newspaper where it's like, that doesn't do anything. No. And it,
01:36:47
and that dog gets to be here. Yes. She got us here. Look at that fucking dog. That dog
01:36:52
never did anything wait a second it's a person it's not a dog um so that basically you know this
01:37:00
morning it was just like that thing where i get to continue this conversation so it's not the week
01:37:04
later where because i also do this thing in therapy where i go this isn't worth talking about
01:37:09
i shouldn't be discussing this this is self-indulgent there's so much judging minutes a
01:37:15
week yes it's like not enough time to like get into the deep shit no and it and it takes this
01:37:20
kind of like for me anyway, because there's already this gauntlet to run of shame and weird.
01:37:27
Don't don't do this. And all these weird rules I make up. It's like she's just now catching on of like, hold on.
01:37:32
Why are you doing that? Hold on. Just yesterday you said this. Yeah. Whereas when I go once a week, no one can track those conversations.
01:37:39
So she'll be like, I don't know. I remember like she's doing that. But now it's this very concentrated thing.
01:37:45
And it's, I can't tell you how much it's helping me in this realization of I, that actually
01:37:53
I'm fine. Yeah. That actually, when we work through all this stuff, and if I just allow myself to be a
01:37:59
human being and like I get to I get to be mad I get to be angry I get to be jealous whatever And that all those things are just indicators that something needs to be tended to yeah there you don like you saying you don beat the dog for just being there you go
01:38:15
oh the dog's here to tell me something yeah and that is actually then you can then like you can
01:38:20
actually start to move stuff around and deal with stuff and and figure out how you actually feel
01:38:25
because it's almost like i have the the incident that incites a feeling and i don't actually know
01:38:31
how I feel because I panic and just get mad or panic and just have this one reaction where it's
01:38:36
like, no, no, it's like calm down and actually own the real feeling and stop judging it.
01:38:42
I'm so bad at that. It's fucking hard because it's all, it's the vulnerability thing. Yeah,
01:38:46
totally. And feeling weak and everything. It's just feels gross. Yes. You feel like I just,
01:38:51
just punish this out of me or just like berate this out of me so that I don't do it anymore
01:38:56
because it's not right. And it's like, yeah, it fucking is. It's human feeling. It's you being a human being.
01:39:02
Amazing. Congratulations. I mean, she's doing all the work, but I certainly I'm showing up 10 minutes late every time.
01:39:10
I certainly am doing that. Well, mine was going to be it was between afternoon baths.
01:39:18
Yes, which I highly recommend a hit. I have this thing. Ten years ago, I quit my day desk job to like try this whole
01:39:26
world of not having a desk job. And I still, to this day, like, revel in the 3pm nap and like,
01:39:36
what I would have been doing 10 years ago at my desk job. I'm not over it yet. Yes.
01:39:41
So yesterday, I was freezing my fucking ass up and I couldn't get warm. And so I took a bath at like
01:39:46
3pm. And it was heaven. Heaven. It was like, if you can, I just can't get over like, if you can do stuff like that, do it treat
01:39:54
yourself like take a nap take a bath like do those things watch TV in the middle of the day like yeah
01:39:59
if you can do that great yeah that's it that's myself that's my that's my um what's it called
01:40:05
that everyone's obsessed with now self-care yes yes the big trend that's going around what's that
01:40:11
hashtag everyone loves but but and I think we talked about this before baths are good for you right I mean it actually Those Epsom salt baths man Man it actually does something very positive for your body
01:40:25
Yeah. And it kind of points out where you're like... Totally. Holding on to some stuff.
01:40:29
I love it. That's mine then. That's good. Yeah. That's great. Hashtag self-care.
01:40:34
Hashtag privilege. Hashtag bathtub time. Yeah. There's so many things. Hashtag...
01:40:42
Do it. Honored. Seven days of therapy, therapy 24-7. Hashtag blessed. Hashtag math.
01:40:52
Thank you guys for listening. We don't tell you this enough, but we are so grateful to the fucking incredible listeners that we have of this show.
01:41:00
And I don't think there's any podcast out there who has such awesome people who listen.
01:41:05
And we're just so lucky. We've been going through some letters that you guys have been sending us.
01:41:09
I was just going to say, yeah. And they're just so beautiful. I started crying on the couch today reading one.
01:41:13
Same. Yeah. That's so funny. I was going to say the exact same thing. We've been reading these letters that we take stuff that you give us, that we get at live shows or that we get whatever,
01:41:24
and just pull letters and shove them into bags going, we know we're going to read this at some point.
01:41:30
But we don't always do it on the road. We don't always have time to go through everything.
01:41:34
and I've been reading some that like the amount of time I spend focusing on the problems that we
01:41:42
have to get solved that's all I do yeah and that's all and I'm I have training of doing it of you have
01:41:48
to anticipate the thing that's going to happen so we're ready totally and it is it's a difficult way
01:41:54
to live and we if we're going to do that we also should make sure we spend equal amount of time
01:42:00
reading things where people say very nice things to us. So it's not always the problems and the bad and the ticking time bombs that are waiting for us everywhere.
01:42:10
I mean, it's still there, but we have friends on the other side who are waiting for us.
01:42:15
It's very, like, it put my feet on the ground in a very meaningful way to read a couple letters
01:42:21
where people would just say like here specifically what you did when I needed it Right because right here what i was going through yeah it really beautiful it quite nice yeah thank you guys we we love
01:42:34
you guys you're our best friend i don't know this is the most vulnerable episode of mfm yet right
01:42:44
we love you stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye elvis do you want a cookie bro from the show last night to this drive why is it never chill because this is our life
01:42:56
backstage on the road it's loud messy real and that's the best part whole crew no plan just
01:43:04
moving good thing nissan builds for that kind of chaos not just test tracks real life scenes
01:43:09
late nights road trips all of it that's why it holds up nissan was ranked number one in initial
01:43:15
quality among mainstream brands by J.D. Power. Yeah, you can tell. 2026 Nissan Rogue built for
01:43:22
what really happens. For J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Initial Quality Study Award information, visit
01:43:27
jdpower.com slash awards. Awards based on 2025 model year, newer models may be shown.
01:43:33
This episode is brought to you in part by Vital Farms. Have you noticed that the egg section at
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