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00:01:28
My favorite murder Hello. Hello. And welcome. To my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark.
00:01:47
That's Karen Kilgara. I forgot my lines. I forgot my lines. We had the whole show memorized.
00:01:53
That's it. And I immediately dropped lines in the first exchange. I had one job.
00:01:58
You had one job to memorize your podcast lines. How's it going? I'm good. We're leaving for the UK tomorrow, which is Tuesdays, but this comes out on Thursday, so it's two days ahead.
00:02:09
We're ahead, and then we're also early because we just recorded a live one. So this one, we're definitely off our normal system.
00:02:17
Yeah. So it's going to be... Oh, wait. We said we were going to put our headphones on.
00:02:21
Oh, yeah. We're going to record with headphones on. Let's do it. Never have headphones on.
00:02:25
just to shake things up a little. Oh my God, whose tiny head wore these last time?
00:02:31
This is almost like now we're in our own separate isolation tanks away from the podcast.
00:02:38
Oh, hang on. We have to hear each other. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, hi. Yeah. Oh, they got turned on, Stephen.
00:02:45
That's exciting. So we're wearing a headband. No, this isn't very exciting at home for you listeners.
00:02:50
Kick mine up just a hint. Which one's yours? The first one you touched? This one?
00:02:54
No, that's mine. Ow. where your right hand is. That one? Get away from that area.
00:02:59
That one? Go to the other side. Yeah. Okay. That one? Yeah. Oh, it's perfect for you
00:03:03
because you can't hear anything. Right. Oh, my God. You look like such a podcaster right now
00:03:08
with your headphones on. Thank you. Oh, my God. I've always wanted to pet kiss. Oh, this is...
00:03:14
Now we're going to be able to hear all the intimate details of our voices. Oh, shit.
00:03:19
And all the times we clonked on the fucking table on accident. And all the time my big fake teeth
00:03:23
get in the way of me talking. which is often these days. It's like our third podcast host or your teeth.
00:03:30
That's right. And they will be heard. They will not be silenced in my mouth. I'm going to hear myself drinking this can of wine.
00:03:38
Yes. I love it. How come I didn't get any can, like my favorite murder canned wine from the Santa Barbara weekend?
00:03:43
I didn't get one. I wanted to save a can. You just drank it all too fast and crushed it against your head.
00:03:48
That must have been it. And I just don't remember that. Because you remember that weekend.
00:03:52
It was show off time the entire time. I kept saying that to Georgia the entire weekend because, as I described to somebody yesterday,
00:04:00
I said it was a really fun weekend, but it was one of those things where every time we
00:04:04
were in the room, we were in the center of the room. And there was a ring of people standing around us just staring.
00:04:10
Like, entertain us. You guys are the entertainers. And I, of course, I can't resist that.
00:04:14
That's my nightmare. Well, it's my biggest dream since age five. So I had to keep pulling myself back from really getting into it.
00:04:24
No, do it. I need it. It's perfect for me. It's my favorite. I need someone else to talk because otherwise I'll just like, remember when we were on stage
00:04:31
with IO and I was like, so tell us about your hat. I'm just not good at shit like that.
00:04:39
Tell us about your hat. Tell us about your hat. Yeah, I feel like I have been, um, that it's showing off is really my passion and there's
00:04:47
nothing, you know, like this is the only thing that actually satisfies it. Having a podcast makes you
00:04:54
a non-stop 24-7 show off. That's why you have two. Yeah, I can't get enough attention.
00:05:00
Speaking of attention and the UK and Ireland tour, there are tickets left in the only
00:05:07
show we haven't sold out. Dublin. Guys, come on. It's the 25th. You said you liked us.
00:05:15
We added a second show for y'all. Come on, y'all. Come on, y'all. I mean, I bet it's almost sold out.
00:05:21
Yeah, it's almost sold out. There's a handful of tickets left. That's right. We'll just hand them out on the street if we don't sell them all.
00:05:26
In handfuls. That's right. To people who, there's going to, there would be nothing worse than forcing Irish people
00:05:34
to go to a show they don't want to go to. That's an audience you don't want. Just based on my American Irish experience, they're already pretty judgmental of things
00:05:42
they enjoy. You know what the most fun thing, though, about touring is, is when, like, we go to, like, a pub the night before, we go, like, to a car rental the night before, and the person working there is like, oh, my God, I'm such a big fan.
00:05:54
And we get to go do you want to go to the show and give them tickets Yeah So we can do it now for that night in Dublin Okay great Then let you know what Cancel that announcement Yeah There no more tickets left You don get to go
00:06:05
We're going to be driving up and down the countryside, giving away tickets. Stopping at pubs.
00:06:09
Whoever we see. Yeah. Farmers pulling hay in carts, old fashioned style. Does that happen still?
00:06:17
That's the first time I ever visited Ireland. we landed we landed of course in Dublin but then we drove west to Doolin I think was the first city
00:06:26
we went to and we got there um we were walking up the street to our hotel and on the passing us
00:06:33
was an old guy driving a cart that a cow was pulling with a bunch of hay in the back
00:06:39
and he yelled top of the morning to you but I think it was sarcasm though I think he was like
00:06:44
clearly you're a bunch of Americans here's the experience you want to be having it's like when
00:06:48
you drive past a truck driver and you're like honk the horn he's like all right the irish version
00:06:53
of that but it was his idea which is like another like the built-in sarcasm of that culture where
00:06:58
it's just like top of the morning and he was probably from scotland and the whole accent
00:07:03
was fake but you know that's that's what they're like speaking of um selling our souls uh there's
00:07:12
going to be new holiday merch. Yes. In the merch store. Great transition. Thank you. Beautiful,
00:07:18
seamless segue. Thank you. And now we're boom into the place where you love to be. That's right.
00:07:22
Merch. My favorite thing. We have some really fucking cool merch coming up. Yes. It's so
00:07:26
exciting. We're so anal about what we allow like to be merch. Is that right? Yes. It's important to
00:07:35
us. That's what I meant. It's really important to us. We won't just throw anything up. We have
00:07:38
notes. We have this. We want this. We have these bright ideas of like, let's try this.
00:07:42
Yes. So everything that's going in on the 25th of November is like all stuff that we are really
00:07:47
into and excited about. Including some stuff from Murderino Makers. That's so exciting that we get to support and work with them. Yeah. Okay. That's all. I'm done.
00:07:56
Oh, okay. I don't want to hear my problem with these headphones. I can hear myself talk.
00:08:02
Yeah. Is it going to impede? Are you going to get too self-conscious? I might. Maybe for my story, I'll take them off.
00:08:08
Again, over here, I couldn't love it more. I'm like, wow, I've never seen, I've never experienced how great my fucking voice is.
00:08:14
Why do I sit in my house crying all the time? I don't, I don't. This was, this is a, so we're always talking about corners.
00:08:23
There are different corners, crushing corners or whatever. We've pretty much just this on this podcast, George and I just kind of say the things that
00:08:31
we think to say every week. There's not a ton of planning. There's definitely no prewriting except for the stories we're trying to get said.
00:08:37
Not a lot of follow through. Not follow through. Not all the, we don't have to explain it to you.
00:08:42
You know, if you've been here for even a little while. I'm not going to follow through with that explanation for you.
00:08:46
Look, you know. You're on your own. This is more of a starter, information starter kit.
00:08:51
Right. Now you go look stuff up. Yeah. But somebody sent in, so we've been calling things corners this whole time for three years,
00:08:58
just out of laziness. But someone wrote in a great suggestion. It was, her name's Brittany Aaron.
00:09:03
It was on Twitter. And she wrote to us. She wrote to me and the podcast. I feel like your new segment, quote, I need to tell you something should be announced by Drunk Karen.
00:09:14
So I guess last week I said that the new segment was going to be called I Need to Tell You Something because it was so general that I was just telling you random shit.
00:09:20
OK, do it. Do it. I need to tell you something. Oh, no. What does Drunk Karen need to tell you?
00:09:28
It's not good. No, it's a podcast. It sounds like you got your period on the back of your pants.
00:09:37
I need to tell you something. It's like shameful. It's always bad news when it's coming from drunk Karen.
00:09:42
I need to tell you something. Can I have $20? I need it. I need to tell you something.
00:09:50
We have to go to Jack in the box. Okay. Drunk Karen's always almost asleep. That's the other thing I realized about her.
00:09:56
She's so drunk that she's right on the verge of just passing out. It's almost night night.
00:10:01
So then anyway, look for that future segment that's never going to happen. I need to tell you something.
00:10:06
That was by Drunk Karen. And then let's both collectively forget it. Set it and forget it.
00:10:12
That's right. This idea is the dump cakes of ideas. It's the microwaving for one cookbook of the idea.
00:10:21
Of ideas. It's the spoonula of ideas. What's that? It's a spatula spoon. So you can flip it and scoop also?
00:10:29
You can scoop and you can also, you know, like, you know, spatulas are like the things.
00:10:34
You don't fucking mansplaining spatulas to me, Georgia. I won't. Thank you. How does a spoon happen, though, since spatulas, by definition, are kind of flat?
00:10:44
It's lightly curved into a spoon. Okay. Got it? So you're not going to eat cereal with this, but you can get stuff out if you need to.
00:10:52
In a pinch, you could eat cereal with it. It would kind of be more depressing than just eating cereal with like a wooden spoon.
00:10:59
Which I think is, so I have a spoon that's bigger than all the other spoons and I intentionally use that to eat cereal.
00:11:04
You have to cram as much in your fucking mouth as possible. Yes, it's, I have the, and it's to my detriment, but I definitely have the eating attitude.
00:11:11
If I'm going to do it, I might as well fucking go for it. Good for you. That's what, that's my plan for the two weeks we are in the UK and Ireland.
00:11:18
It's happening. We had a little discussion before we started recording about how exciting it is that we get to have tea.
00:11:25
Yeah. In, in the UK and Ireland. And we're so excited about it. And all the little things that in my, I will just make it personal.
00:11:34
In my childhood and growing up, candy was not, it was frowned upon. It was, I always had to sneak it and I wanted it all the time.
00:11:43
I thought about it all the time. Candy and cookies and sweets. Culturally, especially in London, I will say, or England, sorry.
00:11:52
London, England. in the whole country, they take an intentional break at three o every day and eat candy together And I love that they call it cakes There like cakes and like little things and crumpets and
00:12:06
They're really into Twix. Yeah. Really into Twix. All right. It's gonna... It's happening so hard when we're there.
00:12:11
We just get... We're gonna get supported for our bad habits. Do you know what else we're doing that I'm really excited about?
00:12:17
What? Because we're going to a football match. Oh, yes. And we have to sit in like an area for people who like don't usually go because it's so
00:12:24
rowdy and like crazy. I love it. It's going to be the best. I'm going to be the one sober person in that entire stadium.
00:12:31
I'm going to be the only beer-free human being there. And Vince and I are going to like, we got to tell you
00:12:36
something. You guys, that would be that would actually be a good penance for me to pay is I have to
00:12:42
handle drunk Vince and drunk Georgia and get us out of a football stadium without getting punched in the face.
00:12:48
Have you seen drunk Georgia? She's fun. She is fun, right? And she's exactly like regular Georgia. It just gets
00:12:54
a little bit like gigglier as it goes louder louder gigglier and a little more like slappy
00:13:00
a little meaner yeah i like it like talking shit on people not like yes to you but almost
00:13:05
yes exactly to it's to someone else like almost in the bonding way yeah but in the way where it
00:13:11
becomes almost out of like you're you clearly don't mean it because you're just saying whatever
00:13:16
comes into your head yeah it's really enjoyable thank you yeah i'm honored and a lot of arm
00:13:22
grabbing, which I really enjoy. Oh, yeah, that's me. Yeah, there's a lot of touching when I'm drunk.
00:13:28
It's fun. Okay, good. Yeah. Remember in Hawaii, when we were in the bed with Lizzie?
00:13:34
It was no, I don't remember. We Vince ordered us room service. We had the weirdest array of room
00:13:40
service, whatever. And we were watching a movie. And what whatever was happening, we were laughing
00:13:45
so hard. And you just kept hitting me on the arm. And then eventually you got aware of it. We're
00:13:50
like, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, no, I like it. Like hitting you on the arm, like nudging you.
00:13:54
Yeah. It was like, I would make a joke and then you would slap my arm and then you got
00:13:58
self-conscious about it. I'm like, no, no, this is what I, this is what I'm looking for.
00:14:03
This is what I like. Speaking of what you like, I'm going to tell you something I like.
00:14:08
You feel beholden to do transitions like that? We got to pretend to be professional.
00:14:14
No, we don't. That's just it. We never have. We simply don't. I just have a recommendation that, Karen, I actually, I can't believe I'm recommending this to you because this is so you that this is a travesty.
00:14:26
There's a show called Back to Life. Have you heard of it? No. Okay. It's from the BBC.
00:14:31
It's a British drama and comedy series about this woman in her later 30s who returns home after 18 years in prison for a thing that you slowly, there's like six episodes.
00:14:41
Wait a second. I've seen the trailer for this. Yeah, like a redheaded gal. Yes. It looks amazing.
00:14:46
It's on Showtime. we watched we binge watched it in one night wow you have to watch it i will she i mean listen i'll
00:14:53
just tell you she she's back from prison for murder so it's right up our alley but then like
00:14:57
slowly it starts to tell you what really happened and you find out all these crazy things and the
00:15:02
acting is great and it's just like in the seaside town of kent and it's just like yes what news from
00:15:07
kent yeah yeah it's great you'll you'll love it back to life you should download it for the plane
00:15:11
actually oh okay it's so british it's such a british comedy but it's depressing great great
00:15:18
okay that sounds like our combo like right on the nose and here here will be my uh sister
00:15:24
recommendation to that one okay is on stars the series dublin dublin murders i wrote that down
00:15:29
yeah and uh it's great you give the irish some time on screen i'll be there for it supporting
00:15:36
them do whatever they want to do. Although I have to say the the main investigator, her
00:15:43
Irish accent is so strong and foreign sounding to me that it's bewildering. And she kind of
00:15:50
everything is a little bit of slide from here. Everything goes a little bit like this and
00:15:53
that. It's all a little out of the side of her mouth. And I can't fucking understand
00:15:58
what she's saying. And I love it. And it's so exciting. But the guy in it is one hot
00:16:03
peace he's a snack crazy that's what the kids say he's a snack is he a snack i don't know is he is
00:16:09
he a uh a bop remember that like over the summer people would call good songs it's a real bop and
00:16:15
i was like what's happening we don't have to make up new words every three months it's not required
00:16:20
it's not um but this guy is definitely a bop snack for sure is there something about he's a
00:16:26
real snacky bop he's this he is you want to bite right into that song there's something he has like
00:16:32
it's the beauty of men who have plain faces. No, I'm not following you. You got to get behind me right now.
00:16:41
Okay. I'm standing behind you. There's something about, maybe it's just all his shirts are super tight
00:16:46
and he's the lanky type. Okay. It's just, I do love him. I'm going to check it out.
00:16:49
I love a guy girl combo in, it reminds me of The Killing. Remember that old one?
00:16:54
Yes, totally. It's that feel where it's like, she's all business and he's kind of like,
00:16:58
got his eye on her. And he's like a little ex-methy, like maybe undercover. No. This guy, but
00:17:05
that you're right for the killing. This guy, it's different where he's actually much
00:17:09
more buttoned down, which is even more exciting. Yeah, button him up. Button it. You love,
00:17:15
I love a guy with like a tailored shirt that can't help himself because he likes
00:17:21
the girl that he's working with. Yeah. I mean, I'm all about that story. That's right. Come on. Love ensues.
00:17:27
You know, it's because it's about respect. That's what it's about, Jordan. It's about smart women getting some fucking love for, not for the shape of their ass, but for the diligence of them following up on DNA death.
00:17:42
On the reins. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent.
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00:19:38
Goodbye. Am I first this week? Yes, you are. Okay. All right. So we're done with that section.
00:19:47
Are we? No, yeah, we are. Oh, I thought it was a good sec. Yeah, we did. I'm segmented.
00:19:53
No, no, you were right on. Okay. All right. Well, here we go. Let's do it. I'm going to start again with a paragraph before I say it.
00:20:00
Okay. This is my new thing. I love it. Okay, hold on. I have to burp. Whoa. That reached out and tickled my earlobe.
00:20:10
Steven, will you just mute that? Leave it in. It was fucking baritone. It went all the way down to the basement.
00:20:18
I'm pretty good at it. My mom says I rattle the walls. You're like an opera singer of belching.
00:20:25
That's like the most proud of my mom has ever been of me is my belching. For real?
00:20:30
She brings it up all the time. She's like so like, I think she digs it. Well, Georgia can belch quite loudly.
00:20:39
You should hear her. She's Barney from The Simpsons. And I just proved it. Okay.
00:20:47
Love it. She's still mad at me about the book. Oh, okay. That's okay. Well, I'm still mad at her about a couple things.
00:20:53
So fair's fair, where there's always tension somewhere. Okay. So I'm going to start with this.
00:21:00
Okay. Here we go. Okay. On the morning of August 23rd, 1973, a newly escaped convict in Sweden's capital city of
00:21:09
Stockholm, entered a busy bank in the upscale Normal Store Square. I know what you're about to do.
00:21:15
I know. Yes, girl. I know what this is. Don't say it. Jan Eric Olsen walked into the bank wearing toy store glasses and a thick brown wig to
00:21:24
conceal his identity and from underneath his coat pulls a loaded submachine gun and fires
00:21:29
at the ceiling. Then in English with an American accent, even though he's Swedish, yells, the party has
00:21:36
just begun. And so begins the origin story of Stockholm Syndrome. Yeah. Love it.
00:21:46
I can't believe we haven't done this before. And I would love to thank my friend Carrie Sellenbetter for me badgering her at a bar saying, just give me an idea.
00:21:53
I don't know what to do next week. And she was like, what about this? What about that?
00:21:56
And then what about Stockholm Syndrome? How did we not do this when we were in Stockholm?
00:22:00
I don't know, because it's not a murder. I think that it's only recently that we're doing stuff that's not murder.
00:22:04
Yes, true. Yeah, true. We wanted to be more on her. Good job, Carrie. Nice one. So I got a bunch of so and also I had just maybe like a few months ago, listened to an episode of Criminal about where they interview the one of the robbers.
00:22:19
Yes. And it's so, of course, well done. And then they got a bunch of info from a podcast called Memory Motel, where they interview one of the hostages.
00:22:29
Yeah. So I listened to both of those and got most of the info from there. And then from the Smithsonian dot com and history dot com got the rest of the info.
00:22:36
Can I just do a quick sidebar? Please. Phoebe Judge on Halloween tweeted, what do you do when a trick-or-treater comes to your door smoking a cigarette?
00:22:48
And I retweeted it, but it made me laugh so hard. I don't understand. She doesn't understand how funny she is.
00:22:57
Or how I think how awesome she is. Like how cool I think she is. She's the coolest.
00:23:01
Also, she's really young. I thought she was like older than me because of how much she handles shit on that podcast.
00:23:07
She's a professional. She's so professional. And she's like, I think she's in her 30s.
00:23:11
Fuck. I know. God bless her. Anyway, just because this is if it's a there's a criminal element source element that I just want to give props.
00:23:20
Good. To she's the best. I'm Phoebe Judge. I'm Phoebe Judge. And this is criminal.
00:23:27
But this isn't this is my favorite. That's right. OK, so we're not trying to steal her shit a little bit.
00:23:35
I'm not plagiarizing the name of her podcast. Okay. What Jan-Erik didn't know when he fucking, the parties just began, was that a silent alarm had been triggered. And so when a policeman responded, Jan-Erik shoots at him and hits him in the hand. So I don't know if this was just supposed to be a robbery that turned into a hostage situation because this was triggered, or if that's what happened.
00:24:00
plan was to begin with. So he shoots at the policeman and hits him in the hand. So then
00:24:05
he freaks out and takes three female bank employees hostage while letting everyone else leave.
00:24:10
So let's talk about him. He's a 32-year-old career criminal, and he had been a safecracker
00:24:16
and was serving, which is like such a necessary job, right? Yes. There's only a handful of them out there, and they have to be good at it.
00:24:25
That's right. And he was serving a three-year sentence in prison for grand larceny.
00:24:29
He had achieved like a little bit of fame when an elderly couple had caught him robbing their house, at which point the elderly man had collapsed.
00:24:40
And the man's wife was like, oh, my God, grab his heart medicine. It's in the kitchen.
00:24:44
And he did it. And many continued ransacking their house. Oh, so he was like known as like the bumbling.
00:24:53
I don't know what he was known as, but like that got him some notoriety. He was the criminal with the heart of gold, maybe.
00:24:58
Yeah, who still then got caught. Yeah. You know? Maybe he wasn't that good at it.
00:25:02
He was just kind of making his way. Right. It sounds like that. Okay. So he was in prison, but he was on furlough that day.
00:25:08
I don't know, you know, at the shops and such when he took the fuck off and went out to rob a bank.
00:25:14
Okay. So in Sweden, you go to jail, but you can also leave jail and do things you'd like to do with your life.
00:25:20
I think that means like you're on your way to being let go, like let out soon. Got it.
00:25:25
So they're like reintroducing you into society and shit. Parole feel? Yeah. Gotcha.
00:25:29
But he was like, I'm going to ruin this and fucking rob a bank. I have a passion for ruining things.
00:25:34
Yeah, I'm really good at it. So once the hostages are secured, Jan Erik announces his demands for the release of the hostages.
00:25:43
He wants three million Swedish kronor. Kronor. Me too. Which is about $700,000. A couple of guns and bulletproof vests and a getaway car.
00:25:53
But do you know this story? Yes. But I mean, it's all it's it's in the files with 18,000 other stories.
00:26:01
OK, well, you're not the only one listening. Stephen's listening to it. OK. And the other thing he insisted that he wanted was his old jailhouse buddy, Clark Olfson, to get out of jail and help him in the situation.
00:26:15
So he's like calling in support. Yeah. OK. From a guy in another buddy of his in jail.
00:26:20
So Clark Olfson, he's 26 years old. He's definitely a bop snack. OK. For sure. Great.
00:26:29
He's serving time for armed robbery and acting as an accessory in a 1966 robbery that had gone wrong and a police officer had been killed.
00:26:39
OK. Yeah. So he's kind of a celebrity bank robber. And while he and Jan Eric, who Clark describes as a, quote, useful idiot.
00:26:48
Wow. Yeah. When they were in prison, Jan would beg Clark to tell him all the wild stories of bank robbery.
00:26:55
It was like almost like, you know, storytelling time. Sure. And in his eyes, Clark was the best that there is at robbing banks.
00:27:02
So knowing he was in a bad situation and needed help, he demanded that Clark join him.
00:27:07
Clark had been in solitary confinement. So, of course, he was like, fuck, yeah. Get me over to that bank.
00:27:12
Let's fucking do this. Where there are lights and sounds and human beings. Exactly.
00:27:16
Jesus. So Clark is brought into the bank and he goes inside to join Eon. At this point, the unfolding bank robbery and hostage situation is fucking huge news all over peaceful Sweden, right?
00:27:27
Sure. It's the first televised crime in Sweden and it's being broadcast all over the country.
00:27:32
the public is like obsessed with this crime and they fled the police stations uh with suggestions
00:27:39
for ending the standoff some of those were soaping the the floor of the bank so the criminals would
00:27:45
slip and be easy to capture that happened to me in the bathroom the other day getting out of the
00:27:50
shower and walking over to yeah slipped i had a weird slip where as i was falling down i was like
00:27:56
this is very dangerous in this bathroom and i just kind of hit my knee it wasn't that big of a deal
00:28:02
But I now have bathroom slippers so that when I get out of the shower, I immediately have rubber-soled shoes on.
00:28:08
Do you don't need to get your life alert? Not yet. But that's, I think, next year we'll do it.
00:28:13
Okay. Oy vey. That's so scary. Yeah. Be careful. Put towels down. Don't be afraid of bath mats.
00:28:20
I'm a strict slipper person. My feet don't hit the ground. Yeah. And I bet it saved me from some slip and polish.
00:28:26
I bet it has. So another suggestion was that they send a swarm of angry bees into the bank to sting everyone into submission.
00:28:35
And of course, they'd run out being like, you know, hijinks. No, it's the perfect solution, Bugs Bunny.
00:28:40
Thank you so much for calling in. Or drunk Karen. Yeah, so many bees. And Jack in the Box.
00:28:53
Zagos. Meanwhile, inside the bank, the terrified hostages are taken inside a cramped bank vault, which is like, don't go in there.
00:29:01
Yeah. The hostages are tied up. But when Clark finally shows up from prison, he takes command of the situation.
00:29:08
He's like, we're all going to be OK. Everyone calm down. He says it'll all be fine.
00:29:13
And they're like, oh, he's our savior. Yeah. The three female hostages are Kristen and Mark.
00:29:17
She's 23 years old. Brigitte Lundblad. I don't know her age. And Elizabeth Olgren.
00:29:23
who's 21, and they're all bank employees. So they're all young women. Kristen later describes Clark as, quote,
00:29:30
a mix between Che Guevara and Jesus. Hey. Hi. What's up? How you doing? What is going on?
00:29:38
Are you a snack? Do you want a glass of wine? I'm feeling it with you. And Kristen and Clark become close, because he's 26, and she's 23.
00:29:49
Three Also they in a situation that is the most heightened Yes Like that how people fall in love Totally Whether it at your personal bank robbery or someone else bank robbery The problem is one of them has a gun to you True But isn Clark the one that came in
00:30:06
Yes. That's been called in? But he's now part of this. Did he get called in from jail and then they gave him a gun?
00:30:12
No, he got... I don't know. No. No. That can't be. I bet Jan had other guns and gave it to him.
00:30:19
Jan's like, can you please take this on my hands? I don't want to hold this gun anymore.
00:30:22
And so I think that I think Clark just took over the role that we're robbing this bank.
00:30:26
We have hostages. And I bet you what he brought into that situation is that feeling like you said, everything's going to be OK or whatever, where it's not some lunatic with wide eyes.
00:30:37
Yeah. And shaky hands. It's someone that's like, look, we just want the money. We're trying to do this.
00:30:42
No one's like Yon is in charge. I'm doing what he does, but making sure that no one gets hurt.
00:30:46
Yes. And that I'm sure was great. A great feeling for those people who are only freaked out.
00:30:52
And he's like Che Guevara and Jesus. So, yeah, I mean, you know, I'm just picturing whatever the shirt he had on.
00:31:00
There was a V-neck element to it. It was the 70s, so it was unbuttoned to the navel.
00:31:04
And there was just all kind of hair. Everyone was a bear in the 70s. So Clark orders Jan to loosen the hostages ropes to make them more comfortable.
00:31:12
And this is when the tides turn. And instead of being afraid of their captors, the hostages appreciate being treated with respect, which they didn't feel that the cops were giving them at that moment.
00:31:21
They thought that the cops would fucking blow down the doors and kill everyone. Yeah.
00:31:25
And they see Clark as their saving grace. Yeah. And Clark is the one who's interviewed in the criminal episode.
00:31:31
And he's just charming. He's great. He's kind of a dick, though. But he's great.
00:31:37
A cocky, charming dick. Well, he's the kind of guy that would rob banks. He'd be like, let's do it.
00:31:42
I can handle it. Totally. So Clark also does a once around the bank and finds an employee hiding in the closet, which is like, wah, wah.
00:31:51
Yeah. His name's Sven Saffstrom. He's collected and brought with everyone else, making him the fourth hostage.
00:31:57
Okay. So the hostages are allowed to call their families to let them know they're okay.
00:32:01
And by the second day, the hostages were on a first name basis with their captors.
00:32:05
And they started to feel the police more than their abductors. abductors. When the police commissioner was allowed inside to inspect the hostages health,
00:32:11
he noticed that the captives appeared to be hostile with him, but not, but they were relaxed
00:32:16
and jovial with their captors. Right. The police chief told the press that he doubted the gunmen
00:32:22
would harm the hostages because they had developed a quote, rather relaxed relationship, which of
00:32:28
course, then the public was like, let's, this is amazing. What the fuck is going on?
00:32:32
What are they doing in there? Yeah, exactly. They even had a few phone calls with the Prime Minister, Olaf Plam, and they let Kristen talk to him.
00:32:39
You mean that snowman from Frozen? Plame? Olaf Plame? How you doing? I guess not good.
00:32:49
I really enjoyed that show. I've never seen it. I'm sorry. No, no, it's my fault.
00:32:55
It's a snowman's name. The snowman's name is Olaf, right, Stephen? Okay. That's it.
00:32:58
So then I like to imagine that a snowman has a last name. and then eventually becomes the prime minister of Sweden.
00:33:06
Everything about that. So sorry. Again, show off time. No, I was embarrassed because I haven't seen it.
00:33:11
So I was like, no, I get that joke. But I didn't get that joke at all. It's pretty high level.
00:33:16
I have nephews, not nieces. They don't want to watch Frozen. Yeah, that's right.
00:33:19
You have a whole other. I should have made a Cars joke. Minecraft. Minecraft. So they let Kristen, one of the 23-year-old hostage, talk to him.
00:33:29
And she begs the prime minister to let her leave with the robbers in the car. She's like, I she says, I fully trust Clark and the robber.
00:33:37
I am not desperate. They haven't done anything to us. On the contrary, they have been very nice.
00:33:41
But what I'm scared of is the police will attack and cause us to die. Yeah. So even when threatened with physical harm, the hostages still were compassionate towards their abductors.
00:33:51
So Olsen suggested shooting Sven in the leg to shake up the police because it had been, it's like, this went on six fucking days.
00:34:02
Oh, shit. Yeah. And so like at one point they're like, let's shoot him in the leg to show me being business.
00:34:06
And Sven said that he thought it was kind of them that they would shoot him just in the leg and not in his body.
00:34:13
That is nice. Yeah. Yeah. So Elizabeth Olgren complained of claustrophobia. This part is a little weird for me.
00:34:19
Okay. They tied a rope around her neck because they were in the bank vault and let her walk outside the bank vault and just hang out, which is like a little degrading.
00:34:29
But she was really grateful of it. That's like the one hint of these two are like the hints of Stockholm syndrome making sense to me.
00:34:38
Yes. That there's that they definitely had a sway over these people and that they were doing things that maybe weren't the coolest.
00:34:44
Right. But the people were just grateful that they were having a not the worst. I'm sure that the shape of all this was this is going to be a traumatic experience.
00:34:54
Within it, it's not being a traumatic experience. So it's like, oh, great. Or the little kindnesses in between that like make that assure you that everything's going to be okay, which is all you're fucking grasping for is that something's going to be okay.
00:35:08
Yes. And so when people come along and give you those assurances, then you're kind of like, well, now I love you.
00:35:14
Right. Because other than this, I'm just I'm blind. I'm in the dark entirely and I think I might die.
00:35:20
So whatever you say to me is going to start becoming very meaningful and make you look very powerful.
00:35:26
Right. Totally. That's how it is in Hollywood. I relate entirely. It's like being fucking held hostage.
00:35:35
Ultimately, the standoff lasts six days. That's fucking crazy. It's so long. They're in a vault.
00:35:40
They close the door to the vault. They have no food and water and they have to poop and stuff in the corner.
00:35:45
For real? I think so. I'm making that up. But they were locked in the vault. So they must have had to go to the bathroom in the corner.
00:35:55
Right This is not criminal There no Here your proof um how is that there they i don think so
00:36:05
no i think so because i think a clark says that uh he appreciated them going through this disgusting
00:36:11
filthy event with him and so i think they were shitting in a corner if they were shitting at all
00:36:17
i'd just be like you know what here's the thing now i have uh i really have a claustrophobia
00:36:23
around shit. I could be out in an open field, but let me walk away from this area. Six days.
00:36:31
That's crazy. Maybe there's vault bathrooms. Maybe. Just one emergency vault bathroom.
00:36:37
What if you like... Okay, you know how they have safe deposit boxes? Yes. You just go in there.
00:36:47
What if a lot of people got a nice surprise the next couple of years from your safety deposit boxes?
00:36:51
And you're saying, how much is this shit worth? Fifteen million dollars. Guys, we can make all of these jokes because it's the Stockholm Syndrome story, which inherently is about the violence not affecting people in the normal way.
00:37:06
Oh, yeah. It's basically our story. It's our origin story. We can put anything into it that we want.
00:37:13
OK. Six days. Convicts do no physical harm to the hostages. And on the night of.
00:37:18
Except for the pooping thing. Very harmful. Very harmful. August 28, after more than 130 hours, police, they start drilling holes in the vault, the
00:37:27
cops were. Yeah. And then they finally put in tear gas, which is like such a dick move to the hostages,
00:37:32
right? Right. But I mean, after, I think there's so much pressure. Yeah. If the whole country is watching, if not more people.
00:37:38
And then it's like, well, what are these cops going to do? And they're like, it's going to suck for them, but this isn't like, we're not killing them.
00:37:44
When it came down to the end, they were just like, okay, either we drill holes and put
00:37:48
tear gas in there or we go with the bees idea. Which I still don't think is a terrible idea.
00:37:53
I'm still on board with drunk Karen's idea. But there's a drunk Karen in Sweden that called that in.
00:38:02
She's like, I can't do a Swedish accent. But the idea of, like, they had to move it forward, basically.
00:38:14
Yeah, it was stalling. And they knew, I think the police at that time knew, They couldn't do anything truly violent because they were being watched.
00:38:23
They were being watched and the whole thing became about police violence. And, you know, Clark called the newspapers and everything and was letting them know that everything is fine in here.
00:38:31
No one's being hurt just so that they couldn't spin the story and make him seem all violent and crazy.
00:38:36
Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. So Jan and Clark quickly surrender and the police want the hostages to come out first.
00:38:43
But the hostages are like, we fucking refuse. We know you're going to shoot them if they're last.
00:38:47
So they're coming out with us. Wow. Which is like they're protecting their lives at that point.
00:38:52
Yeah. In the doorway of the vault, the three women kiss Olsen and Olsen goodbye.
00:38:58
And Sven shakes hands with them. They're captors for six fucking days. Yeah. And the police seize the gunman.
00:39:04
And while that happens, two of the hostages cry out, don't hurt them. They didn't harm us.
00:39:08
While Kristen is wheeled away in a stretcher. And there's photos of her sitting up in her stretcher, like watching to make sure they're okay.
00:39:15
She says, Clark, I will see you soon. oh she like clark i think that and i think they ended up hooking up later what yeah are you being
00:39:23
serious i swear to god in the criminal he mentions yet we were closer than friends
00:39:27
i swear he's a real he's a dog he's a cat he's he's a real so-and-so girl that fella it later
00:39:37
came out that during the standoff he had soothed kristin when she had a bad dream and he gave her
00:39:42
a bullet from his gun as a keepsake. No. I mean, it's just that. It's kind of hard. Because
00:39:50
somebody, it's like, they're looking out for you. And I'm like, oh, I'm scared. Like, I'm all
00:39:58
so titillated. And what if Jesus liked you personally? That's big. Jesus was like a bad guy.
00:40:04
No, he wasn't. No, that is not from our Bible. I'm thinking of Rambo. I'm thinking of Rambo. I'm sorry.
00:40:10
I'm sorry. But I think it is the there is a manipulation obviously because it's not normal feelings and it's not a normal situation
00:40:17
but i just keep thinking like after six days you've hung out with people where they're like
00:40:22
look i don't want to be a bank robber i actually used to have a dream yeah of becoming a great
00:40:26
whatever thing swedish people like and it's like and my dreams were deferred well it's like they
00:40:33
have enough time to get them to get the stories straight so it's like you can empathize with why
00:40:38
they do what they do. And here's the other thing, because the vault door was locked, they were also in the
00:40:42
dark, except for the holes that were drilled into it. Wow. So, like, they just went through some shit.
00:40:50
They went through some shit. In the dark? That really, that kind of turns, that spins
00:40:54
it as well. And the smell? Okay. It was like a stinky podcast where they all became best friends. We know
00:41:00
what that's like. Let's start it. Both the public and police were fucking totally perplexed by the hostages'
00:41:06
seemingly irrational attachment to their captors. The police even began to investigate whether Kristen was part of the robbery plot to begin with.
00:41:15
They were like, this is so impossible. She must be fucking part of this. The captors were confused, too.
00:41:19
The following day, one of the hostages asked a psychiatrist, is there something wrong with me?
00:41:26
Why don't I hate them? They were confused, too. Psychiatrists were like, let's psychoanalyze this motherfucker
00:41:32
and compared the behavior to the wartime shell shock exhibited by soldiers. you know and explain that the hostages had become emotionally indebted to their abductors
00:41:42
and not the police for being spared death yeah right makes sense sweetest psychiatrist niels
00:41:49
bergerot later coined the term stockholm syndrome to describe the so captor bonding which became part of the popular lexicon in 1974 when it was used as a defense for the kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst who assisted the radical Symbionese Liberation Army captors in a series of bank robberies
00:42:09
It didn't work, though, her defense. And I'm still horrified by this, that she was sentenced to 35 years in prison and it was later reduced to seven years.
00:42:19
Like, that's so crazy, isn't it? Yeah. I still think it's a miscarriage of justice.
00:42:25
That whole story is so beyond. It's like only in the 70s could that have happened because it was it was so.
00:42:31
And, you know, it was in San Francisco. Right. So there it's yeah, it's just above and beyond everything.
00:42:38
And all those like she is so gorgeous. The pictures of her. The whole thing is like a weird movie plot.
00:42:43
It is. But in real life. It's bonkers. The hostages refused. So the hostages wouldn't testify against the bank robbers.
00:42:50
Yeah. And Kirsten even lied on the stand saying that Clark had never held a gun during the six day standoff.
00:42:56
Oh, wow. She fucking lied. She was going down for her man. Yeah. She said she didn't want him to be punished.
00:43:02
In fact, she said she would have given him a medal if it were up to her. I mean, charm goes a long way.
00:43:07
I don't think they have medals for that, though. No, I don't. For the lack of extreme violence.
00:43:13
Yeah. For not, number one, for not murdering. Yeah. But in that scenario, you work at a bank, you kind of fear this all the time, and you've already run through what could happen and how bad it could be.
00:43:26
So the thing is happening that you fear, but it's with people that are like, we don't want to hurt you.
00:43:31
We just want this money. But there's still that little bit of chance that they could and that things could go wrong and you could still be killed.
00:43:40
It's so terrifying. And then you're shitting in a corner. That part. Yeah. Jan was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the robbery and Clark didn't go to prison at all for his crime because he was like, you guys made me go do this.
00:43:53
He can't be. No, he was pulled into it. But he's been back in prison many times since then.
00:43:59
No shit. Yeah. And so even after they returned to prison, the hostages made jailhouse visits to their former captors.
00:44:07
Wow. I know. and Jan was released in 1980 and once freed he married one of the many women who sent him
00:44:15
admiring letters while incarcerated oh nice and they like had a kid together they went fucking
00:44:20
straight they they own like a mechanics place or something wow and had like a normal life
00:44:26
so he has a normal life because of being involved in that maybe well because she sent the letter like
00:44:33
yeah it's that was the inciting incident you gotta hope that's what the movie plot's gotta be yeah
00:44:37
And since the robbery, Jan has not been convicted of any other crimes. Great. And has openly apologized for the hostage situation.
00:44:46
Awesome. Yeah. And that's the story of the fucking Stockholm Syndrome. God, I feel like that might be the best case scenario.
00:44:52
Any true crime story you could talk to. Yes. I hope yours isn't horrible. It is the worst.
00:44:57
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Quince.com slash MFM. Goodbye. Are we back? I'm ready to concentrate on you. These are fun.
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I know. I love them. I think they're really good. It was a good idea. Georgia and I just took a break in between, just a quick bathroom break.
00:47:35
Yeah. And I have to say, first of all, we have to make a rule when we go to the bathroom during taping.
00:47:43
Yeah. I'm not allowed to use the tweezers in the bathroom. No. It's for before and after only.
00:47:49
No plucking allowed. I just did a serious amount of plucking in the bathroom. gone for a while. I couldn't stop. But here's the thing. As I did it, it makes me incredibly proud
00:48:00
And grateful because we run our own company now where we ask Danielle, who runs our network, can you please get us a pair of tweezers for this bathroom?
00:48:10
Because every time I go in there, there's hairs there where I'm like, why is no one telling me about this?
00:48:16
The lighting is going to be like this fine, but we are going to need a solution for it.
00:48:19
Yeah, we need to be able to not feel like victims of our own faces. Yeah, and we work amongst and around people.
00:48:24
We've gotten this crew with us that don't mind hearing about what a great plucking session we just had.
00:48:30
Or maybe they just don't want to get fired and hired for a blast. I think Stephen would be expressing his true feelings if he didn't feel so threatened.
00:48:37
Yeah. Stephen? No, I was going to say, I have a little deodorant in the bathroom.
00:48:40
I was trimming my mustache hairs a little bit today. He gets it. He lives here now.
00:48:46
Oh, Stephen, you're not allowed to do that. I have a cot in the back room. Okay. That was just like a personal hygiene break that no one wanted.
00:48:58
Corner. Okay. We're prepping to go on this big trip, and we just recorded an episode, so this episode definitely snuck up on me.
00:49:07
So when I was looking for a story, I first tried to think, what haven't I done that I really want to do?
00:49:12
Didn't think of Stockholm Syndrome. Yeah, me neither. So mad at myself. So what I did was I Googled the phrase disappeared from the forest to see what would come up.
00:49:24
That's brilliant. And which is a good way to do it, because the first thing that came up was this amazing article from 2008 from the L.A. Weekly that was written by a writer named Christine Pelissak was the guest is how you pronounce her name.
00:49:41
And that from that was the story that basically gave me this story. That article from the LA Weekly from 11 years ago.
00:49:49
And then the supporting articles were found on Murderpedia. And basically, we've talked a ton about how LA in the 70s, there were all these freeway murderers.
00:49:59
There were so many serial killers in the Southland in the 70s that there were actually subsets and types of serial killers that you could be in freeway.
00:50:09
Killers were one of them. Right. And this this is a this. So this hits on a bunch of my things, which is the disappeared from the forest thing, the freeway killer thing.
00:50:17
And then, you know, the thing I always talk about where because of the way the news cycle is, because the way the country is right now and the politics and everything that I always talk about, what are the things we're not hearing about?
00:50:28
Because everything's getting eaten up all day by basically the crumbling of democracy and reality.
00:50:34
And this is what happened in the 70s. And that's why no one's ever heard of Mack Ray Edwards, the child serial killer, the serial killer of children in Los Angeles before the 70s.
00:50:49
Holy shit. Yes. OK, so I've never seen this guy's picture. I've never heard his name.
00:50:54
I couldn't believe it. So it starts here. On March 23, 1957, eight-year-old Tommy Bowman is on a short hike with his father, his brother, his sister, his uncle, and his two young cousins.
00:51:08
And they're going along the Arroyo Seco Trail in Pasadena. They're from Adondo Beach, the Bowman family.
00:51:16
And they're spending the day in basically Altadena together. Essentially, I think the family from the beach wanted to go up into the mountains and hike around for the day.
00:51:23
Isn't that crazy? Like that would have been a trek for the day back then. And now it's like a fucking errand you run.
00:51:29
And back then it was like, we're all going to get into the car without our cell phones.
00:51:29
Yes. And we're going to drive up into the mountains. Will they left their cell phones at home?
00:51:36
Yeah. They left their cell phones in the future. So, and this is the, that classic story toward the ends of the hike.
00:51:43
Tommy races. He basically says to his cousins, I'll race you to the car. Oh no. And they're only a quarter of a mile away from the parking lot off the trail where they started.
00:51:54
so they all watch Tommy race ahead and turn a corner and they never see him again
00:51:59
what the fuck so when the rest of the Bowmans get to the parking lot they don't see him anywhere
00:52:05
they immediately call the police and then a week long how did that turn on? I think a ghost is here
00:52:13
the fan just fucking turned on by itself that fan just turned on by itself Steven?
00:52:19
if you invited a ghost Bluetooth It's like an old timey fan. All right. If that happens again, I'm leaving.
00:52:29
So they immediately call the police and a week long search ensues. What the fuck?
00:52:35
Helicopters scour the 11 mile stretch of the Arroyo Seco from Mount Wilson in the San Gabriels to South Pasadena.
00:52:43
They add more police officers. Even Tommy's father is named Eldon, and his coworkers from the company he works for start showing up to help search for Tommy.
00:52:57
All on foot, all in the area. Nothing's found. Tommy's basically disappeared without a trace.
00:53:04
So there's no solid lead. So investigators, they're grasping for straws. And there's theories that Tommy may have been taken by a mountain lion, you know, or some like a wild animal theory.
00:53:16
There was also a theory that he had somehow wandered to the they were right near JPL, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
00:53:26
Oh, yeah. Which we got we got a tour of Stephen and I and Scotty Landis. That was kind of close by.
00:53:34
So they were thinking he wandered into that parking lot and someone from JPL kidnapped him.
00:53:39
They're just basically like those people are too smart, too together. And they're worried about space.
00:53:45
Yeah But basically they trying to theorize of what the hell could have happened There no of course evidence to support either of these theories and nothing ever comes from that So they kind of disappear And then two different female eyewitnesses come forward to say that on the day of Tommy disappearance they had seen a little boy who looked like Tommy walking on the trail near Altadena Drive in Pasadena crying
00:54:10
And they told police that just behind the boy was a deeply tanned, disheveled looking man in khakis and a plaid shirt.
00:54:19
One woman says he's wearing a plaid shirt. One woman says he's wearing a white T-shirt.
00:54:24
So the investigators start questioning registered sex defenders in the area, while Tommy's father's employer, the Northrop Corporation, the one who his coworkers came to try to search, the Northrop Corporation puts up a cash reward for information leading to finding Tommy.
00:54:44
But neither of those efforts brings any new leads. A few days after Tommy's disappearance, an unidentified man claims that he is holding Tommy Bowman and he demands a $2,500 ransom.
00:54:58
So an exchange is set up at a gas station in Eagle Rock. Police, of course, are staking it out when the man arrives to get the cash.
00:55:05
Police arrest him. They find out the whole thing's fake. He's just trying to get money.
00:55:10
thing to do. It's such a strangely unstable and weird thing to do where people couldn't be
00:55:18
in a worse place. And you're like, maybe I'll make money. Yeah, it's so gross. By 1960,
00:55:24
the case of Tommy Bowman's disappearance goes cold. Okay, so now we skip to fall of 2005.
00:55:31
No, what? Yeah. Nearly 50 years later in the fall of 2005, an author named Weston DeWalt.
00:55:37
So this is the guy who this article that I found is about. It's about this author.
00:55:44
So he is a successful author, and he's doing research on the jogging trails near his house in Pasadena when someone tells him about the long-ago disappearance of Tommy Bowman.
00:55:57
He's like, I just want to know how the river flows in my area. And you're like, well, guess what?
00:56:01
Too bad you're friends with the murderino, clearly. And someone's like, you want to know how the river flows?
00:56:06
How about I tell you what shitty things are happening right behind your house? Oh, my God.
00:56:10
So, but Weston DeWalt is intrigued. He's an author. He's, you know, so he starts looking into this case.
00:56:17
He states that when he starts doing this digging, he realizes, quote, he made a decision that if he could find some of Tommy's relatives alive, I would write a book about what it meant to a family to wonder for 50 years.
00:56:32
Right. Heartbreaking. So he gets he's basically he's in. He's like completely hooked by the fact that this boy basically just disappeared off the face of the earth and nobody had any answers for 50 years.
00:56:44
So Weston DeWalt makes contact with Tommy Bowman's father, Eldon, and Eldon actually invites him over to his house in Simi Valley, where he now lives.
00:56:53
And when he when Weston gets there, Eldon has laid out all the investigative materials he's kept about his son's case for the past 50 years on the dining room table.
00:57:02
So there's letters and there's photographs and there's all the newspaper clippings and basically everything that Weston might want to know.
00:57:09
And after a lengthy, lengthy discussion, Eldon agrees to let Weston DeWalt petition the L.A. County Sheriff's Department to reopen the case.
00:57:18
So basically, DeWalt goes and he starts meeting with LAPD to talk about this and how this case needs to be reopened.
00:57:28
And over time, he becomes friends with the cold case detective, Vivian Flores, who had been working this case since that time.
00:57:36
And she helps him sift through all the case file evidence and all the basically the available evidence.
00:57:44
And there, when he's looking through it, Weston finds an eyewitness sketch of the tanned, disheveled man that was seen walking behind Tommy by those two eyewitnesses.
00:57:56
and immediately Weston recognizes the face in this sketch as being very similar to a photo he had seen while researching child abductions.
00:58:07
The photo was from 1970, and it was of a man being led into a courtroom in handcuffs,
00:58:12
and that man was 51-year-old, heavy equipment, at least at the time the picture was taken,
00:58:17
51-year-old heavy equipment operator named Mack Edwards. Oh, my God, chills. Right. So he sees it and is like, he's here. And then in this, he's, he's being arrested for child abduction. So who is this guy? Could it be the same guy? We'll talk a little bit about Mac Edwards. He moved, he was an Arkansas native that moved to Sylmar, California.
00:58:41
in the late 40s. He had just been married in Arkansas. So he's a newlywed. He had been a combat engineer in World War II.
00:58:53
He and his wife in Silmar adopt two kids. He joins the Union of Operating Engineers
00:58:58
and gets a job building and repairing LA's freeways. He's basically just a heavy equipment operator.
00:59:05
And this is the time where they just start building all these freeways all around LA.
00:59:11
And so that's what he basically works on. He operates the heavy machinery that Caltrans uses to build all these freeways and to grade, clear the land.
00:59:21
I know where this is going. Yeah, you do. Okay, so he is described as having a, quote, generally dorky demeanor.
00:59:29
So he wears glasses. He doesn't drink. He doesn't swear. He's very friendly. All the neighbors like him.
00:59:36
He actually owns horses that he lets the neighborhood kids ride. He's also known for taking the neighborhood kids camping.
00:59:43
Oh, I bet he fucking is. Yeah. So he's very well liked in the community because he's that great guy that's so nice.
00:59:50
One thousand red flags. He loves children. Get away. Creep. All those sentiments go away on March 5th 1970 When Mac Edwards walks into the foothill station of the Los Angeles Police Department He puts a loaded gun on the front desk and tells the on officer I have a guilt complex
01:00:10
What? Uh-huh. So he's taken into an interview room where he eventually confesses to the kidnapping of three young sisters from Sylmar that had happened the day before.
01:00:21
OK, so basically, according to Edwards, he tells police that he and a teenage accomplice had broken in to the three girls home during the early morning hours after their parents had left the house for the day.
01:00:36
They they were robbing the house and then then they abducted the girls. So they were sisters age 12, 13 and 14.
01:00:44
I do not know why you'd want to fuck with three sisters in that age range. That's dangerous.
01:00:49
Yeah. These idiots didn't know it, but they were about to find out. Before they left the house, they forced the girls to write notes to their parents saying they were running away from home, which is fucking evil.
01:01:00
That's so evil. So evil. So they get the girls in the car. They drive to the Angeles National Forest, which is just those words strike fear into the heart.
01:01:10
At some point during this abduction, though, two of the three sisters get away. And then the third sister is left there.
01:01:18
edwards and his teenage accomplice of course panic edwards knows that these girls can identify
01:01:25
him he's their old neighbor oh so they they knew who he was they he was like oh this is over so the
01:01:32
the um edwards and his accomplice just leave and they leave the third sister in the forest
01:01:37
okay so edwards knows that sooner or later he's going to get caught they this situation's gone
01:01:42
totally out of control so he decides i'm just going to cut to the chase and turn myself in
01:01:47
because it's going to happen anyway. And why wait for it? And it turns out the good news about all of that is that those girls were not attacked
01:01:56
in any way or physically harmed by those men. They basically scrambled the situation and got themselves out of it before anything bad
01:02:03
could happen to them. Amazing. Aside from the kidnapping itself. It's so awesome.
01:02:08
I just think like there's you don't mess with sisters. Don't mess with junior high level.
01:02:14
That's right. Sisters. They will murder you. Yeah. Okay, so Mac Edwards, he basically, the police ask him why he decided to kidnap these girls, and he tells them that he planned to rape and murder all three of them.
01:02:31
Holy shit. And then Edwards says to the police, now there's other matters to discuss.
01:02:37
And Mac Edwards goes on to confess that between the span of 1953 and 1969, he had kidnapped and murdered six children.
01:02:46
Oh, my God. So this is what he confesses to and what the police just have to they can't write fast enough to say what what is happening here.
01:02:56
First, it was an eight year old girl named Stella Nolan. So she disappeared from the flea market that her mom worked at in Norwalk on June 20th, 1953.
01:03:08
So the story was that her mom had to work. She knew that her daughter would be bored.
01:03:14
She's an eight year old at this big flea market. So she said, you can walk around, but you have to come back every hour on the hour and check in with me.
01:03:21
So I know that you're here. And so that's what they that was the plan. That's what they'd always done.
01:03:25
And this day, June 20th, when she was supposed to check in at nine o'clock, she never showed up.
01:03:31
So immediately the mother knew something was wrong because Stella was super responsible and really smart and would not have just blown it off.
01:03:39
So she called the police immediately. but she was, again, it was a child who just disappeared without a trace. No one saw anything.
01:03:47
And that case went cold for 16 years. Next was 13-year-old Dawn Baker and 11-year-old Brenda
01:03:53
Howell. They'd gone bike riding together in San Gabriel Canyon on August 6, 1956,
01:03:59
and they were never seen again. Because the bodies could not be found. This case,
01:04:04
there was just no evidence. So that case went cold. This confession was especially shocking
01:04:09
because Brenda Howell, the 11-year-old, was actually Mac Edwards' sister-in-law.
01:04:14
It was his wife's little sister that he murdered. Yeah. So then he swears that he stopped murdering children for 12 years.
01:04:26
Oh, great. He tried to get it all together. but that changed on November 26 1968 when he shot and killed a 16 year old Gary Rocha
01:04:38
in Rocha's home in Granada Hills then his son's classmate was a 16 year old named Roger Madison
01:04:48
and Roger had left his house for the evening never to be seen again turns out that Edwards
01:04:56
had lured him into an orange grove and were stabbed him repeatedly on December 14th, 1968.
01:05:02
So just killed him right there. Finally, Edwards confesses to kidnapping 13-year-old Donald Todd
01:05:08
from his Pacoima home on May 16th, 1969. Donald's body was found under a footbridge. He'd been
01:05:15
sexually assaulted and shot to death. So Edwards said that all these crimes were motivated by an
01:05:23
urge for sex. So he assaulted all of these victims. And that was basically what was behind
01:05:28
all of this. So these investigators know that in this 12 year period where he's saying I was
01:05:33
basically, I was trying to be good. I had my family and all this bullshit. They're just like,
01:05:38
no. So he basically, he confesses to these six murders, pleads guilty to three counts of
01:05:47
kidnapping and three counts of murder, because those are the, they only have the bodies of three
01:05:52
victims. He's immediately found guilty and sentenced to death and he sent to San Quentin and he put on death row The reason that we never heard
01:06:05
or at least I've never heard of Mac Ray Edwards, is because right when he went to jail and when all this,
01:06:13
like this story broke, it was exactly at the same time as the Manson murders. And when they arrested Charles Manson and the Manson family.
01:06:20
so it completely got obliterated by the manson murder story isn't that crazy yeah and this is a
01:06:27
this is a i keep saying child serial killer yeah serial kill a serial killer of children yeah which
01:06:33
is i think the worst i mean i mean yeah it's also bad but yeah um so basically he just disappears
01:06:39
because of manson when he goes to san quentin whose two cells down from him charles manson
01:06:44
Oh, gross. Can you imagine how boring that fucking idiot was? The whole, the babbling that went on in that block.
01:06:52
And there is actually a teenage prisoner that was only identified as being named Roberto, that was the person between the two cells.
01:07:02
Oh my God, he's like... So he has Charles Manson on one side, who he said he actually enjoyed talking to Mac Ray Edwards more because Charles Manson would be nice one second, offering him cigarettes, and then threatened to kill him the next second.
01:07:14
Meanwhile, Edwards was really friendly and normal the whole time, but then starts telling him about all the other kids that he's killed.
01:07:23
Yes. So he's doing that jailhouse confession slash brag thing to the poor guy in the cell next to him where he said he couldn't sleep at night because the guy was just talking and telling him all these other kids that he had murdered.
01:07:36
It's all bad. It's so horrible. so basically when he's found guilty and he's sent to St. Quentin
01:07:42
he tells the court I want to be electrocuted in an electric chair can you move me up to the front of the line
01:07:48
there's some people that are there they're waiting and they're sweating I want to be in the electric chair
01:07:54
it's all I've ever wanted they're like yeah it doesn't work like that and because it is all you've ever wanted
01:08:00
now you'll never get it so the request is denied he makes several suicide attempts
01:08:08
And finally, in November of 1971, Mac Ray Edwards hangs himself with a TV cord in his prison cell at the age of 52.
01:08:18
So we're now back to August of 2006, where Weston DeWalt has dinner with Mac Edwards' 76-year-old widow and her family.
01:08:27
No way. Yes. So he's basically saying, I'm trying to investigate these murders. I'm trying to get these victims, families, some kind of it's never closure, but some kind of answer.
01:08:39
Right. And he to that dinner brings Bill Gleason, who's a consultant for the California Department of Justice.
01:08:47
And so during that visit, Max Widow reveals he'd written a confession letter to her right before his suicide from jail.
01:08:55
And in the letter, Edward says this about his original confession. I was going to add one more, but that was the Tommy Bowman boy that disappeared in Pasadena, but I felt like I would really make a mess of it, of that one, so I left him out of it.
01:09:11
So, then, DeWalt finds that Mack's employer in 1969 was a company called Cursed Construction, and they had an equipment yard less than half a mile from where Tommy Bowman went missing.
01:09:25
And in this letter, Edwards also tells his wife that he'd only killed one of the six children that he'd admitted to and that the person responsible for the other five murders was his, quote, crippled neighbor as the way he describes him.
01:09:39
He basically told his wife he's trying to cover for this neighbor. Right. Who's the one who really did it.
01:09:43
What a hero. So, right. But Weston DeWalt looks into this story. There's no neighbor.
01:09:48
There never had been. Of course. So then Weston DeWalt, the author, he tracks down Edwards arresting officer to get more information.
01:09:55
He's trying to fill in these gaps. And that guy points him to another guard that Edwards had kind of befriended before he was transferred to San Quentin.
01:10:06
So that guard, the second guard tells DeWalt that while in prison, Edwards confessed to him that he was actually responsible for 18 murders, not just six.
01:10:17
Jesus. When the guard asked Edwards why he didn't confess to all of them, Edwards told him that it was because the cops had, quote, said bad things about me in court.
01:10:26
OK, dude, they're allowed to. I mean, you're a bad guy. Yeah. But also, it's that weird kind of thinking where because they don't care about other human beings and they don't think about other beings or whatever.
01:10:38
He doesn't see the difference between confessing to these six and letting all these other people off the hook for children that disappeared out of the blue for these poor families.
01:10:50
So then the cell, the guy that was in the cell between Manson and Edwards, Roberto, he said that Edwards confessed to at least 20.
01:11:01
Jesus. To him. We may never know the true count of his victims. authorities believe it's definitely safe to assume it's more than six.
01:11:11
So the bodies of three of Edwards' known victims, Dawn Baker, Brenda Howell, and Roger Madison, were never found.
01:11:20
But Detective Flores had been focusing her efforts on finding Roger Madison's body.
01:11:26
She finally gets a break when she discovers there's a transcript of Mac Edwards' confession of the murder of Donald Todd.
01:11:32
And in that confession, Edwards says that he stabbed Madison in a Sylmar Orange Grove and buried him along the 23 freeway on Caltrans land in Moorpark.
01:11:45
But that freeway was still under construction at the time. So Flores finds a retired Caltrans employee.
01:11:52
This is how hard she's working this case. I'm on the edge of my seat. She finds a retired Caltrans employee who had kept detailed law enforcement.
01:12:00
the work he had done over the years, like where and when. So using his logs, they're able to pinpoint the exact location of where Caltrans had been working along the 23 freeway on December 16th, 1969.
01:12:15
So three months later, Detective Flores has corpse sniffing dogs sent to the area that were where they were supposed to have been working.
01:12:26
and those dogs all find the same spot. Are you like 50 years later and under cement?
01:12:33
Right. And so that's when they're like, okay, this is where we're going to start.
01:12:38
So on October 6, 2008, Flores and her team start digging up the area next to the 23 freeway in Moore Park.
01:12:47
Holy shit. They dig for five days. and even though there were DNA tests taken of the area that showed
01:12:55
that Roger's DNA was there and ground penetrating radar said that there was something buried there
01:13:02
and of course the logs showed they couldn't find anything and if they kept on digging
01:13:07
they were going to have to shut down the freeway it could have been like five fucking feet off
01:13:13
that's what's such a bummer about it it's so frustrating and because this guy essentially
01:13:19
they're not going to shut down the freeway so the dig is called off and there's something so especially sinister
01:13:25
the fact that he this was the plan all along because when he was working on those freeways
01:13:32
basically he would time his murders knowing that they were about to go do basically be building
01:13:40
these things so the night before he would go dig the hole and then put his his murder victims in these graves and then the next day it would all get covered over by cement
01:13:51
and freeways that's the creepiest thing i've ever heard it's so it's like the the original freeway
01:14:00
killer story where it's like just bad vibes like that's what this is all about down here that's
01:14:06
what this fucking creepy road ragey aggro feeling it but it was all rule that rural back then yes
01:14:15
And like it was all families trying to come out here and make a difference and, you know, make their way.
01:14:21
It wasn't it wasn't Hollywood and everything. And it's just it's crazy. It's it's so nuts.
01:14:30
So as sad as that is and as unsatisfying as that is, it's basically, yeah, shut down the freeways.
01:14:36
Who cares? Find those remains. Yeah. It's basically red tape. It's not going to happen.
01:14:41
And what's cool and lovely and small, but still important, is that Roger's sister came and she got to leave flowers next to basically the excavation area where they were trying to find him.
01:14:53
And they the police who are standing by and the Caltrans employees, everybody like removed their hats and had a moment of silence for Roger Madison and his loss of life.
01:15:05
And then they basically had to cover it all over. So despite his claims, no one believes that, of course, Mac Edwards went dormant for 12 years between Brenda Howell and Don Baker's double murder and Gary Roach's murder.
01:15:18
So Weston DeWalt, Vivian Flores, many LAPD cold case detectives continue to this day to try linking Mac Edwards movements and personal timeline with all the cold cases of missing and murdered children in Southern California.
01:15:34
And that is the deeply disturbing and little known story of Mac Ray Edwards, LA's least known serial killer of children.
01:15:42
Fuck, man. Who knew? Isn't that fucked? What a crazy story. Yeah. Good job. Thank you.
01:15:49
It gets me in so many ways. I know. He's the only, he lets everybody ride their horses.
01:15:55
Yeah. And he's so nice. And let's go camping. He's a molesting, murdering piece of shit.
01:16:00
But he also, they eventually, you know, as they dug up all these files and everything, before he left Arkansas, he had molested a girl.
01:16:09
It was probably the reason that he left and came out. So it's like he's just got the longest track record.
01:16:16
It's just so. And what a perfect place to come to when you like in a small town in Arkansas that you get run out of because you molesting someone You go to L where it like it a big sprawling you know anonymous city
01:16:29
Yeah, that's a growing. Yeah, you've got to be the freeway aspect is so chilling.
01:16:35
And also the way he did it where somehow he was able to get in and out of these places unseen and unnoticed.
01:16:44
He's, you know, like just kind of the master of that thing where however he did it and the idea that Tommy Bowman was crying when he was walking up that street and the man was behind him.
01:16:55
Clearly, he knew how to very quickly like win the favor of and then intimidate children.
01:17:01
Or is it a time and a place where you mind your own fucking business? And so no one is noticing these things and it's just a kid crying.
01:17:09
Yeah. And upset. And you don't think twice about it. A mean dad and dad. Yeah. It's none of your business.
01:17:14
Yeah. Right. That was so long before, like, this is pre so much stuff. Yeah. Stranger danger.
01:17:20
It's pre everything where it's just like, you could hit your kids. You could hit your neighbor's kids.
01:17:24
Everybody gets hit. Yeah. Every teachers, no one gets looked out for kids are out like hiking alone.
01:17:31
I mean, he wasn't, but you know, it's just that it was the time where it was just like,
01:17:36
sure. If you want to go off and wander around for a while, sure. Do it. Yeah. Just, we just didn't know.
01:17:42
We didn't know. No one knew polite to adults. And yeah. And assume that if somebody, you know, whether it's owns horses or goes to church or whatever,
01:17:53
is like everyone's buying everybody else's mask just a hundred percent outright.
01:17:58
And like, sounds good if you're a man and you have a job and you're blue collar and
01:18:02
then you're nice. Yeah. No one will suspect you. These children camping. Great. No.
01:18:08
Oh, good job. Thank you. I thought I need to, I'm going to put something in Google, like similar and get a story like that.
01:18:15
Cause that was fucking paydirt. Yeah, it really was. I mean, it was horrible. It was the worst.
01:18:21
Horrible paydirt. The worst of all paydirts. But also it's the thing where you, I always think I've heard everything.
01:18:26
Yeah. And you're, of course not. There's so much terrible shit out there. So much.
01:18:32
And we promise we'll bring it to you the second we find out about it. We almost have 200 episodes.
01:18:39
Can you believe that? We have to do a good one for our 200. What are we going to do?
01:18:43
I don't know. Steven, just do it. Make it happen. Just edit everything we've ever said together.
01:18:51
What was my idea the other day of a compilation of... The, like, one word from every episode?
01:18:59
You're like, Steven, I know you're busy. Steven, if we're going to do a 200th episode, what if we just do, like, a great moment from every episode?
01:19:06
Georgia goes, sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm from Canada. How is he supposed to do that?
01:19:12
And I was like, oh, yeah, I don't know. I just want to try to figure something out.
01:19:16
He's kind of running exactly right audio engineering program. He's kind of producing five other podcasts right now simultaneously, as well as several pilots.
01:19:26
But yeah, no, that's not going to work out. What's your, and do you have a cigarette?
01:19:33
I just did a cigarette gesture to Georgia with a pen. It was pretty fabulous. This is like me all through grammar school.
01:19:41
Yeah. Another way to get a little attention. Pretend to smoke as a child. It's pay dirt.
01:19:47
Pay dirt. So funny. Do you have a fucking array? I'm sure I do. Okay. I guess my fucking array is like a future fucking array.
01:19:57
Is that like, I can't wait to step onto that plane tomorrow. Hell yes, girl. I can't wait.
01:20:02
And like, so my therapist is like, you have to do five positives every day. I can't wait to be cold.
01:20:08
UK and Ireland fucking air. I can't wait. It's going to be all Christmassy over there and shit, which I love.
01:20:14
Yeah. We're going to eat the best fucking food. Yes. We're going to have all this time on the airplane to work.
01:20:20
That's terrible. And it's just going to be great. I'm really, I'm really looking forward to this trip.
01:20:26
And then the three of us are going to fucking Barcelona. Yes. For the last three days just to have a, we're calling it a work retreat.
01:20:35
It's a company retreat. That's right. That's right. I can't wait. It's going to be so fun.
01:20:38
We're going to eat so much. I love it Do you know that the company retreat is me laying in your guys bed in your hotel room Move over With us being drunk Karen I want more tapas
01:20:50
I'll get them for you. Just give me four hours. I'm so happy to hear you say that because, you know, by the end of our fucking winter spring tour,
01:21:02
which really was just the entire first half of 2019 tour, it really felt like neither of us ever wanted to do it ever again.
01:21:11
It was so, you know, it was long. It was consistent. It was whatever. So I'm glad.
01:21:16
I'm glad that, you know, we took enough time off that this is actually like, yay.
01:21:20
Me too. Because it is so fun and exciting. I think mine is a, I definitely want to piggyback on that because I am truly so excited.
01:21:31
And, but also today, so I of course leave everything at the last minute. So today, in between six other things that I'm supposed to do, I ran to Macy's just to get some tights and what have you.
01:21:43
I get to get you some tights. But as I was standing there in the line, which was very long, and I start in my head basically like as if I'm on the phone going, can you please hire more people?
01:21:56
It's the holidays. There's like it's one o'clock in the afternoon and that we're eight deep here in the lingerie section at Macy's.
01:22:03
Right. But instead of doing that, I was just kind of trying to my my thing that I'm working on now.
01:22:11
Thank you, Tara Brock, is the just awareness of what you're thinking so that you can change your thought patterns.
01:22:17
So it's like if I'm just standing there and my habit is to mentally yell at people, maybe just put a pause on that and see what's actually happening around me that I could be enjoying instead of being in my thoughts negatively.
01:22:29
OK. And I'm standing. I realize I'm standing next to a huge display of pajamas and they look kind of cozy and they're like flannel red plaid pajamas.
01:22:39
Yeah. So I start touching him like I want flannel red plaid pajamas out of nowhere.
01:22:44
This lady comes around the corner and goes, I got pajamas just like that for my grandchildren.
01:22:49
They all matched. We took a picture. It was the greatest. She starts telling me some goddamn story.
01:22:56
Surprise grandma. Surprise grandma who had no, there was not even, it was as if I told her, could you meet me here at one o'clock so we could talk about this?
01:23:04
I wish I had a story about these pajamas. And then boom, around the corner. And I realize when I'm not in my head projecting and making problems or trying to work through problems, I'm the kind of person people walk up to and tell random shit to.
01:23:19
Yes. Okay. A hundred percent. If I can keep myself present. Okay. And that is, I have to remind myself,
01:23:25
I love that. The way she told me that story and as, as if it was vital information, I needed to
01:23:32
know that was going to help me decide whether or not I was going to get these pajamas. I was just
01:23:36
like, yes. And then she, as she walked away, well, they, I wasn't thinking of them really for me.
01:23:41
It was conceptual, but I was like Christmas. My sister always gets me pajamas and slippers are
01:23:48
the best fucking gifts for people. Everybody always needs and wants them. Always the best.
01:23:52
Always. But as she walked away, she goes, I don't know what I'm going to do this year.
01:23:56
And then I yell after her like, you can beat it. You can do it. If you did it last year,
01:24:01
you can do it this year. I'm happy. It's like it was the funniest moment. So anyway,
01:24:06
it was just a little reminder to me. I think it's like open yourself up to surprise grandmas.
01:24:10
yes because that's the that is the stuff of life yeah it's not uh the satisfaction you get yelling
01:24:18
at people because there's not enough people working at the counter that doesn't give me
01:24:22
anything it depletes me entirely even when it's just mental yeah where of like being mad or or
01:24:29
staying in anger adrenal glands and shit they just are like no it doesn't do anything and also it's
01:24:34
just like and i'm lucky enough to be here shopping in the first place you're gonna get to the front
01:24:39
of the line at some point yes you might as well talk to a surprise i'm really obsessed with the
01:24:42
surprise grandma is kind of the greatest because also they're all around us but if you're not if i
01:24:48
am not paying attention and if i need to feel like the way i control the world is pre-argue everything
01:24:53
so the argument's ready it's i'm ruining my own good time okay and i and i i think i'm getting
01:25:00
okay at trying to keep it in mind but like especially on this trip yeah that when you need to do it the most because I have so many flights Yes And you just anticipate this is going to be bad And this and it like no no no These are all opportunities to have surprise grandma moments
01:25:14
I love it. Oh my God. That's it. Right. That's the answer to life. So let's, let's all keep our surprise grandma diary for our trip.
01:25:23
Let me go back and tell these stories. All right. I'll see you at LAX tomorrow and we'll do it.
01:25:27
Let's do it. We'll have a go surprise grandma. Surprise grandma. Come out wherever you are.
01:25:33
Awesome. Love it. Love it. Love it. Fucking thanks for listening, you guys. We appreciate you so much.
01:25:39
I was at a bar last night and this crying girl came up to me freaking out and said, I just got dumped.
01:25:45
But I'm seeing I just ran into you and it made my night. She was so sweet. That's such a nice thing for such a shitty time of her life.
01:25:54
And I was like, fuck him. Fuck everything. I'm so happy to meet you. And your friends are all around you.
01:26:00
Yeah. It's what I said, too. Look up your Murderino friends. They're here. Yeah.
01:26:03
It's just such a rad community. You know, as you say that, sorry, but I just had one where I walked into the Starbucks.
01:26:09
I was actually just walking out of the Starbucks and a girl was walking in and she had the
01:26:14
moment as we were passing the doorway where she went, and I stopped and I was like, yep.
01:26:22
And then she didn't know what to do. And I, and I had, I was on my, of course I was already 10 minutes late, but I had to
01:26:29
stop me at Starbucks. and she stood there for a moment and then I was like hi good to see you and I was trying to kind
01:26:35
of like end it and then she just looked around and we started going oh my god to the rest of
01:26:41
the Starbucks and so I just left so I apologized to her because her excitement was real I'm sorry
01:26:48
that I don't like that I like the beginning and not the end so I bailed and I apologized
01:26:54
I apologize we're so different you and I but this was a small quiet Starbucks that I've just been super a part of
01:27:02
and then it was like I caused yelling at the door I need to be able to go back that's happened in my manicure place a couple times
01:27:10
and I'm sure they're wondering who the fuck is this she must be some kind of lunatic
01:27:16
that was the point of saying thanks you guys for supporting us we're so lucky supporting us even when we when i don't make it seem like it's what i want it is what i want and
01:27:28
thank you for doing it it means the world we're so grateful we're grateful we get to go to the uk
01:27:33
and ireland again we can't wait to tell you all about it so amazing it's gonna be real good that's
01:27:38
right um so thanks for everything stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye elvis you want a cookie
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