149 - Lifestyle & Feelings | My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

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Goodbye. My favorite murder Hi! Hi! Hi! Welcome to My Favorite Murder. It's a podcast.

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You know it. That's Karen Kilgariff. And that's Georgia Hart Stark. And of course, there's Stephen sitting over there on the ground.

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That's right. Just maintaining. That's exactly right. Oh. Fucking today. Oh. Wednesday is the fucking day that our fucking podcast network launched.

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We launched that, Mother. Today is the day. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations to you.

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Thank you. It feels great. We've been working on it. We've been multitasking for quite some time.

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We're not complaining. No. We're just letting you know that it's, yeah, it was very exciting.

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It was so exciting. It was surreal. I couldn't sleep last night. It feels good, and I'm very happy about it.

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Big thanks to Danielle Kramer. She is our producer, and she has basically been making it happen in the real,

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I was going to say, meat and bones way. Is that a saying? No, it is now. In America?

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No, it is. Danielle Kramer is a business wonder, and she has been guiding us and helping us navigate and making it happen.

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And we wouldn't have been able to do it without her. So, yeah, we couldn't be more excited to be working with her

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and to be having this podcast network that we have been planning and dreaming about

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and doing things for. And the cool thing is four shows premiered, I guess. The Fall Line, the podcast, of course, Do You Need a Ride?

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And This Podcast Will Kill You. Yes. And My Favorite Murder, of course. And of course, the old My Favorite Murder.

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You know. And This Podcast Will Kill You is like number three on the overall charts.

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That shot up. Those girls did great. The Fall Line is number five. The Fall Line went right up there.

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On the fucking top iTunes charts. Overall. And on the Lifestyle and Feelings charts.

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What is it called, Stephen? Society and Culture. Society and Culture. Lifestyle and Feelings needs to be the new one.

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The podcast came in hot and heavy, right? Yeah. I think that's appropriate, too. Lifestyle and feelings.

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Cat people. Yeah. Feelings. Feeling strong about your pet. Felines. Yeah. Felines. Karen.

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Yeah, number, I think, as of right now, it's number 10 or 11 or something like that.

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That's amazing. It's very exciting. Yeah. And then, of course, there's even more

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to come. Oh, yeah. We've got more podcasts coming, you guys. Oh, shit. And we're very excited

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about the talent that we have. We wish we could scream it at you, but we can't yet. You'll be very excited,

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but this is our foundational block of four. Yeah. I feel very proud of us as women, you know, business women.

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And this is all, we're making it happen. My mom texted you today. Janet sent me a private text.

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Janet said, I want to wish Karen congratulations too. What's her phone number? And I was like, oh no.

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And I asked you first, like, can I give my mom your phone number? This might go very poorly.

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And normally I don't want to text with people's parents. I'm not a parents person

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I've always been a real rebel I want to peel out away from your parents you want them to be like you shouldn't hang out with her

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yeah there are people who always be like my parents are in town do you want to go out to dinner

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I really really don't I went out to dinner with your dad now that's an exception

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I'm holding everybody else's parents to the standard of my dad do your parents party

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no goodbye do your parents tell a good story no sorry I can't do all the work Sure.

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But no, Janet sent me a very touching. And actually, it was the kind of message that reminded me of what my mom would do, where it's like, this is a big deal.

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And I'm so proud. And I can't believe it. And it was just like the future holds this.

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It does. And she said, I love you. Which is you, Janet. She killed it. She killed it.

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Yes. She really meant a lot. I'm proud to be her daughter that when she does stuff like that.

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Yeah. It's other times. that are the problem. Sunshine and rain, you know, joy and pain.

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That's right. Yeah. it's all happening. So that's, I spent on my drive over here,

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spent about 15 minutes still. And I already done this before trying to explain to my dad what a podcast network is what it means He just keeps trying to bring it back to like radio my mom doesn understand either when i like it basically like a tv network that has shows how hard is that to understand right because my dad

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goes so in the shows that you premiered today did they make them all at your offices and i was just

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like dad it's like if we were netflix yeah and then all the movies were just presenting the

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movies. He's like, oh, okay. Why didn't you say that? Yeah. Why didn't you say that in that exact

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way to make me understand and I'll forget by the next time we talk? Promise you. Yes. We're going

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to have to have the conversation a couple of times. Look, it's the wild west. It's podcasting.

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It's a brave new world. We're proud to be a part of it. That's right. We really are.

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We should also thank our agent, Oren Rosenbaum, who's also helped us, guided us through this. It's been very businessy. There's been a lot of business.

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A lot of business, a lot of texts and a lot of calls. Yeah. I'm tired. Oh, we have, I mean, this is a brag.

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Yeah. But we've done over 21 conference calls, I would say. We've done like 10 hours of work on this.

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So, a week. We've done some serious picking. Yeah. It's like really hard. Can I do a merch corner?

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Would you? Fucking holiday merch. Holiday merch girl. As of today, Thursday. whatever it is

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November 29th your Thursday or Wednesday is there a November 29th this year? okay

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November 29th is the holiday merch is out we have the L'Chaim Bitches t-shirt that I'm so excited for

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we have some new ugly holiday sweaters with new fucking quotes on them we fucking have

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My Favorite Murder wrapping paper yes we have My Favorite Murder motherfucking candles

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scented candles and four delicious flavors. Can I tell everyone what flavors they are?

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Would you please? I would love to. Hold on. Let me find them. And then we can talk about that.

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One of those beaver nuggets that they gave us at the Texas gas station. One candle scent is canned wine.

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Canned wine. Another is stay out of the forest. It's a piney scent. It smells like pine trees.

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There's Karen's big old cup of coffee. Hi. And then there's an Elvis want a cookie that smells like a fucking cookie.

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Actual cookies. Not a cat tuna cookie, but an actual nice cookie. That's right. There's a here's the thing.

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Fuck everyone. Sweatpants. There's a cross stitch pattern. Yeah. And there's a bunch of different wrapping papers and T-shirts and so many things.

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And you get a free gift. First 75 orders over $50. Get a free gift with purchase.

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Well, oh, we also have Christmas tree decor. Christmas ornaments. Ornaments, we call them.

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Really? Ornaments? They're called ornaments, yeah. It's really exciting. So go to myfavoritemurder.com.

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There's a shop there. You can shop. Go have fun. It's very exciting. Also, there's a merch store for Exactly Right Network.

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Right. And that has, there's a really cool coffee mug with the logo on it. The logo's so fucking cute.

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I love it so much. Yeah, they did a great, the mid-roll designers, they have a design team that killed it with the merch.

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I love it. And there's a little makeup pouch. There's an enamel pin that's so popular these days.

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So you can go to exactly right media and that's our website. So if you want to follow moving news and shit on that,

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there's a fucking newsletter. Yeah. You can get a newsletter. You can just check and,

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and follow along for when we post this, you know, every new podcast that we post,

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right? It's going to be your change to your homepage. Just get in there. Get it.

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I don't know how to tell you how to do it. Go around your office and change everyone's at night.

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Change everyone's homepage to exactly right media.com. Stop landing on that Yahoo homepage.

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page and get on over. It's all bad news anyways. Hey, do you want to hear some good news? I do.

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This is an email that Stephen pulled for us and the subject line is, Alfre Woodard is my aunt.

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Oh my god! Dear all, long time listener, first time emailer, I've been a fan since day one.

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I love this podcast so much, so you can imagine my joy when I was listening to episode 146 and Karen started talking

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about Alfre Woodard. She is my aunt by marriage married my uncle they met while she was teaching an acting class at his

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college scandal and she is she's giving away the family secret and she's absolutely amazing

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unlike a lot of other hollywood royalty she's a big part of our family and is always at family

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functions she's an amazing cook a sparkling personality and a fabulous mom to her two

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children i was so thrilled to hear you two talk about her because she's an incredible actress yep

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who I think often doesn't get the recognition she deserves. The fucking, that's right.

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She started acting in the 80s, and I can't imagine it was easy for an African-American woman to get roles,

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but she worked her ass off to get where she is today with no favors from anyone.

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And not only is she a great actress, you know I'm going to start crying during this email.

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Not only is she a great actress, but she and her husband, Roderick, are total criminal justice warriors,

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and they are both involved in fighting against the mass incarceration of minorities

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and, of course, against everything Trump. You can imagine how thrilled they both were

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when I took the job after law school as a public defender. Whoa, that's rad. Oh, my God.

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Well, a lot of members of my family joked about how I would be getting them out of their DUIs.

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And she wrote in parentheses, eye roll. Alfre told me, girl, you are doing the Lord's work.

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Next time I visit L.A., you two should come hang at Alfre's house. Oh, my God. No.

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Stop it. I'm officially inviting you. No, she'd love it. No, she would not. I'm telling you.

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Stop it. Love the podcast. Love you guys. Keep on fighting the good fight. Sincerely, Marina.

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Thank you so much. Yeah, that was, I mean, I won't go back into it. Amazing. And now we have a fucking lawyer when we get our DUIs.

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Because now we have to that we business people Marina I sorry I woke you up I usually not like this Remember when you invited me over to you Can you call after where to pick me up

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Yeah, I love things like that. That's so great. Because how fun is it to be able to step forward and be like,

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oh, you know your favorite celebrity? They're not an asshole. They're actually as awesome as you think they are.

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Yeah. Yay. So nice. Good feelings. Yay. Good feelings. It's the holiday season. Okay.

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I'm going to, I'm going to do this as lightly as I can. Oh, are you going to, I'm not going to yell at anybody.

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Me? Nope. Definitely not you. Okay. Probably not Steven. This is just a general advice, piece of advice for interacting on Twitter.

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Let's hear it. This is Twitter corner with Karen. This is Twitter corner with Karen.

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Just advice. Do you want to have fun on Twitter? Do you want to interact? Do you want people to want to interact with you?

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Okay. then if somebody makes a joke and they're talking about real people and possibly real people that

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you and I might know don't act anybody in a response like don't at anybody that's real ever

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who are we talking can you tell me what happened um it no I don't want people to feel bad I really

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don't want people to feel bad because there's no fallout for this okay but it's just more of a touch

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it's like a it's like a mortifying moment you have to remember that we know a lot of the people

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in comedy that we talk about. And we don't want, you don't need to be the person that goes and goes,

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I bet this person needs to know this. Karen talked about you. Don't do it. If we didn't do it,

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you don't need to do it. Don't do it. They don't like it. They might not like it.

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Maybe they love it. We don't know. Stop assuming everybody likes it. Yeah. And don't do it.

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Okay. This has been Twitter Corner. Twitter, what's the word? Twitter. Twitter Corrections Corner.

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Yeah, that's perfect. I'm trying to think of one for Instagram, but it's fine. Nobody wants to see your food anymore?

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No, I want to see everyone's food. Oh, you do? Yeah. Yeah, that's just a preference thing.

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I love food photos. I don't know anything about Instagram. I shouldn't be talking at all.

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Is that it? Don't take pictures of your thighs? No, and do the hashtag thighs are hot dogs.

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Legs are hot dogs. Excuse me. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. They look like legs are hot

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That's the best. That's the best. I love people being like red tant, like Hulk Hogan tan, taking pictures of their thighs.

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So good. Listen, celebrate good times. Come on. Oh, my God. Steven, who goes first?

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It's been so fucking long. It's been so long. I believe you go first. It was the Lodi Haystack murders in Sacramento.

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Shit. Wow. I feel like it's been so long since we've podcasted. And we're doing it in my living room, which is weird because the pod loft is so full of

00:14:46

boxes and gifts and crazy things that we can't even fit up there. And luckily we're moving to

00:14:53

our offices this fucking weekend. I'm so excited. Exactly right offices. We have exactly right

00:14:57

offices where the people who are on the network are going to come and record their podcast.

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That's right. It's all real and official. We're just like the Velveteen Rabbit. We're real. We're

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real. Oh, and we're going to get pneumonia. Was it? No, that's the secret garden. No,

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didn't the little boy in the Velveteen Rabbit get pneumonia and die? Did he fucking die?

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I think he fucking died. I only focused on the rabbit part of that story. Don't care about the rest.

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I love that children's books used to be about dying children and children who die,

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where it's like, can you imagine? Well, it's like Charlotte's Web. It's like, get ready to cry your fucking eyes out.

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Yeah, that's right. Remember that thing you loved? It died. It died. Oh, I remember my mom crying so hard when she read that to us.

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She couldn't speak. I think I was like four and I remember seeing your mom weep because it's so touching

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it's so beautiful and it also really is but it's not a children's book if you're getting into mortality

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shit then leave the kids out of it. The Giving Tree? The Giving Tree is like a story about a

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short asshole. Yeah, who gets old and dies. Everyone. And it's like you chop the fucking tree down, all that

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tree did was give you everything and then it's like, guess what? the tree is your parents you better love your parents sorry but the tree is your mother yeah

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the tree is your straight up mother that's right and you fucking chopped her down and

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made her tits look terrible took her branches her hot branches her hot perky branches you always

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told her she embarrassed you you always told her she wasn't cool you made her look like a fucking

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stump of a person you you stole all her apples and then you at the end you sit on her and you

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sit right the fuck on her stump. Janet, I'm sorry. Janet, I'm sorry. I'm going to text her back right now.

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Georgia's sorry. Janet, listen. Georgia doesn't want to have to say this herself.

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I'll do it. No, she's like, what have you done with my daughter? That's not my daughter.

00:16:52

My daughter hates me. Turn her over. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer,

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okay all right listen this is a this is a this is a rough one this is like a fucking

00:19:50

murder case okay but it has positive things in it great including an i survived story amazing and it has some you know it it ends it ends so that's good okay mine is similar

00:20:05

if you're about to do mine where's your same place i'm gonna pull that pedicure off your foot

00:20:11

Where does your mine takes place in Portland, Oregon? Nope. Okay, bye. We're good.

00:20:15

Great. Because mine is called the Missoula Mauler. Missoula, Montana. Shit. Okay, I've never heard of this.

00:20:24

This one is bananas. And there's a book about it called it's by John Costin called to kill and kill again.

00:20:31

But aside from that, there's really the articles are really short. There's not a ton of stuff.

00:20:35

There's not a ton of podcasts, like episodes about it, but it's fucking bananas.

00:20:39

So let us do it. Do it. Missoula, Montana. You've been there. Guess where Chris Fairbanks is from.

00:20:45

Oh, really? Co-host of Do You Need a Ride? The podcast that didn't fucking bother to put out a new episode

00:20:51

and still... I mean, I couldn't... Sorry, but there was so much going on. I planned it so poorly

00:21:00

and Chris was like, you want to record a new episode? And I was just like, I can't.

00:21:04

Please don't make me. And then we premiered anyway and I was like, oh, I didn't really think that through.

00:21:08

I should have said yes and and like stayed up late. Oh, well, but anyway, but I will say this.

00:21:14

You are enough, Karen. Never, but new episodes are coming. Okay. And, and we're going to start booking.

00:21:21

Like we're going to start getting back into our old booking. Yeah. And Steven is our sound guy.

00:21:26

Steven's in the car with us. I'm not, I get car sick. Yeah. I'm not part of the podcast.

00:21:31

You were on it once. I was on it once. You can take Elvis with you if you want. He loves car rides.

00:21:36

He loves car rides. You know, cats. Okay. Missoula. Montana, where Chris Fairbanks is from. Well, in the 1970s, it's a place, it's the kind of

00:21:44

fucking place we always hear about where people leave their doors unlocked, women feel comfortable

00:21:49

walking home alone at night. It's, you know, this is, this is their story of when that fucking stops,

00:21:54

which every town has either in the 70s or 80s, maybe the 90s if they're lucky, and that they

00:21:59

felt that way until the 1970s. So first in on February 5, 1974, a five year old girl named

00:22:06

Siobhan McGinnis disappeared just a few blocks from her home. And it was one of those things

00:22:11

where like she left her at night, she left her friend's house. She's five years old.

00:22:14

Five. Her friend walks her halfway there and says, okay, go the rest of the way by yourself,

00:22:19

which was totally fine. Five years old. Yeah, that's true. It's so sad, but it's like how things were back then.

00:22:25

It was absolutely how things were. It was how things were when I grew up too. I was fucking always alone.

00:22:30

Yeah. And she disappears and is shortly later found stabbed and sexually assaulted nearby.

00:22:35

And that isn't part of this Missoula mauler. He's later exonerated through DNA. But it has to be mentioned as what happened in Missoula to change it.

00:22:49

So her murder is still unsolved. And then what follows her murder is 12 years of seemingly random murders and a series of home intrusions and attempted rapes that terrifies the residents of Missoula and changes the small town way of life forever.

00:23:04

and that's where the Missoula Mahler comes in. Okay. So the first confirmed murder known to have been committed by the Missoula Mahler

00:23:13

happened on April 11, 1974. It's just like a little after two months before little Siobhan had been murdered.

00:23:21

So two months later, the count is still fucking reeling. They still don't know who did it.

00:23:25

Donna Pounds, she's a homemaker. She gets home from an outing around 1.30 in the afternoon

00:23:30

and her husband was at work, her teenage daughter's at school Her teenage son had joined the army, so she expected to come home to an empty fucking house.

00:23:40

But once she's in the door, she's surprised by an intruder. The intruder had gone into the parents' bedroom and taken the gun.

00:23:49

I don't know what kind of gun. Her husband's gun from its hiding place in the parents' bedroom.

00:23:54

He knew where it was. So I bet you it's like a handgun, right? If there's a hiding place?

00:23:57

Yeah. It's hard to hide a rifle. Probably. Yeah. And the intruder walks Donna at gunpoint to her bedroom where he had been fucking hanging out in the house and had already fucking put the ligatures and ties on the bed.

00:24:10

Gross. I know. This is really awful. Just a warning. Yeah. This is called my favorite murder.

00:24:17

We do awful here. We do awful. He ties Donna up. He rapes her. He takes her down to the basement and shoots her in the back of the head five times.

00:24:26

It's awful. Her husband, Harvey, who's a fucking preacher who has a radio show where he's actually been fucking preaching about the evils that is taking over the town because of Siobhan's murder recently, comes home to find that evening to find his fucking wife dead in the basement.

00:24:43

It's so fucking awful. And there's this really creepy thing I heard, like a little fact that creeped me out on the podcast called Dark Topic that said that the dad got home in the evening after work.

00:24:54

The daughter, teenage daughter was hanging out watching TV. he's like where's your mom she's like i don't know where she is but i don't know why all these

00:25:01

ropes are around the house oh no how creepy is that that's horrifying he was like what the fuck's

00:25:07

going on went in the bedroom realized something was going on went down to the basement no i know

00:25:12

so then the husband found her yeah that's terrible yeah okay police find a suspect when a witness

00:25:20

comes forward and says that they saw a local neighborhood boy or teen lurking in the backyard

00:25:26

and on the same afternoon of the murder. Oh. The teenager is 18-year-old Wayne Nance.

00:25:33

He's actually friends with the teenage kids of the pound, the pound kids. And his son, this teenage son who's in the army,

00:25:40

had randomly, casually told Wayne where the gun was hidden. No. Fucking shit. And then when investigators search Wayne's house,

00:25:50

they find a pair of bloody underwear and .22 caliber bullets. and they also uncover satanic books and a wire hanger shaped into a pentagram that Wayne had

00:26:01

used to fucking brand himself. Wayne, you need to get out in the sunlight and get some vitamin D

00:26:08

because if you leave yourself in a room too long and read enough crazy ass books,

00:26:16

you're going to start doing things to yourself. You're going to start listening to the craziness

00:26:20

in your head. That's right. None of that would be helpful to a person that's actually mentally ill.

00:26:25

But it just makes me think of when I'm really bored at work and I take, I just have this very

00:26:31

bad habit of I start to take paperclips and unfold them and fold them back. I found them in the pot

00:26:36

loft all the time. There are just dozens and dozens of unfurled paperclips. And it's like,

00:26:44

Karen's been here. And also, I just was thinking the second you said that I went, I wonder what

00:26:48

shapes those paper clips end up in because I'm not trying to do a shape. What have I just kept

00:26:53

finding like kill? Like it just says kill. You're actually really skilled. Yeah. It's a perfectly

00:26:58

like sculpted knife. Yeah. Whoa. How did she do that? And she welded the two ends. I'm not going

00:27:04

to tell her she does that because I don't want it's like waking a sleepwalker. Yes. I don't want

00:27:09

to scare Karen of herself. I'm scared. Yeah. So he's fucking bananas. He's known around town as a

00:27:17

and being a weirdo. And there's also indications of animal sacrifices on the banks of the nearby

00:27:23

Clark Ford River. Oh, no. So, so it seems like, you know, there's a satanic panic bullshit. This

00:27:29

is way, I think, before it happened in 74. But I think that there are kids who are like teens who

00:27:35

are crazy and want to, you know, pretend that Satan is somehow stirring them or they're fucking

00:27:43

mentally ill. And that's what they do. Well, yeah, usually that's like, you know, the old

00:27:47

psychopath trifecta or whatever where it's harming animals it it dovetails very nicely into that the

00:27:53

satanic ritual shit because then it's like oh i already had the compulsion to kill this living

00:27:59

thing and it's someone and someone approves of it you know if i read about this it's like i'm doing

00:28:03

something good and it what makes me feel like strong or safer or you know that was pure speculation

00:28:09

corner with carrot and georgia i mean i am not a doctor and i'm not a satanist so don't listen to

00:28:15

anything i say dr satanist is that you well hello and welcome to hell okay okay um the missoula

00:28:24

county attorney at the time his name is robert do do do champs do champs is that how you say it

00:28:30

i'm pretty sure it's two champs uh he goes by dusty cool he he issues a subpoena he's like

00:28:38

this guy's fucking nuts he's 18 let's get him in prison immediately issues a subpoena puts wayne

00:28:44

in front of a grand jury wanting to indict him. It's the first grand jury since World War II in Missoula.

00:28:51

Wow. But the grand jury, after all this fucking evidence, they rule there's insufficient evidence to charge Wayne as a suspect.

00:28:57

Plus, he had passed a fucking polygraph, which we know now means he was fucking diabolical.

00:29:04

Or it was inaccurate. Right. Or the person giving it was bad at it. I mean, any number of things.

00:29:11

One of those little heart monitor things could have just fallen off and down his shirt.

00:29:14

Right. The first thing that passes through my head, though, is he could have that it is circumstantial

00:29:22

evidence. Yeah. All those things don't necessarily add up to murdering this woman.

00:29:27

It doesn't say anything about the underwear being the bloody underwear belonging to Donna.

00:29:31

It doesn't say like that. So I bet you that if that was a provable thing, right, there was DNA, obviously, they let

00:29:37

him go. And Dusty said, I did everything I could think of. he was cool and collected as a tombstone and he he like questioned him for hours and he was just

00:29:47

chill oh yeah is chill the word no he was cool so cool dude yeah no in the decade that follows wayne straightens out stops his satanic bullshit and joins the Navy He then becomes you know stops being the weird around town becomes known

00:30:08

as a normal dude. In Missoula, he becomes a truck driver and a part time either bouncer or bartender

00:30:16

at a local bar. It says different things in different places. I mean, at a bar in Missoula,

00:30:20

you probably do both, right? Double duty. You let people in. And as you're like, you look at their

00:30:26

ID, you hand it back to them. Then you're like, what would you like to have tonight? And you walk

00:30:29

along with them up to the right. Wash your hands real quick. Right, right, right. Hopefully. No.

00:30:35

Yeah, maybe dry them off on your jeans. That's right. Make that gin and tonic. But meanwhile, between 1975 and 1984, three unidentified bodies of teenage girls

00:30:45

who are all decomposed beyond recognition are found around the Missoula area, all murdered.

00:30:52

Oh, okay. Keep that in your brain for now. Oh, no, they're all Jane Doe's and they're given names

00:30:58

based on the location of their discovery. So there's Betty Beavertail, Debbie Deer Creek,

00:31:04

and Christy Crystal Creek. But it's not until Wayne Nance's final attack that he's finally

00:31:11

tied to these Jane Doe's. Okay, we're going to skip around a little. Okay. All right. So keep

00:31:15

those in mind. Okay. And, and then let's fast forward to 1986. So we were in 1974 when, when

00:31:22

Debbie Pound died, or was murdered. Now we're 1986, almost 12 years later, Wayne is now 30.

00:31:30

He works driving a truck as a mover at a furniture company owned by a couple Doug and Chris Wells.

00:31:37

They're like, I can't tell that doesn't say how old they are. They look like they're in their 40s

00:31:41

attractive couple, Chris, female Chris. She kind of looks like an American princess Diana kind of

00:31:49

a thing. Like pretty, they look all American, normal fucking people. Can I sidebar one thing?

00:31:55

Always. My sister forces me to watch the TV she likes when I go visit her. So I was home for

00:32:01

Thanksgiving and I find myself watching Meghan Markle and American princess. Oh my God.

00:32:08

And crying. You were crying. Because there's all, you know, they talk so much about the way Princess Diana raised those boys.

00:32:18

And how hands-on she was with them. And how different she wanted their lives to be from most royalty.

00:32:24

And then just like, and then being like. And marrying her is all of those things that she wants.

00:32:30

That Harry is now this embodiment of the beauty of his mother and her humanitarian efforts.

00:32:36

Did they talk about when he dressed up as a Nazi for Halloween one year? They didn't mention it.

00:32:41

Great. But no, it was all about... Because, you know, what's funny is when I watch that, I watch them get married.

00:32:49

Please don't tell any of my Irish relatives because they're very against British culture,

00:32:54

especially the royalty. They've colonized Ireland and killed many of us. But look, listen.

00:33:00

Listen. Megan, when I watched that wedding, it was so beautiful. And the fact that there was this very strong African American cultural aspect to it was so fucking cool and so modern.

00:33:15

And it just felt like this special was all about there was all these talking head people, American and British, who were just kind of like, this is the way of the future.

00:33:23

And this is the royal family updating themselves and being like, we're not like this dusty group of inbred weirdos.

00:33:31

We're like, we're of the world. And these boys are bringing us to the future. I love it.

00:33:37

Anyhow, now I love Bravo television. I got to try that sometime. I'm really sorry.

00:33:44

That was an inappropriate sidebar on top of everything else. It's okay. Okay. That's what this podcast is called.

00:33:51

so it turns out it's called i challenge you to get back into this terrible subject

00:33:56

well let me get back into it so wayne he's working as a mover at this furniture company

00:34:01

where chris with a k uh she works um he works whatever he turns out he had been secretly

00:34:08

stalking her for several months okay on the night of september 4th 1986 wayne shows up at the wells

00:34:16

house what's up chit chatty on the fucking lawn and asked Doug if he could borrow a flashlight

00:34:21

Doug's like great come on into the fucking garage they get in the garage and Wayne hits Doug over

00:34:27

the head with a block of wood Doug begins bleeding from a deep scalp wound but he still tries to

00:34:33

fight Wayne off Wayne picks up a lead pipe and beats Doug until he's unconscious this ends well

00:34:39

don't worry uh-huh just a warning I shouldn't have told you that okay he pulls out okay wait

00:34:45

Okay, then Wayne pulls out a revolver and grabs Chris, the wife, and forces her to the second floor bedroom where he ties her to the bed.

00:34:54

Once she's secure, Wayne goes back downstairs and drags the unconscious Doug into the fucking basement.

00:35:00

And he ties him up to a post with clothesline. And then meanwhile, Doug begins to fucking wake up and Wayne beats him more.

00:35:09

Then he takes out a fucking oak handle kitchen knife and stabs Doug in the fucking chest.

00:35:13

Oh, God. puncturing one of his fucking lungs. Oh, God. Wayne then leaves him down there in the basement,

00:35:20

goes back upstairs where Chris is tied up. Okay. Despite his injuries, Doug fucking breaks free of his bindings.

00:35:28

No. Then even with a fucking head wound and a pierced lung, he fucking pulls himself over to his workbench,

00:35:34

where earlier that fucking day, he had placed an antique lever action savage rifle.

00:35:40

Good job. Earlier that day, grabs the rifle, puts a single bullet into it he's in a hurry uh he he in his mind is like okay if i just run into

00:35:52

the bedroom and confront wayne he going to use chris as a shield yeah so instead he knocks on the fucking wall with the rifle Wayne comes to go downstairs and see what the hell going on Wayne is crouched on the like by the stairs on the first

00:36:08

floor landing, takes aim and fires his single bullet at Wayne. The bullet hits Wayne in the

00:36:13

side and knocks him over. But Wayne gets back up even though his abdomen had a freaking bullet in

00:36:19

it starts to crawl back to the bedroom. Jesus. I know. Everyone is like on fucking angel dust.

00:36:25

Yeah, for real. Doug is now out of bullets because he only put one bullet in the gun.

00:36:29

He starts hitting Wayne with the wooden butt of his rifle until the butt of the gun splinters.

00:36:37

Wow. He's fucking hitting him with it. Wayne is still trying to get to the bedroom, makes it to the bedroom.

00:36:43

where but uh an equally badass chris had after hearing the rifle go off was like did my husband

00:36:50

just get shot she fucking broke free of her bindings except for one arm is still attached

00:36:54

so when wayne crawls in while like while he's while her husband is hitting him with the butt

00:36:58

of the rifle fucking chris starts beating him up with her fists and kicking him yeah okay uh

00:37:05

then wayne pulls a gun from its pouch on his belt i wonder if maybe his pants were off and

00:37:11

the bell was in the bedroom and then he got to the you know what i mean oh right he knew he had a

00:37:14

gun there yeah right uh he fires at doug misses him oh thank god a second shot catches doug just

00:37:22

above the knee but doug keeps coming at him now the splintered but it's not working so he starts

00:37:28

hitting with the barrel of the rifle which ends up getting so bent out of shape it turns into an l

00:37:32

from the force of hitting what in the fuck yeah they're they're fighting they're tussling they're

00:37:38

Fucking fighting for guns and shit. Someone hits. It's at night. Someone hits the fucking lamp.

00:37:42

It crashes to the ground. The lights go off. It's dark. Are you kidding? This is a movie.

00:37:46

It's in the dark. Yes. Fuck. While it's in the dark, another shot rings out. What happened?

00:37:54

What's going on? When they're finally able to get the light on, Wayne Nance is lying on the floor dying.

00:38:00

Oh, thank God. We don't know if it's accidental or on purpose, but Wayne had shot himself in the head.

00:38:06

What? there are there's a bunch of different versions uh people say he did it on purpose like he knew

00:38:11

he was going to get killed so he just shot himself and didn't want to get caught and taken to prison

00:38:15

there's a ready user that says that as wayne was shooting at doug in the dark doug's maybe smacked

00:38:20

him in the arm and it sent the barrel up to his own head and shot himself in the skull sure maybe

00:38:26

um but after the attack which both of the fucking wells survive oh thank god can you freaking

00:38:33

believe that oh my god they survived that's incredible i know uh and wayne dies wow yeah

00:38:43

so now after the attack the officers get a search warrant for wayne's house and they turn up items

00:38:50

there which link him to at least three murders and other cold cases and break-ins in the fucking

00:38:55

area. All right. So remember those Jane Doe's. So the body of Debbie Deer Creek,

00:39:03

she was a teenager and she had been found in an advanced state of decomposition on December 24th, Christmas Eve, in case you didn't know, 1984. She had been found by a hiker

00:39:14

in a frozen grave alongside Deer Creek Road almost two years before Wayne's death. So when

00:39:21

Wayne's house was searched after his death, there was hair belonging to her found there. Like they

00:39:25

could tell by the dye patterns and stuff that it was hers. And investigators were able to connect

00:39:30

her to a photo she was in with Wayne. They're like, this is our Jane Doe that they found a photo of

00:39:35

him and you can see it online. Amazing. But they didn't have a name for her. She had been a drifter

00:39:41

that patrons of the bar where Wayne worked. They knew her as just Robin. They said that like they

00:39:47

were together and but she disappeared just a few weeks after moving in with Wayne. And it wasn't

00:39:53

until so she was found in 84. It wasn't until 2006 that her real identity was finally found.

00:39:59

Wow. After over three decades of her brother Derek Bachman searching for her since she had

00:40:06

left home when he was 14. Oh no. I know. And so they were from Vancouver, Washington. So this

00:40:13

whole time he was convinced that it was a green river killer that had killed her right but they

00:40:18

finally put this together when he saw like a drawing of her of the you know unidentified

00:40:23

body was like i think that's my sister and kept hounding them to do dna tests so finally they did

00:40:28

it and through uh new advanced dna techniques she was identified as marcella nicknamed marcy

00:40:34

bachman and she had run away from vancouver washington when she was 15 um and she had

00:40:40

after she had confided in her brother that their stepfather had been molesting her.

00:40:44

Oh, and so her poor fucking brother who was 14, like helped her pack her bags to get the fuck out of the house.

00:40:50

Yes. And he always felt guilty about that and just spent his life trying to track her down.

00:40:55

Oh God. I know what a hideous situation. What else is he supposed to do? Like make her stay.

00:41:01

He has to help her leave. Yeah. And he's 14. He doesn't get to make, he can't make decisions like that.

00:41:05

Those are huge decisions. It's so unfair. It is. um and then so Wayne Nance had taken her in quote after she was left by a truck driver in the area

00:41:14

Wayne claimed that she had left the area in September 1984 but when her body was found

00:41:20

and identified she had actually been killed with three gunshots to the head so it wasn't uh like

00:41:25

moving in quote unquote with him it wasn't that it was like he was like I have a safe place for

00:41:30

you to stay yeah and she believed him or yeah or and they were together maybe who the fuck knows

00:41:36

and he's dead so we can't answer these fucking questions. Right, they just have, well, I guess they were together long enough

00:41:41

to get a picture taken and developed. And it's like a couple's, no, it's like a couple's photo booth photo.

00:41:48

Oh, got it. It's like one of those fucking 1980s photo booths. They look like your mom and dad couple So another link came when investigators turned at the house of Wayne turned up a Kelgan

00:42:06

hunting knife, which is just like a cool looking little hunting knife, and a small ceramic statue

00:42:11

of an elk. They found that when they searched his residence. So here's where those come in.

00:42:16

In December 1985, someone had broken into the home of Michael and Teresa Shook, where they live with

00:42:22

their four children in Ravali, which is about an hour from Missoula. I'm sure I'm saying that wrong.

00:42:27

Spell it like you say it. So Michael and Teresa had been tied up and shot in their home. And

00:42:33

afterwards, their house had been set on fire with the four kids in it. Okay, this sounds familiar.

00:42:38

Michael shook. Yeah. But did he die in that fire? Yes. Okay. So the parents died. But luckily,

00:42:46

one of the neighbors noticed the fire and where they were able to get all the kids out of the

00:42:49

fucking house thank god i know thank god um so following their investigation uh of the burned

00:42:55

down house the of the shook house the police determined that only two that two items had

00:43:00

been taken from the home a hunting knife and a ceramic elk whoa and they found them in fucking

00:43:05

wayne's house and this is so creepy there was a photo of wayne's dad george at christmas

00:43:12

receiving a fucking ceramic elk as a christmas present right at the time of the murders this is

00:43:18

textbook weirdo serial killer behavior seriously like how like the feeling he must have gotten when

00:43:24

his dad unwrapped it was like oh i love it thank you and he fucking knew and he's standing there

00:43:29

with like weird red pupils like you're welcome yeah yeah um that's that trophy shit those serial

00:43:36

killers love creeps fucking assholes okay due to the similar location and mo police um believe that

00:43:43

he's also responsible for the death of a teenager whose body was discovered on a road one of the

00:43:48

other Jane Doe's in Missoula in January 1980, who was dubbed Betty Beavertail. She wasn't

00:43:55

identified until 2009 with DNA testing as Devonna Nelson. She was a 15-year-old runaway from Seattle.

00:44:04

There's like, I can't find any more information on her. It's kind of sad. She had been stabbed to

00:44:08

death. And the other Jane Doe is still unidentified. Wow. She was Christy Crystal Creek,

00:44:16

and she was found on September 9th, 1985. Her skeletal remains of an Asian woman

00:44:23

who was between 18 and 35 years old. She was found by a hunter in Missoula and she had been killed by two .32 caliber bullets to her head.

00:44:32

And I feel like they need to do a redrawing of her because the creepy-esque paper mache thing that they have of her

00:44:40

doesn't look like anyone. It's so creepy. They need to redo it. Updated, I guess.

00:44:46

An update. Listen, Missoula, let me tell you how to do shit. Well, but these things that happened in the 80s,

00:44:52

it's that thing of like, well, I just, you know, I guess it didn't work out or whatever,

00:44:56

where it's like they need that fresh cold case team to come in with like the young bloods that are like,

00:45:01

no, we need to do all the updates and all the DNA. Even though you think the murderer is dead,

00:45:06

you still need to give her identity back to her family. Right, because she could have a young brother

00:45:12

that's been looking for her. Totally. Yeah, you have to do it for the family. So Chris and Doug Wells had survived their attack by Wayne Nance.

00:45:25

Chris, they now own a gun shop in Missoula. Of course they fucking do. Sure. Great.

00:45:32

And a Reddit user claims that Doug teaches classes at Quantico on tactical survival training.

00:45:39

Whoa. I don't know if that's true, but I want to take that fucking class if so. but he would have a long commute quantico's in virginia they fucking helicopter him in they're

00:45:48

like whatever you need mr wells they black ops that guy in they propel up his gunshot they're

00:45:53

so polite to him because they just don't know he is capable of anything they're like

00:45:57

we heard what you did in that house yeah we heard these 17 levels of totally survival and uh you're

00:46:05

james bond it's yeah that's amazing um and wayne nance is one of the only serial killers

00:46:12

who was murdered by his own victims. That's amazing. Yeah. Fucking Chris and Doug Wells.

00:46:19

And that's the story of the fucking Missoula Mauler. The Missoula Mauler. Who knew?

00:46:24

Never heard a word of it. Chris Fairbanks hasn't mentioned a word that probably doesn't know anything about it.

00:46:30

That's so crazy. I was just like a layer. I didn't know how to like write that story

00:46:34

because it's like, do I open with him dying? But then how do I tell these other,

00:46:38

like it was just like a really hard. I think you did great. Okay, thank you. Well, and also because Montana is so country.

00:46:46

Yeah. It's so like, you know, it's frontier people. It's people who have guns, have trucks, like they're out in the country.

00:46:56

That's their lifestyle. Yeah. They're all kind of, they have a level of badassness that we don't, we city folks don't fucking have.

00:47:02

That's right. They're used to dealing with the elements and dealing with nature and wildlife and stuff like that.

00:47:08

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00:48:42

exciting survival aspect to it fun and i got this this story i watched a show called shattered which

00:48:50

is on the id channel and if you haven't seen it this is like my new favorite true crime show

00:48:54

because it's a very, it's about the impact of people who get it are involved with true crime,

00:49:01

whether it's the detective solving the case, or a survivor from a from like a serial killer

00:49:07

attack or whatever it is. And the way it's, it reminds me a lot of I survived in that way,

00:49:13

where they construct the story around those people's stories, right? And the and that kind

00:49:20

of first person and it's so effective and this episode i called um i watched was called the wood

00:49:27

and so this is the story of portland's forest park killer and survivor shelly harding um so i'm

00:49:33

basically retelling shattered's story of the forest park killer it's such a good satisfying

00:49:39

way to hear hear a true crime story and so i'm essentially just retelling their the way they presented it. So it's November 3rd, 1992. And 26 year old Shelly Harding

00:49:51

is seven months pregnant. She is done working for the night. There's no buses running and it's

00:49:57

a cold winter night. And so she has to start walking home. She's pregnant? Seven months

00:50:04

pregnant. No, too many months to be walking. I know. So she starts walking through a parking lot

00:50:09

and this car pulls over and the driver asks her if she needs a ride home and she sees there's two

00:50:15

car seats in the back seat and the guy seems like this nerdy harmless dude and her feet hurt really

00:50:20

bad and it's been a long day and she's seven months pregnant after five blocks his demeanor

00:50:27

suddenly changes he's no longer the person that offered her the ride he locks the doors and pulls

00:50:32

out a knife and in this in on the show shattered shelly says you could feel his rage and she she

00:50:40

starts to panic but then she sees he's also panicking so there's a she's is like really

00:50:46

scary because he was not in control it was just like here's a person freaking out and then as he's

00:50:53

pulling this knife and starting to um you know attack her he rear ends another car

00:51:01

so two guys get out of the car, he hits and Shelly's like, Oh my God, thank God I'm going

00:51:07

to be rescued. And then the guy who pulled the knife on her, the driver speeds away and leaves

00:51:14

the scene of the crime and ends up driving her into the woods. Oh my God. No. Yeah. So she realizes

00:51:22

he's going to kill her. Her baby is never going to get born. So she starts touching everything she

00:51:27

can in the car. And then she's acting like she likes him. And she's trying to just basically

00:51:33

keep him from killing her. He puts a seatbelt around her neck. He strangles her and he rapes

00:51:39

her multiple times. When the assaults are all over, he begins to cry. Which how fucking unnerving

00:51:47

is that? So she comforts him. She says it's okay. And that if he just lets her go, she's not going

00:51:53

to tell anybody just take her back to that parking lot and he does it and she gets out of the car and

00:51:59

she fucking gets away oh my god so she she gets taken to the hospital and uh calls the police and

00:52:08

detective dave schlegel meets her at the hospital and he is so impressed that she survived this

00:52:15

fucking attack and he knows she's really strong and you know there's something like in her so

00:52:22

together they decide they're going to try to catch this guy and yeah and and of course that

00:52:30

Dave Schlegel is is on the show and he's now retired and he's got like the handlebar mustache

00:52:35

and the transition lenses and he's so soft-spoken and he's one of the good guys yeah yeah you can

00:52:42

just tell so luckily those two guys that got rear-ended wrote down the license plate as the

00:52:47

rapist drove away oh my god so they called it into the cops so the police investigate the car

00:52:54

and they find all of shelly's fingerprints inside it yeah and so they arrest todd allen reed for the

00:53:00

rape and kidnapping of shelly harding holy shit okay so todd allen reed was born in portland

00:53:06

on may 22nd 1967 nine days after his parents ronnie and alfred were married when he's four

00:53:13

his parents get divorced. His mom remarries a man named Robert Reed. Todd and his little brother

00:53:18

are adopted by Robert Reed, who later says that Todd was a little standoffish and maybe uncomfortable

00:53:24

having a father figure out around after not having one for a while. Although he is a fully

00:53:31

grown adult talking about a four year old being standoffish. So maybe he's the fucking creep. Maybe

00:53:36

there's a reason a four year old would want to be standoffish. We don't know who's to say.

00:53:40

Yeah. 1979, Todd's mom and Reed get a divorce. Two years later in 1981, at the age of 14,

00:53:50

Todd has his first run in with the authorities He arrested for threat for theft and he sent to a residential program for at risk youth And while he there he takes his GED begins college level courses in accounting and horticulture at 14 Um yes

00:54:07

Holy shit. Uh, so people, uh, let's see, it's 81, 84, he's 19. So yeah. Yeah. Basically he did all

00:54:17

that people say he's like a sensitive guy and he like going through that at that program he um

00:54:26

becomes gainfully employed and he begins writing poetry oh great so sure it was beautiful yeah he

00:54:34

truly contains multitudes so in 1986 reed is 19 he meets a girl a 15 year old girl named gail

00:54:41

bennett um neither of them have any money or an apartment but they decide they're gonna live

00:54:46

together so they stay at other people's homes or they just sent set up tents in people's fields

00:54:53

to eat they burglarize homes and steal food and wine so they sound irritating at the very least

00:55:02

um hey do you mind if i just like throw up this tent in your backyard no we love this life man

00:55:08

when you're gone i'm gonna probably eat all your crackers i'll leave you a poem and payment

00:55:13

that's art that's looking it's worth it's priceless it's priceless in 1987 todd gets

00:55:20

caught breaking and entering he's arrested he serves a short stint in the big house uh not long

00:55:25

enough though though i so i have a speech impediment this episode okay just sit this is

00:55:31

like a very special easter egg that i'm planting yeah in 1988 the same judge who sentenced him

00:55:37

for breaking and entering performs the wedding ceremony between he and uh gail they wanted to

00:55:44

prove to him that they were going to make it that's i mean not necessary not a reason to get

00:55:50

married yes unnecessary not a reason to get married wait until you meet the person that you

00:55:55

can't you just love with all your heart and not somebody who will prove an argument

00:56:01

prove you right in an argument with a judge you're right let's let's use marriage for its actual use

00:56:07

which is which is for the lord to prove to the girls from your high school that you can get

00:56:14

that good deed todd and gail have two children that's right kelly i fucking showed you

00:56:20

you said i was fat look at me now todd and gail have two children and todd gets two night jobs

00:56:28

one at the Sizzler, and one at Safeway. Okay. Safeway is an infamous grocery store chain here on the West Coast,

00:56:36

and I think a bit in the central. I think it started there. Maybe the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

00:56:43

We're not here for fucking big grocery, to promote big grocery stores. But if you're going to promote big grocery, please shop at Safeway.

00:56:52

In his spare time, it doesn't sound like a grocery store at all. No. It's like an emergency clinic.

00:56:58

In his spare time, Todd reads the poems he's written at the local cafe. Gail says of these poems that they were full of longing and not pretty flowers and butterflies.

00:57:09

Gail, stop defending his shit poetry. This is the 90s now? So it's like fucking art house, like coffee house?

00:57:16

We're late 80s. Okay, so he's like on the forefront of the fucking boring ass open mic cafe bullshit.

00:57:23

He's slamming poems. Oh, that's right. He's slamming these poems. That's right. Which basically means you say it like this.

00:57:31

Gesture, gesture, gesture. Long leather coat. It seems on the outside he's getting his life together.

00:57:37

But in truth, Todd spent his days calling phone sex lines because it's the late 80s.

00:57:43

Fuck yeah, it is. And he's a hack. And watching porn and hiding it and his phone bills from his young wife, Gail.

00:57:50

Great. He showed that judge. I can watch more porn than you can, Judge. Yeah. While I'm sleeping in a field.

00:57:58

In 1989, about a year after their wedding, Todd is arrested for rape and the rape and

00:58:04

kidnapping of Shelley Harding. He pleads no contest. He fucking serves three years.

00:58:09

Wait, this is our pregnant friend? We've now caught up to the attack of Shelley Harding.

00:58:14

He gets caught. Yay. Awesome. He gets arrested. He gets thrown in jail. He serves three years.

00:58:20

Three fucking years. Fuck, man. For the attempted rape. I mean, the attempted murder and rape of this woman.

00:58:26

I mean, the laws should go. I feel like back then they're guilty for all the murders and rapes that happen after because there was such shitty sentencing.

00:58:36

Yeah. You know? Yes. Well, like when they get out after having their time reduced.

00:58:42

Right. And then they go on to do multiple murders and attacks and rapes. Yeah. Exactly.

00:58:47

Good disgrace. Okay. So this is when, this is right when taking DNA becomes the standard.

00:58:53

It's like at the very beginning. So when he gets out, they take his DNA. So in 1997, Gail divorces Todd, rightfully so.

00:59:03

He has to pay child support. He's granted visits every other weekend. Oh, you're actually a convicted rapist and attempted murderer.

00:59:12

Right. Okay, then you only get every other weekend. My dad, who's a good guy, got that.

00:59:17

Can you not? Shit. Could you please? okay so now shelly harding on the other hand is not doing well at all because of course she has

00:59:28

suffered severe trauma yeah that lasts longer than three fucking years yeah she drinks she's

00:59:35

really into using drugs her baby gets taken away from her because she's unable to care for the baby

00:59:41

properly and on the show it's heartbreaking shelly says and she on the show looks like any mom yeah

00:59:48

She's got like a cute blouse on and a little brown bob and she looks completely like anyone

00:59:53

you see at a Safeway This show is not brought to you by Safeway I did my oh so on the show she says I did my best to become that piece of dirt that everyone thought I was And my what life went downhill very fast So awful I would like to say this here This is a great example of

01:00:10

when you start telling yourself stuff, because you are in trauma, you're in a bad place.

01:00:16

When you're like, everybody thinks I'm a piece of shit. Yeah. If you're hearing messages like

01:00:20

that from within your own head, you have to pause it. And you have to step out and go,

01:00:25

that could also not be true at all. Everyone could love me. Right. Because when you get into that mindset,

01:00:30

you start making bad decisions for yourself as punishment and you don't deserve that punishment.

01:00:35

That's beautiful, Karen. Well, it's fucking true. You watch this woman say this and you're just like,

01:00:39

fuck, no, no one thinks you're bad. Yeah. Like I'm like, no one thinks you're bad because this horrible fucking thing happened to you.

01:00:45

No, but in your mind, I, yeah, I mean, I say shit to myself. It's horrible all the time.

01:00:49

So, right. You have to remember horrible shit happens to a lot of people. And if,

01:00:53

And probably if they heard your interior monologue, knowing what happened to you, they would want to hug you.

01:00:59

Right. It's not like that. So anyway, but of course, also when you're an addict and when you're in drugs, like you don't have that kind of space and reason and you can't make good decisions.

01:01:11

So she describes herself. She's like, you know, that girl that you see sometimes in the bad part of town, walking around mumbling to herself with no shoes on.

01:01:18

She's like, that was me. Holy shit. I was in that life. It was really, really bad.

01:01:23

Um, she finally, she's strung out, you know, whatever. She finally gets into rehab.

01:01:28

And when she's in rehab, she makes friends with another addict that's there named Lila

01:01:33

Moeller. They, they become close friends actually in rehab and get sober together.

01:01:39

And then one day Lila leaves and she doesn't come back. And after two weeks pass, Shelly knows something bad has happened to her because usually like

01:01:48

if you're in rehab and you go out and you get strung out, you come back and you start

01:01:53

over. and you should do that. But Shelly knows like this isn't, this is way too long.

01:01:59

And then literally Shelly goes into the day room one day and she sees a news report

01:02:04

that two bodies have been found in Forest Park. So on May 7th, the nude strangled body of a woman

01:02:12

is found in a heavily wooded area of Forest Park. That's that it's that big park in Portland.

01:02:17

And the body is eventually identified as 28-year-old Lila Moeller. So the next day, the body of 26-year-old Stephanie Russell

01:02:28

is found close to where Lila's body is found. And in that same, it's in the same level of state of decomposition.

01:02:36

And then on June 2nd, the body of Alexandria Nicole Eisen is found in the same area, also nude, also strangled.

01:02:45

So all three of them, same MO. And Alexandria was only 17. All three of these women had been sex workers on West Burnside Street, and they all looked relatively similar to each other.

01:02:58

So the Portland police set up a task force and Detective Schlegel reaches out to Shelley Harding and asks for her help in accessing the sex worker community so that they will not be paranoid of him, that they will actually help him and give him information he can use.

01:03:16

because he knows that that's where it's happening. And that's, you know, where they would probably have lots of information,

01:03:22

people that they've seen creeps or whatever. And he wants them to be honest with him and not be afraid.

01:03:28

So, um, he tells Shelly if he, if she can vouch for him that he's not there to arrest anybody just to get

01:03:34

information so they can find this predator that's killing sex workers. So Shelly does that.

01:03:39

She vouches for him. And, um, she says, because he treated her with respect and empathy and that,

01:03:46

quote, he was the first person in a long time that I could trust. So he is like, truly doing

01:03:52

amazing police work and the in the kinds, the good kind that actually fucking gets crime solved.

01:03:58

Yeah, when you care about the people that you're, you know, Yeah, and you don't see them as just sex workers or drug addicts.

01:04:04

Exactly. And it's just like, maybe there's a reason people need to take drugs. Right?

01:04:08

Maybe really shitty things happen to them. Right. And it all there's I remember watching this thing

01:04:13

one time and there was a guy that was like, um, he was a rehab like counselor. And he said, um,

01:04:21

it's like, you don't, it's like, when you see a fox with his leg in a trap, you know, you don't,

01:04:28

you don't think he's stupid for staying in that one spot. But if there's snow over the trap,

01:04:33

you just see a fox standing there crying. You, you're, you know, you don't have any empathy,

01:04:37

But it's like you have to see past what the exterior, you know, context is and see that that how drugs just debilitate people.

01:04:48

Yeah. But they are sometimes like this necessary escape. Right. If you've really been through some shit.

01:04:53

Amen. So that's what this detective was doing, which is I love it. And it's amazing.

01:04:59

And to see them talking about it together on the show is so cool. So they decide this task force sets up a sting operation.

01:05:06

So they have a female detective or undercover cop who looks like the three women whose bodies have been found.

01:05:13

And they dress her up as the decoy on Burnside Street. So on July 7th, 1999, they see a man in a Mitsubishi eclipse stalking this decoy.

01:05:23

And he's parked behind her so he can watch her without being seen. And when Detective Dave Schlegel drives by and he looks at the stalker, the hair on the back of his neck ends up.

01:05:34

Because it's fucking Todd Allen Reed. No. the sex offender who'd gone to jail for raping and attempting to kill shelly harding and he is

01:05:41

sitting there in his car watching their decoy because he got released from prison and he's back

01:05:47

fucking doing exactly the same thing holy shit he was sentenced to 12 years but no he got out in

01:05:53

three that truth and sentencing laws people right now here how shelly harding found out that todd allen Reed got out of jail Oh right Because they don fucking tell the victim No or they didn then

01:06:05

Yeah. I don't know. They might have updated that system. She's in a restaurant, and he walks by her.

01:06:11

Holy shit. Yeah. So she says in the show, she tells the story, and she said she thought she was hallucinating.

01:06:17

That is unacceptable. It's inhumane. It's the worst fucking thing. So he walks by her and she's going, he's really there.

01:06:26

She jumps up from her table and follows him out of the restaurant yelling, he, Hey, you tried to kill me.

01:06:33

Hey. And she's screaming. He won't, he didn't turn his head. He never acknowledged that she was behind him.

01:06:39

He just got into his car as if nothing was happening. And she said, by the time they get outside, he, she was screaming and he just got into

01:06:47

his car and drove away as if nothing ever happened. She's, she's fucking. cool so dave schlegel realizes this is as he drives by it's the fucking convicted sex offender

01:07:00

that he that he put in jail right um who's now stalking the decoy they pull reed over to uh

01:07:06

question him they in his car they find a novel called the killing gift which is about a woman

01:07:11

who kills 16 men without touching them they also find yellow strapping material in the car which

01:07:18

is like that it's basically seat belt material and but of course this is all it's not enough to

01:07:24

arrest him so instead they they question him they let him go and then he becomes the prime suspect

01:07:31

in the forest park killings and the police begin um surveilling him 24 hours a day for the next 11

01:07:38

days waiting for the dna um tests to come back shit and then on july 18th 1999 the crime lab

01:07:46

finds that the DNA taken from the condom that was found next to Lila Mueller's body and the swabs

01:07:51

taken from Russell's body match Todd Reed's DNA that was taken when he was in jail. So it matches

01:08:00

everything. Amazing. They go to Todd Allen Reed's job at Ronella's Produce in Southeast Portland,

01:08:05

and they arrest him. And of course, everyone he works with cannot believe it's him.

01:08:10

right um so when detective schlegel goes to tell shelly that her attacker uh is in fact the forest

01:08:19

park killer and um that he's been arrested and killed her friend and killed her friend

01:08:25

she's in jail herself and when she sees him come into the day room she says you got him didn't you

01:08:31

and he says we arrested him but we need you to testify against him yes and his trial and because

01:08:39

we need to give him the maximum sentence. You have to be there. You have to tell them what happened

01:08:44

and you cannot be on drugs. Which is so crazy because it's like, I hear a lot of times like

01:08:51

when they have to testify, it's like re-traumatizing the victim. Yes. So to not be able to have the

01:08:56

thing you've been falling back on for your trauma, drugs for so fucking long, has to be a terrifying

01:09:01

thought, but you want to do it probably. And she wants to do it obviously for herself,

01:09:06

but she wants to do it for her friend. This person that she like when she first got sober

01:09:10

meant so much to her that is killed by the person that she was raped by. Like it's, yeah.

01:09:17

So she was like, I'm fucking doing this. And so Detective Schlegel had given her a business card.

01:09:25

She tried to get clean so many times. She didn't think she could do it but she wanted so badly to fight for her friend

01:09:31

and because she knew what her friend went through before she died. and that's what she kept in mind.

01:09:38

So she does it and she gets sober and in February 2001, Todd Reed pleads guilty to all three slangs.

01:09:45

He's sentenced to life in prison without parole and that the sentencing, Shelly goes and reads a statement,

01:09:53

tells her whole horrible ordeal and then she puts the letter down. She looks Todd Allen Reed in the eye

01:09:59

and she says, but through it all, I take great satisfaction knowing that you're going to burn in hell.

01:10:06

And because, I wrote here, because Shelley Harding is a fucking badass. And Detective Schlegel and Shelley are still friends

01:10:15

after all these years, and he was at her wedding. And then they show pictures of her wedding.

01:10:24

No. Todd Allen Reed is also a suspect in the murder of two girls who were last seen in 1987.

01:10:30

12-year-old Mindy Thomas and 15-year-old Jennifer Cher. And they were both found strangled in a wooded area.

01:10:39

And they were both last seen with Todd Reed's ex-wife, Gail Bennett. And that's the insane story of Portland's Forest Park killer.

01:10:51

How the fuck have we never heard of that? Right? And the amazing survival story of Shelley Harding.

01:10:57

That's right. Yeah. oh my god isn't that crazy shattered heavy shattered it's produced so beautifully yeah

01:11:06

but you did a good job telling it they do it so good um wow yeah oh my god i know it's like

01:11:14

yeah there's nothing better than when a victim gets to fight back yeah both of our stories i

01:11:18

feel like hit with a ton of bricks from those stories yeah fuck dude dude dude deep shit dude

01:11:26

Yeah. Fucking hooray. Well, I got to go home for Thanksgiving and we had the best Thanksgiving at Adrian's with her family and our family.

01:11:38

And, you know, it's now it's a bunch of families. It was actually a really big party.

01:11:43

It was so fun to see everybody. But then Nora has started. She's been ice skating for most of her life, but she started.

01:11:52

She went back to ice skating lessons and we went and watched her skate. and she can now do the skate,

01:11:57

the turn where you just turn of times in a row. She's like, it's real ice skating. She's going to be an Olympian.

01:12:04

It's, that's what everyone says. But she, it's just so cute because she loves it so much. Like

01:12:09

she has the best time. And it was just really beautiful to see because like when she was little,

01:12:14

it was all very cute. And like she lift one leg or whatever. And now she's like getting into ice skating. It's so cute. I'm so proud of her. I know. It's very lovely to watch.

01:12:22

It's just lovely to watch her grow up. It's really, um, being down here and being by myself

01:12:27

sometimes and just so much work yeah like we just there it's just so much work constant to go home

01:12:33

and just get that like a nice shot every once in a while like oh things that matter yeah family

01:12:39

shit it's like very um it makes me feel like i got a b12 shot or something yeah or you went out

01:12:45

in the sun and got some vitamin d just get out of that basement satanic put the satanic bible down

01:12:51

and go watch a child ice skate i highly recommend it my i at thanksgiving my nephew who's like eight

01:12:57

told me that his Hebrew school teacher was like, are you? Ask my brother if like she listens to the podcast, his Hebrew school teacher.

01:13:07

Hell yeah. Listen, so my fucking hooray. I just want to give a shout out to. So there was an end the backlog fundraiser.

01:13:17

I'll just read this. Hey, y'all. Proud fighting ghost baby here. Yes. The day after the Austin show, some wonderful Austin murderinos hosted a stab him in the

01:13:25

Backlog fundraiser with MFM trivia and hometown open mic. We had some amazing raffle prizes like a $200

01:13:31

tattoo, an arrow tarot card reading, gift cards to places all around Austin, and MFM merch

01:13:37

from Austin Murderinas on Etsy. Overall, we raised $1,000 for End the Backlog. I'm so happy that Austin Murderinas

01:13:45

came together to raise so much money for such an amazing organization, and I really want to thank you both

01:13:49

for creating a community for making this possible. Fuck yeah, you guys, you did it.

01:13:54

Amazing. The three master minds were Sarah, Shelley, and Monica, and they're already talking about having one again next year.

01:14:00

So SSDGM Katie. So thanks for sending that. Good job, Austin. That's very cool. I want to end on a note So a couple weeks back we threw up a live episode out of the blue because I just couldn I found out two weeks ago out of nowhere that my longtime beloved therapist died suddenly

01:14:24

And it's hit me really hard. I'm really sad, obviously. I'm really, I'm sad that the world doesn't have her in it anymore because she was this beautiful, wonderful person who taught me so much.

01:14:38

She was like a big sister to me. And she taught me so much about being kind to myself and talking to myself as if I were talking to myself as a kid.

01:14:48

And would I say these awful things to my like the little Georgia, you know? And so she taught me about little Georgia and treating her well and to treat myself well that way.

01:14:57

And she said that even if you can't use your own voice to do that, if it's hard, you can use someone else's.

01:15:03

And so I started using hers because she was just such this beautiful ray of sunshine.

01:15:11

And I never I feel guilty that I never told her how I felt and how much she helped me.

01:15:16

She's in the book, our book. And we had just been talking about how I could say what I could say in our acknowledgements.

01:15:24

If I could use her last name, we were joking about it. So you did tell her? I guess.

01:15:29

Yeah, I guess I did. Yeah. I mean, that's a big compliment. And I think that discussion probably conveyed a lot of your feeling.

01:15:38

It may not have felt that way at the time, but definitely count that as something.

01:15:43

Yeah. So I guess, yeah, I don't know. Maybe tell people how much they mean to you or be kind to yourself this week as just a little memorial for Kim.

01:15:55

and go to therapy because even though this is really fucking hard, and I've never had a therapist like her in two decades of therapy,

01:16:07

she taught me that it's so important and it's life-changing when you find a good one.

01:16:13

So I'll keep doing it. Yeah, good. And yeah. There might not be some final button because it not really a finished thing It a new thing that happened to you So you still processing it And you processing it without the person that helps you process it Who has all my like she knows all my shit

01:16:35

Yeah. And it's, yeah. Yeah. So give yourself a break. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's uncharted territory.

01:16:43

Yeah. So I'm really sorry that happened. Thank you. It is really sad. I don't, it's not, I wouldn't want to make it about me.

01:16:49

Obviously, it's her friends and family as well. But, you know, she was an incredible woman.

01:16:55

And I just, the world has a big, all the people she would have helped in the future and that she was helping now and has helped in the past.

01:17:03

I think it's a big, big loss. Yeah, it is. So I just wanted to acknowledge that.

01:17:06

Yeah. She reminded me of, what's her name from Scrooge? Is it Margot Kidder? Is that who it is?

01:17:14

I don't think I've ever seen that movie. You never watch Scrooge? You have to watch Scrooge.

01:17:23

Yeah, I don't think I have. Steven, is it Margot Kidder? Karen Allen. She's played Claire Phillips.

01:17:31

Raiders of the Lost Ark. Karen Allen. Yeah. She looked just like her. Wow. Same kind of age.

01:17:37

And you know that. So, yeah. And I watched Scrooge the other night and got real sad about it.

01:17:43

Yeah. But yeah, be kind to your little self. If it's and if you need someone else's voice, use minor Karen's.

01:17:51

Yeah. And yeah, think about it from another perspective. Right. Aside from your own, if you can.

01:17:56

Yeah. Practice. Just practice it. Everyone. You know, I started doing it once a day and then it just became natural.

01:18:02

OK. But yeah. Thanks for letting me say that. Of course. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.

01:18:08

Thank you. And thanks everyone for listening and making this community huge and what it is and letting

01:18:14

us do these incredible things like start a podcast network and further our lives in this

01:18:18

way. I feel so honored and blessed to have this podcast and so much more than that and this

01:18:25

life. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Also I think if a good piece of advice that I gotten is when you are feeling lost or like you don know what to do or when you lose somebody or whatever it a really great thing to help other people So like if you are in if you relating to what

01:18:45

Georgia's saying or something's going on like that, just try to try to figure out if there's

01:18:50

another person that might be feeling like you feel and help them figure out a way to help them.

01:18:54

That's like the immediate, uh, um, the lifting of a burden. You think you're waiting, you're going

01:19:01

of wait around for someone else to come and lift it for you yeah but actually if you can kind of

01:19:05

get into a proactive like who can i help lift that's worse off than me yeah it that actually

01:19:11

is a very strengthening exercise that that uh someone taught me a while ago i love it yeah and

01:19:18

uh other than that you know stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye elvis want a cookie

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My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgi

149 - Lifestyle & Feelings

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